A detail from an abstract moving image work from a series in which multiple copies of a single shape move and interact using simple computer algorithms, creating complex shapes.
The series combines my interest in art and science.
To see higher resolution videos and more information about this series click here.
An abstract moving image work from a series in which multiple copies of a single shape move and interact using simple computer algorithms, creating complex shapes.
In this work forty-eight disks move in a circle creating strikingly different patterns and effects in the first and second halves of the work.
This work is from a series of animations exploring the generation of complexity from simplicity.
A lot of land art and other art in the environment strives to use only natural ingredients in the composition of the art. This work however consciously uses artificial material in the form of a length of brightly coloured fluorescent plastic nylon cord.
The simplicity of construction of this piece is important. The cord is draped over the branch of a tree and is pulled tight downwards to create two perfectly straight, vertical, parallel lines.
The work is meant to create slightly confused emotions in the observer. In the relative darkness of its woodland setting the cord stands out as a source of brightness, and the two parallel lines are aesthetically pleasing amongst the twisted shapes of the branches and the leaves.
However, the cord is bright because it’s unnatural fluorescent plastic, and the parallel straight lines of the cord are similrly unnatural and are partly a reference to humanity’s need to impose order on nature.
This work was created at the same time as most of the other paracord works on this site.
This image is inspired by a diagram by David Marr (1945-1980), a British neuroscientist who worked extensively in the field of visual processing.
The David Marr image, shown below, was concerned with the way in which the human eye (and brain) will scan images seeking out understandable patterns. The image reminded me very much of some of the images that I’ve produced myself that involve the perception of pattern (before I’d seen the David Marr image), both in its form (arrays of dots) and its intension (the generation of ambiguously decipherable interlocking patterns).
(Image reprinted courtesy of The MIT Press from Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information by David Marr, ©MIT 2010, figure 2-5, page 50)
Naturally I was inspired to deconstruct the David Marr image so that I could then try to create my own images based on what I found. The image at the top of this post is the first result.
After studying David Marr’s image I worked out that a simplified version of it could be constructed from multiple versions of the basic star-like element shown below, with each element placed at an equal distance from the adjacent elements.
I call this star-like image a basic element, but that’s slightly inaccurate.
This ‘basic element’ isn’t really a basic element at all, because each ray of the star is a rotated repetition of an even more basis element, this being a row of thirty three dots in a straight line. See the image below. So in some ways the element in the image above isn’t really a star-like shape at all – it’s actually a set of six lines of dots rotated to different degrees.
Just one more thing.
When you look at the innermost dots centre the star-like element above you see a clearly defined inner ring of dots and probably a less obvious secondary ring of dots. These ‘innermost dots’ are only ‘innermost dots’ if you choose to define the dots that are closer to the centre of the figure as a separate entity (a ring). In truth all of the dots in the image have the same status (other than that of their position), all being simply dots in lines, it’s just that the ones closest to the centre most easily form a ring when interpreted by our brains. Our brains can interpret the second set of dots as a secondary ring because you can, when you concentrate slightly, see that they are linked into this formation by association with their neighbours, although more loosely than is the case with the emphatic inner ring. What you won’t notice though is that the next set of dots outwards also form a ring, as do the next set and the next set all the way out to the end of the rows of dots. You can’t see this because for all of the dots beyond the secondary ring the dots are too well separated for the eye to associate them with each other. Somewhere in the space between the secondary ring of dots and the next dots outwards a threshold is crossed at which the brain can’t hold the dots together as a ring – the association is broken.
It’s interesting that this explanation was intended to be about the relatively complex image at the top of the post, but I’ve spent most of my time dissecting the simpler star-like image of the underlying element. Fortunately, the points that I’ve made about the underlying element are exactly the points that can be applied to the more complex image, and thankfully without the excessively complex structures within the complex image conspiring to befuddle the brain.
The David Marr image was featured in the introduction to the book Art Forms in Nature, featuring the drawings of German biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1918), published by Prestel, 1998.
The image above is an example of work from a series that I created specifically to explore concepts from the worlds of science and philosophy.
The original motivation behind the work was a wish to devise a visual means of expressing the concept that our incredibly complex universe is generated from the interaction of extremely simple fundamental forces that underlie the cosmos.
The image explores the generation of complex forms from simple forms. The image is composed of two identical square grids of regularly spaced small circles. Each grid is very simple in composition and represents the basic underlying ‘stuff’ at the very lowest level of existence in the universe. One of the grids is positioned above the other and is rotated so that the arrangement of circles on the two grids are at different angles to each other, meaning that they overlap.
A simple algorithm is applied to the overlapping grids. The algorithm dictates that where the black areas of the circles overlap the blacks cancel each other out, effectively leaving white (because the background is white). See the two examples below, showing differing amounts of overlap.
