David Bachman
My art is a product of going back and forth between the physical and mathematical worlds. Most of my designs start with a physical form in which I see some intrinsic beauty. I then try to capture the essence of this beauty in a mathematical model, which can be modified in an infinite number of ways. Finally, with the aid of modern fabrication techniques (e.g. 3D printing), I create physical realizations of these mathematical abstractions.
The faces of this cube come from a classic Islamic tiling pattern, based on octagons and dodecagons. In such tiling patterns, apparent under/over crossings are often added as embelleshments of the two dimensional design. To create this cube, these embellishments were interpreted as literal under/over crossings of separate strands. Can you guess how many individual strands this model is comprised of?
The basic profile curve, seen on the edge of the shell, was "hand" drawn on a computer screen. Then a script was written which used this curve to parametrically generate the outer surface of the shell and add the spines. Further modification was then done to create a 3D printable model from this surface. Finally, coloring was added from a photograph of a real shell.