Radmila Sazdanovic
Radmila Sazdanovic is a mathematician specializing in low-dimensional pure and applied topology. Her art-on-math explores the interplay of art, nature, culture, shape, perspective, and math in our everyday lives. Tess-celestial is Radmila's most recent exhibit that features tessellations created using the software Tess. These tessellations show symmetries of hyperbolic, negatively curved space and convey the beauty and subtlety of mathematical concepts that we encounter in our daily activities.This work is a part of her Immersive Scholar Residency at NC State University Hunt library, through the Immersive Scholar grant.
Knotted DNA, proteins, light, shoelaces -- knots are important in our everyday lives and in science. With knotted tessellations of the hyperbolic plane, Knotted DiscoTess (2018) combines a research interest in knots with visualizations of the hyperbolic space. The knot used as a tile was created using KnotPlot by R. Scharein, then imported into the tessellation (5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5) consisting of seven pentagons at each vertex created using software by M. Christersson.
The geometry and combinatorics behind tessellations provide the framework for creative, artistic expression. Sometimes, the choice of a particular motif can alter or hide the mathematical structure, obscuring or enhancing internal symmetries. Disoriented and Confused is based of hyperbolic tessellation (3, 4, 3, 4, 4) combined with patterns of increasing complexity and size. The mathematics and the algorithm behind the software Tess are determining the order in which the circles are drawn, hence the appearance of the artwork as a whole.