The two simple overlapping grids of circles generate surprisingly complex patterns, forming multiple and various interacting rings, some of which are obvious while others are fugitive and seem to come in and out of existence as your eye scans the image.
What’s more, when the two grids are rotated relative to each other the whole formation of rings and patterns shifts and changes as the grids alter their positions relative to each other. See how the patterns generated in the image below aren’t the same as those in the image at the top.
As I mentioned, the square grid in the image is a metaphor for the deepest, most fundamental and basic level of the physical universe, where nothing exists other than the simplest of all possible fluctuations in ‘nothingness’ itself (represented by the uniform circles).
Complexity and structure come into existence when this basic level of the physical universe – the grid of circles – interacts with itself, creating intricate forms that contain a new and complex internal structure. It is this complex internal structure that then gives rise to even more complex structures within the universe, for instance giving form to the elementary particles that act as the building blocks of the universe that we’re familiar with (while also giving form to the parts of the universe that we’ve got no inkling about, too).
I like to think of the patterns in the images as metaphors for ripples in the fabric of reality.
There are several more examples of my work in this field, including more videos of rotating grids here.
The videos show the shifting and transient nature of the complex patterns very well, expressing, I like to think, the way that the structure in physical reality “pops” in and out of existence.
This is a still image from a series of videos that I’ve created that explore the generation of complex forms from simple forms.
Videos from the series (although not this actual one) can be seen here.
A photograph of a barograph digitally altered so that the arm of the barograph appears to be creating a fine pen and ink drawing of a landscape.
A barograph normally draws a graph recording air pressure over the course of time on a sheet of graph paper attached to a rotating drum.
This barograph is in the spirit of surrealism and dada – it is a scientific instrument appropriated for the purposes of art (In C P Snow’s two cultures thesis this would possibly count as cultural appropriation).
A study for a work composed of mirrors that are configured so that they create reflections round a symmetrical axis and also create reflections in infinite regression.
The reflected object in this work is a single short length of coloured cord (about 40cm long), made to appear much longer by the multiple reflections in the mirrors. The cord is brightly coloured and is lit by a directional light source which gives the cord the effect of being a pulsating energy stream in a containment vessel, perhaps in a high energy physics laboratory.
This work brings together my interests in art and science, especially the science of optics and perception.
This video starts slowly. Don’t stop watching it during the first 20 seconds or so.
An abstract moving image work from a series in which multiple copies of a single shape move and interact using simple computer algorithms, creating complex shapes.
In this work 30 disks follow circular paths. Where even numbers of disks overlap they present white, while where odd numbers of disks overlap they present black.
A key motive behind these video animations is the linking of art and science through the exploration of the creation of complex forms from the interaction of simple forms.
Below are some still frames from the animation.
To see higher resolution videos and more information about this series click here.
This is a design to accompany a series of video animations that explore the creation of complex forms from simple forms. The animations are often in the form of rotating grids, though not always.
The works were first conceived as a device to visualise the creation of the complex structure that underlies the physical universe from extremely simple fundamental components.
Very much an example of art meets science.
More on the subject.
These photos show one of my early artistic experiments using mirrors while I was still at school. My apologises for the quality of the images – they are quite old and I developed the negatives and printed them myself.
I think if I were give this work a name now I’d probably call it Sky Bridge or something similar, because it links the earth to the sky. The name Sky Mirror also comes to mind, but Anish Kapoor’s already used that.
The concept behind the mirror actually bears several similarities to Anish Kapoor’s Sky Mirror, in that it’s a concave mirror that reflects the sky, although Kapoor’s Sky Mirror is thirty times the size and cost about a million pounds more. I think I probably paid for this one from the money from my paper round. Anish Kapoor wasn’t yet a student at Hornsey College of Art at the time of these photos.
The mirror is an eight and a half inch parabolic mirror for a Newtonian reflecting telescope which I constructed as a teenager in the late 1960s. My ambition then was to become an astronomer, not an artist. I ground the parabolic surface of the mirror myself.
As you can see from the first two photos, I’ve positioned the mirror in front of a rubbish bin (of a type that was used in the 1970s) in the least aesthetically pleasing part of my parents’ garden.
The second photo, below, (which is massively underexposed in order to show the mirror, which would otherwise be just a disk of burnt-out white), shows the mirror propped up against the rubbish bin. You can see the sun and the sky reflected in the mirror. This is perhaps meant to show the contrast between the beauty and purity of the sky in contrast to some of the rubbish created by human society. It’s probably also meant to show that ultimately everything is connected, the beautiful and the ugly, the transcendent and the mundane.
The photo below shows the mirror on the ground amongst some trees. This is probably meant to show the link between the earth, the natural world and the sky, and by extension the cosmos.
