Curtis L Palmer

Statement

When I learned of R.B.Fuller’s isotropic vector matrix I began modelling polyhedra. In ’78 I began to model digitally. My output was 2D screen or print. I had sacrificed a dimension to realize a trigonometrically defined collection of: points, lines and surfaces of zero thickness digitally coloured by an increasing array of algorithmic brushes. It seems natural to array axial views for comparison. They are valid images of the same thing, visual identities. I have many drawings of cuboctahedra; maybe a few that could be considered aesthetic. I hope you will agree this is one of those. It is one frame or cel of an animation that REPEATs a transparency (a shadow of the Mandelbrot Set) across a selection of red cuboctahedral related surfaces.

Artworks

Four red spherical octahedra (48 spherical triangles) and two sets of internal chords of the cuboctahedron are oriented to 4 axes defined by the cuboctahedron's mid-edge, mid-square face, mid-triangle face and vertex. A transparency based on an image of a segment of the Mandelbrot Set is repeated 300 times across the system's surfaces. Moiré patterns emerge and chords are revealed as they acquire variable opacity due to the number of surfaces that overlap.