Saturday, December 8, 2007

Mathematica & Sculpture

Various artists have been using Mathematica to produce artistic structures:

http://www.georgehart.com/sculpture/sculpture.html

and

http://www.bathsheba.com/

I clicked on the http://www.bathsheba.com/gallery/interp.html link and I noticed that the structures created by Mathematica are pleasing if they are the size of ornamental jewelry or house-hold goods; i.e. much smaller than the size of a human being.

But they do not "work" when their scale is large (comparable or larger than the size of a human being). They do not look pleasing as "stand-alone" sculptures for the most part; there is too much regularity and therefore they look boring since there is nothing beyond structure.

I am intrigued by this dependence of the sense of beauty on the scale of the work of art and the typical size of a human being.

It reminds me of what Protagoras is purported to have said in 485 B.C., "Man is the measure of everything."

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