MATHEMATICS and art – two subjects that usually oppose one another.
But not for one Winchester man who has found a way of combining his love of the two, with stunning results.
Mathematicon aims to investigate the intersection between the visual arts, pure mathematics and software engineering, and all of the exhibits have been created using computer aided tools.
The artist, Dr Andrew French, teaches mathematics at Winchester College, and said: “The key idea is to investigate how one can create a suitable interface that enables the incredible power of automated precision calculation to be harnessed by an artist in a very human, intuitive way.”
The exhibition is a series of nineteen images grouped into four themes: Spherium, Harmonograph, Circularis and Julia.
Spherium is a three dimensional digital sculpturing tool which incorporates lighting, transparency and texture mapping effects. Harmonograph is a Victorian curiosity consisting of two or three coupled pendulums connected to a sheet of paper and a pen. Circularis is a computer programme for curve stitching, and Julia is a mechanism for the generation of surfaces formed from repeated transformations of the Argand diagram - a two-dimensional speace metricated by real and imaginary number lines.
The first exhibition was held from February 25 until March 9 in the Angelus Gallery of Winchester College Art School, and will also be on display at the Winchester Discovery Centre Wall Space Gallery from April 23 until May 21.
For more information go to hants.gov.uk/wdc.