Meet the Minds Behind Axiomatic an Art Project Based in Theoretical Mathematics

Interdisciplinary visual artist Timea Tihanyi and mathematician Jayadev Athreya, who are collaborating on Axiomatic. Photograph: Clare McGrane, GeekWire.

At first glance, Timea Tihanyi andJayadev Athreya make strange bedfellows.

Tihanyi is an interdisciplinary visual artist who teaches in the Academy of Washington's School of Art and has spent more two decades working in ceramics. Athreya is an acquaintance professor in the UW's Department of Mathematics and manager of the Washington Experimental Mathematics lab.

Only despite our stereotypes of math and art, Tihanyi and Athreya say they are much more similar than nosotros oftentimes think.

A 3D-printed rendering of a 2D surface, which is used in many areas of mathematical studies. The pattern, based on work by Dami Lee, repeats infinitely in iii directions, and is made of 8-sided octahedra. Photo: Jayadev Athreya.

That'south why they are collaborating on Axiomatic, a project that seeks to create real-world representations of complex theoretical mathematics, with the goal of highlighting the similarities betwixt the two fields. The kickoff public exhibition of their work kicks off this weekend, at Seattle's 9e2, an event showcasing collaborations between Stem fields and the arts.

Athreya and Tihanyi describe their studies as "what if" disciplines — disciplines searching for new ideas and new means of looking at things. In Axiomatic, the pair takes a literal arroyo to the thought of looking at cognition in different ways.

Their 9e2 exhibit tracks Tihanyi's process in creating a porcelain sculpture of a 5-prison cell, a bones object in four-dimensional geometry.

Yup, you read that right — this is a sculpture of an object that has 4 dimensions. So how does one become virtually sculpting something that is in 4D?

Athreya says the process begins with complex computer modeling, to come up up with various possibilities for the sculpture. Their piece of work here is based on a collaboration with mathematician Henry Segerman, Assistant Professor, Oklahoma State University, whose book Visualizing Mathematics with 3D Press first explored visualizing the 5-cell.

The pair has as well begun work on sculpting two-dimensional patterns in 3D, which takes a slightly unlike approach, but rendering 4D objects in 3D is actually simpler than it seems.

Tihanyi's exhibit, Perfect Imperfect, at the 9e2 installation in Seattle'due south King Street Station. The white objects are her ceramic renderings of the of the 5-cell. Photo: Timea Tihanyi.

"Nosotros represent 3-dimensional objects in 2-dimensional space all the time," Athreya explained. Call back of a flat map of the world, he says. That map is a projection of the globe — a 3D object —  onto a piece of paper —  a 2D plane.

"The 5-prison cell is actually the projection of a 4-dimensional object into 3-dimensional space," he explained. "Think of information technology as a solid shadow."

Tihanyi says the process is like belongings a lightbulb over an object, and examining the shadow it casts on the floor.

"If you take the lightbulb further away from the object, or put it closer," the shadow's size, thickness, and fifty-fifty the shape nosotros perceive changes, she said.

At its cadre, this is the same process that makes shadows very long in the evening, and very short at noon. The object itself remains the same, but its shadow "is and so completely and shockingly different," Tihanyi said.

Tihanyi's showroom, Perfect Imperfect, at the 9e2 installation in Seattle's King Street Station, including sketches of how the sculpture was fit together. Photograph: Timea Tihanyi.

Once the estimator has generated several possibilities for the "solid shadow," the pair utilise a 3D printer to create mini models of some of the variations that strike them. It's and then up to Tihanyi to experiment with rendering those models as sculptures.

Tihanyi said the process of creating a sculpture of the 5-cell was peculiarly challenging.

"There is a feasibility in the 3-dimensional earth. So I couldn't have two thin parts and 2 thick parts because it would never hold up in ceramics," she said.

"As a visual class, it was very interesting to me because of these opposites," but the things she institute attractive were besides what made the shape hard to work with.

After some initial trials, several of which collapsed during the kilning process, Tihanyi somewhen created the sculpture being showcased in the 9e2 exhibit. The exhibit too includes one early on attempt that collapsed.

This exhibit is still the early stages of the Axiomatic project, and will be on display at 9e2 from October 21 to October 29. Some of Tihanyi and Athreya's future piece of work will be exhibited at Tihanyi's individual prove in January, and an exhibition showcasing the unabridged project volition open next summertime.

In the concurrently, the UW is hosting a father-and-son duo who also piece of work in art and math this November, and many other collaborations between artists and those in STEM will be on display at 9e2 in Seattle.

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Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2016/meet-minds-behind-axiomatic-art-project-based-theoretical-mathematics/