Carlo Sequin

Prof.
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

My professional work in computer graphics and geometric design has also provided a bridge to the world of art. In 1994 I started to collaborate with Brent Collins, a wood sculptor, who has been creating abstract geometrical art since the early 1980s. Our teamwork has resulted in a program called “Sculpture Generator 1” which allows me to explore many more complex ideas inspired by Collins’ work, and to design and execute such geometries with higher precision.
More recently I have become interested in mathematical and topological concepts such as the regular homotopies that permit immersions of a torus or a Klein bottle to be smoothly transformed into other shapes in the same class. I then try to turn the mathematical models that illustrate these concepts into aesthetically pleasing sculptural maquettes.

Symmetrical Half-way Point for Torus Eversion
Symmetrical Half-way Point for Torus Eversion
6" x 5.5" x 4"
3D-print by Shapeways
2011

A torus can be turned inside out with a regular homotopy.
This is a symmetrical half-way point of such a torus eversion. It shows the same amount of both surface sides. How to actually carry out the transformation from this point into an either all-red or all-green torus in the energetically least costly way is still an open problem.

 Lawson's Minum-Energy Klein Bottle
Lawson's Minum-Energy Klein Bottle
9" x 6" x 4.5"
FDM model
2011

A gridded model of a Klein bottle (Euler characteristic 0, genus 2) with the minimal possible total surface bending energy.
This energy is calculated as the surface integral over mean curvature squared.