VR
When I started my research into ‘dynamic surfaces’ I found images of strange attractors generated by Tim Stilson, which inspired me to try and animate a changing parameter in MATLAB, with the help of my supervisor Professor Keith Osman (UCE, now Birmingham City University).
Surprising similarities unfolded between the different approaches to dynamical systems.
Attractive forces
Improvements in 2017 in VR hardware and software inspired me to explore the possiblity to immerse a viewer in ‘attractive’ force fields in an interactive way, where gestures affect the mathematical parameters.
In 2020 I finally put together an exhibition combining sculpture, video, VR and prints,
called ‘Point of Creation’.
Immersion
The hardware and software are slowly improving to make the experience more emotionally, viscerally engaging, in terms of the field of view, resolution, rendering and number of particles, which can be rendered flat or as lit spheroids.
So far there is no narrative, so the experience relies entirely on the visual qualities and soundscape. Levete, aka Jim and Gillian Graham, contributed their spatial soundtracks ‘Aether’ and ‘Earth Day’ to carry the experience.
Interaction
The position of the hands influences the parameters, and more recent devices get better at reading gestures, which could add additional, more intuitive paramter controls.
The subtleties and diversity of the mathematically generated 'forcefields' are surprisingly delicate and sensitive to minute changes of the parameters
In diverse sets of equations there are core principles of toroidal motions and vortices that merge and diverge .. .
About
Artist/Sculptor
“For the past twenty years, my work has focused on the creation of sheet metal forms based on dynamic, orbital curves. This was initially inspired by a series of diagrams drawn by a device that records the interaction of two pendulums, a harmonograph. The diagrams create an illusion of ribbon-like surfaces that twist freely while retaining a sense of rhythm and symmetry.”