Computer graphics, mathematics, art, geometry, and abstract sculpture are closely related. In the past few centuries, mathematicians have built elaborate plaster models of higher-order surfaces, which can qualify as art work, as was convincingly demonstrated in a recent exhibit by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto in the DeYoung museum in San Francisco.
Today we can use computer graphics and rapid prototyping techniques to make even more elaborate models. Several such models, which I have constructed to explain some difficult geometrical concept to the CAD classes I teach, have many of the qualities (except scale) of abstract geometrical sculptures. In reverse, the work by great sculptors such as Alexander Calder, Max Bill, Charles Perry, and Helaman Ferguson, have inspired me to look for the underlying mathematical principles that describe these sculptures, and which might lead to other similar sculptures, if some of the defining parameters were modified.
The earliest example of such a reverse-creative process was my collaboration with Brent Collins. I first became aware of Collins' beautiful abstract geometrical wood sculptures through an article in the1992 special issue of Leonardo: “The Visual Mind.” In 1994, I contacted Brent Collins, and for the first two years we had two to tree lengthy phone discussions every month. The flood of ideas generated during those weekly phone conversations exceeded what Collins could possibly have sculpted -- even in small, prototype form. Thus I created a virtual visualization tool, called “Sculpture Generator I,” to test out emerging new ideas. Later the same tool created blue-prints for Collins, allowing him to carve more complex art objects than he would have been able to design himself with just ruler and compasses. Subsequently, I captured the essence of different inspirational pieces carved intuitively by Collins, and created a modular sculpture design environment within the Berkeley SLIDE rendering program. In a recent collaboration, a first 6-foot diameter bronze sculpture has emerged from that program as a re-designed, scaled-up version of Collins’ “Pax Mundi” (1997). “Pax Mundi II” (2007) is located in the H&R Block headquarters in Kansas City.
“Pax Mundi II” (2007) located in the H&R Block headquarters in Kansas City.
“Design and Implementation of Pax Mundi II,” Brent Collins, Steve Reinmuth, and Carlo H. Séquin,
ISAMA Conference, Texas
A&M, College Station, Texas, May 18-21, 2007.
PDF available at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/PAPERS/2007_ISAMA_PaxMundi.pdf
More pictures available at:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~sequin/SCULPTS/CHS_bronzes/Pax_Mundi_II/pax_mundi_II.html