2020 Mathematical Art Exhibition | Hacker News Reader

2020 Mathematical Art Exhibition

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157 pointsbryanrasmussen31 comments

This was a mind blowing example of math and art from last year - perhaps the live coding of the method was even more impressive than the outcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8--5LwHRhjk

As soon as I saw the first frame, I knew that was an Inigo Quilez video, very interesting work. His website inspired me to switch to an SDF approach to modeling for 3d printing: https://github.com/deadsy/sdfx.

With a few exceptions showing more modern influences, you could label this gallery "1980 Mathematical Art Exhibition" and I would believe you.

Oh man, dude, art is art. It doesn’t have to be avant-garde to be worthwhile. Let me relate a fun little story.

In my last place I had to clean behind my stove due to a particularly nasty culinary accident. Among the odd things I found there was a kinda odd acrylic painting of a banana. It’s strokes are rough and it has an almost sickly blueish greenish hue, kinda over exposed.

When I moved recently, I was thinking what will I do with the banana painting? But hey, it’s art, I’d rather have it and enjoy it’s unique oddity than throw it out.

Don’t let anyone put art up in an inaccessible ivory tower. A doodle on the back of an envelope can bring more joy than a acclaimed masterpiece when you’ve got a free attitude.

I agree that those things can be enjoyed; I only doubt that those things ought to be awarded entries in an art exhibition.

Agreed it was a bit underwhelming. Maybe there are strict requirements for it being math driven and not code driven I missed?

The proce55ing page blows this out of the water on any given month.

I don't necessarily disagree with you.

But, for example, I think you may be overlooking the complexity of crocheting an unusual topological shape. There isn't a lot of detail on this page, but this is kind of similar: http://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2020/bridges2020-413.pdf.

I recommend Bohemian Matrices (plots of the complex eigenvalues of matrices with random entries under some constraints): http://www.bohemianmatrices.com/gallery/

I wonder what it might take to get demoscene productions considered in some of these art collections.

Certainly Turing Drawings should count? http://maximecb.github.io/Turing-Drawings/ (no pun intended.)

That's really cool! Many of these end up looking like random noise. (So maybe they're PRNGs?) I love the way this one starts out before it devolves into noise:

http://maximecb.github.io/Turing-Drawings/#5,3,3,2,3,1,2,2,1...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_30#Random_number_generati...

> Rule 30 generates seeming randomness despite the lack of anything that could reasonably be considered random input. Stephen Wolfram proposed using its center column as a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG); it passes many standard tests for randomness...

So many things we see as beautiful are that way because of mathematical foundations. These are beautifully well done and I am happy to see them here. My recent work is a little less perfetc:

https://www.curtiswmoore.com/images/fullsize_orig/solar-samp...

It was a real downer seeing how low-res the images are, they look so cool!

I thought this was fascinating. They required final submissions to be exactly a certain resolution.

Here’s some fun op art NOT made with a computer, which I spotted in the New York Times today:

https://www.instagram.com/ball_and_cone_/

This type of art is not about the visual result (which can be generated by a computer more easily), but about the fact that they spent a lot of time creating it by hand. It is, indeed, art but also a massive cliche in the fine arts world.

As someone who spends about equal time in the fine arts and tech worlds, I also have things I find tiresome and uninteresting.

But over the years Vasarely[0] hasn't gone away and neither has Hirst[1], and the Art World even still has some love left for Richard Prince[2].

So rather than thinking in terms of cliché I've found it more useful to just say there are other things in art that move me a lot more. If someone else is moved by op art, or spin art, or stolen Instagram photos, I'm not gonna rain on their parade. Well, unless it's Richard Prince, that guy's evil. ;-)

[0]: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/victor-vasarely-2095

[1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=damien+hirst+spin+art&t=h_&iax=ima...

[2]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/30/8691257/richard-prince-in...

my brother does some cool mathematical art: https://gods.art

A while ago, I've created this one: https://giant.gfycat.com/PolishedThatEkaltadeta.webm

Not sure if it fits here.

I like it. Care to elaborate on how you made it? I like how the colormap acts as an indicator of where each little square ends up, but I wonder why you chose a constant color along the left and right sides of the initial big square? I likely would have gone with a black/red/blue/magenta square instead.

It was made using Haskell. Actually, I'll list below how the animation evolved. Long story short, I decided in the final variants to cast the RGB cube surface on the big square, then animating it.

* https://gfycat.com/InsidiousPresentGoa

* https://gfycat.com/SpiffyFaithfulBanteng

* https://gfycat.com/PracticalFatKentrosaurus

* https://gfycat.com/CheapMisguidedBufflehead

* https://gfycat.com/InsidiousSphericalAzurewingedmagpie

* https://gfycat.com/HollowGlaringGraywolf

* https://gfycat.com/WillingBothGoose

* https://gfycat.com/PerfumedMediocreAndeancat

* https://gfycat.com/GeneralHandyLeonberger

Ah this takes me back. In a previous life, 5 years ago I was working in Carlo Sequin's graphics lab in UC Berkeley and I was writing a software to make things like this (focused on non-orientable meshes). You need to see his crazy room. It's basically surrounded by things like this he collected his entire life.

His numberphile video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_VydFQmtZ8

NOTE: I think he cleaned his room before that video, he has way more toys around usually :D

I am the creator of the infinite loop in the 2020 show! Was a lot of fun to attend, and a great venue to bring together architects, knitters, professors, and undergraduates like myself.

love it! As a fellow undergrad, I am so in awe of the work students are putting - especially translating complex math/logic into their beautiful physical art forms. How did you come about this idea?!

A Twitter account with this vibe: https://twitter.com/dmitricherniak

Would love to hear about others.

Casey Reas solicited a big list of generative artists on Twitter, and I made it into a twitter List. https://twitter.com/i/lists/1304868411399315456

also my stuff is here: http://instagram.com/jodhus

Wow some of these are amazing, super cool. I wish they provided the meshes so that we could 3D print our own version.

Some of these were really lovely. The suspended helical staircase was super cool, and the dodecahedral torus thing reminded me of a diatom or some kind of symmetrical microorganism

I wonder what is required to enter this.

http://gallery.bridgesmathart.org/art-exhibit-submission-ins...

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