Mathematical Arts - Robert Voorheis, Soft Fractures, Video

This is the first in a series on mathematical art. There are artists working in this field using a variety of plastic and digital media.

I have a dilemma as to whether these go in the #mathematics forum or the #art forum, so I shall alternate the first tag and also use a brand new tag of #mathematical-arts (with an 's' as it may include all sorts of creative uses of mathematical structures). You can, of course, just follow me @rycharde.

Robert Voorheis

This is a slow, sombre video best enjoyed at the dead of night! Indeed, it's rhythms are complex and motion takes place at different locations that at some point I gave up trying to keep track of it and just sat back and enjoyed it in a holistic way.

Soft Fractures from Robert Voorheis on Vimeo.

Here comes the mathematical part:

A somber reflection on a delicate balance between order and complexity; 4096 line segments dance a slow and chaotic ballet of rearrangement and realignment

The graphs are generated using modular arithmetic. For each graph, given parameters n and a, each of the vertices lie on points (x, y) such x*y ≡ a mod n. For each vertex, there is are line segments connecting it and it's 4 closest neighbors.
n = 2048, a ∈ {847, 875, 925, 965, 969, 975, 985, 991, 993, 999}

Hope you enjoy it for both its mathematical and artistic dimensions.

More to come...

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