António Bandeira Araújo

Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Department of Sciences and Technologies, Universidade Aberta
Lisbon, Portugal

My main focus is on spherical perspectives and immersive anamorphosis. I see my work within a tradition of "Rational Drawing", a thread joining Euclid, Alberti, Taylor, Monge, and countless artists, mathematicians, and hackers of both drawing and maths. I focus on ordinary sketching tools, using digital visualizations to expand rather than replace traditional sketching. I see my research as making new software: at times for computers, but more often to install in the artists mind, using maths to expand what the human eye, brain and hand can do with just paper and a pencil, drawing freely from observation or imagination. Most of my works are sketches that register an urban view while illustrating the solution of a perspective problem.

Spherical Perspective Multiplication
Spherical Perspective Multiplication
15 x 29 cm
Pencil on paper
2020

This is a hybrid object: a hand drawn equirectangular perspective, an immersive VR piece, and an urban sketch. It is a pencil sketch, but can be seen in VR, as if from inside (see link in the caption). It expresses geometric principles from my research in spherical perspectives, namely the problem of perspective multiplication: measure only one arch, then multiply it using a construction predicated on the perspective being complete and compact, i.e., each line has exactly 2 vanishing points that are sure to be inside the perspective rectangle. The piece visually expresses my research aims: to expand what the artist can do with perspective while still doing traditional sketching, using VR to enhance rather than replace handmade drawing.