Parameters, Nature, Human Body and Movement: from Numbers To Objects

While delving into a PhD program in a university the other side of the planet —studying the effect of human movement on mental processes— I spent a week of my academic leave as a "designer in residence" at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). The residency is part of the "Out of Hands" exhibition, which is devoted to man-made objects fabricated using digital technology and is introduced in the MAD website as "the first museum show to consider the impact of these new, revolutionary methods of computer-assisted manufacture on fine art, design, and architecture".
The work done as "designer in residency" represented an effort to reconnect the disconnect between academic research work and actual making. The agenda  was the creation of 3D digital models and 3D printings of bioforms. The geometric definition of forms were related to proportion, symmetry and other mathematical principle. The workflow included:

1. Selection of a "simple" form from the world of nature;
2. Mathematical definition of the geometric law behind the form;
3. Implementation of a C# script to develop the form in Bentley GenerativeComponents, a parametric associative software;
4. Definition of parameters to generate a 3D digital model of the selected form according to the printer specification
5. 3D printing of the form.

Parametric associative scripting and a starfish model

3D printed examples of bioforms

An helix shaped seashell

A starfish: pentagonal symmetry, loft surfaces and spline curves

A nautilus shell from the logarithmic spiral

A polyhedral flower

I mainly focused on shapes from the sea world, starfish and seashells. The starfish can be generated from radial symmetry of loft surfaces from spline curves (nurbs).  The nautilus shell geometry evolves from loft surfaces and extrusions of paths generated from logarithmic spirals.
I also started to explore "molecular" assemblies of tetrahedral tessellations.

Tetrahedral molecules

A truncated icosahedron (fullerene)

3D scanning selfies: multiples of the self

An Art and Science Publishing R|Evolution | POLYHEDRA featured in the iBookstore

A niche title made to the featured page of the iTunes bookstore.
In POLYHEDRA interactive 3D models brings to life pages of ancient manuscripts, combining them with the latest digital media to deliver multidisciplinary content where art and science are beautifully integrated. The beauty of geometry can be experienced through interacting with touch screen and text in the enhanced electronic books of the series "Mathematical Sublime" — an hybrid of art and science content where geometry is presented in an art-book format to educate and entertain.

Exhibitions NYC | Manfred Mohr "Réflexions sur une esthétique programmée"

"Réflexions sur une esthétique programmée" opened on Friday at bitforms. The exhibition is a retrospective of Manfred Mohr's work, on the pioneer of digital art, and borrow the title from the 1971 solo exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris “Computer Graphics - Une Esthétique Programmée”, where the artist presented works entirely calculated and drawn by a digital (rather than analog) computer. Mohr (also a jazz musician) was highly influenced by the early 1960’s theoretical writings of the German philosopher Max Bense in the notion of defining of a programmed aesthetic, parallel to the the artist's design of electronic sound. Mohr's work was generated by FORTRAN programs (written by the artist himself) and printed in ink on paper by a plotter.

The exhibition well presents Mohr's transition in media throughout the past four decades: from sketches and black and white prints to video. Mohr's rigorous approach and philosophical reasoning are remarkable, especially in the context of contemporary digital art where the ease of the medium often leads to simplistic and superficial artwork.

Manfred Mohr and his wife, the mathematician Estarose Wolfson