Jeffrey Ventrella
I was a terrible math student and I failed Math 001 in college. After
earning my BFA I discovered fractal geometry, and began programming.
Suddenly I had a reason to care about math. Three decades later, my
appetite is still growing. I use minimal algorithmic design to
generate emergent art that expresses natural process. I apply my art
education and design experience to incorporate visual language. The
craft of visual language is fundamental to art, design, and
communication media. The challenge, in my mind, is to tap this vast
reservoir for the purpose of making abstract math concepts come to
life and speak to a larger cross-section of people.
This triangle of gold is carved from a single curve. It is
generated from a recursive algorithm. If iterated infinitely many
times, this curve would resolve to a fractal gasket having
triangular gaps with scaling proportions equal to the golden
ratio. The technique is based on the tenth cyclotomic field in the
complex plane, which exhibits five-fold rotational symmetry. It is
related to Penrose tilings and other aperiodic patterns. It is
part of a series based on the golden ratio. A custom interactive
genetic algorithm is used to progressively refine the parameters.
The resulting fractal curve is colored using a standard imaging
application. Completed works from this series are printed on
archival paper, mounted and framed.