First Blog Response

Our first assignment was to search our class website for links to other artists currently producing art in the always expanding realm of "digital media". My attention was immediately drawn to Algorithmic art and mathematics. Digital art is a very new area for me to practice- but it's something I've known about and have been interested in for years.  Having recently learned about fractals in a math class last semester, i was interested in seeing what kind of work people were producing using mathematical problems that didn't have easy, round numbers. Using computers to digitally create visualizations of these long equations which continually reduce to ugly, long strings of numbers manages to create beautiful, spiraling patterns that look extremely organic and often have repeating patterns resembling leaves, seashells, sunflowers and stars. One such artist is Bogdan Soban, a Slovenian artist who studied mechanical engineering. He became involved in emerging computer technology toward the end of his studies and decided that he wanted to explore the other uses of computers and this led to his experimentation in digital, generative art. The results are fascinating and quite beautiful.  This kind of art can be found all over the world today, but in the 1960's and 70's, before the era of home computing, it was radically new and exciting. Here are some of my favorite pieces: http://www.soban-art.com/galery22.asp