Let’s explore the connection between art, computing and maths.
Don’t panic!
Artists have always had an intuitive understanding of some parts of maths because symmetry and pattern have always been important themes in the visual arts - going back at least as far as ancient Egypt. Symmetry and pattern are also fundamental concepts in maths, and many mathematicians have powerful visual imaginations which help them to manipulate otherwise very abstract ideas.
Artists have, for example, always known that things that are further away look smaller, though the formal science of perspective was much discussed and elaborated by Arabian philosophers (such as Ibn al-Hatham) and later Renaissance notables such as Brunelleschi (goldsmith, engineer and architect). The explicit understanding of the perspective rules helped Renaissance artists produce the increasingly realistic images - some with highly foreshortened viewpoints - emerging from their studios.
In a similar way, good artists have always intuitively understood what makes a tree look like a tree, or a cloud look like a cloud, even if they have in mind no particular tree or cloud. (Artists such as Claude painted entirely imaginary but completely realistic landscapes.) In the 1980s, however, Benoit Mandlebrot showed how to make this understanding precise using the new maths of fractal geometry, which he invented for the purpose. (He called it "The geometry of nature".) As a result film animators can now use computers to produce astonishingly realistic artificial worlds populated by fractal landscapes, fractal clouds, fractal trees and so on. Intuitive understanding is an important first step - but sometimes you need systematic investigations to really explore the landscape of possibilities.
Perhaps more surprisingly, artists latched on to one of the great mathematical debates of the early 20th Century between Hilbert's "formalist" agenda and Brouwer's "intuitionist" approach. Movements developed that aimed to create art through manipulation of "meaning-free" symbols according to formal rules. (Perhaps it is not so surprising: the world of those who really cared about ideas was then fairly small. The leading figures often knew each other rather well.) There are intellectual lines of descent here involving conceptual approaches that eventually lead to piles of bricks in Tate Modern.
So, links between maths and art have always been there. Artists also began to use computers as soon as they developed graphic capabilities (though at first access to expensive facilities went only to those with the right contacts and a willingness to acquire the still esoteric programming skills). Now, however, commodified home computers are sufficiently powerful to give anyone who cares about it a means of artistic expression and mathematical investigation.
Pattern is a mathematical algorithm
On this website I will introduce you to some of the tools that are now available, and show you how to get a foothold in this most interesting geography. Follow the "Next" link to find out more.