2023 Bridges Conference Art Exhibition
Emily Baker, Edmund Harriss, Asgerdur H Johannesdottir, Sabetta Matsumoto
Artists
Edmund Harriss
Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Art
University of Arkansas
Sabetta Matsumoto
Associate Professor of Physics
School of Physics, Georgia Tech
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Statement
These pieces were created as part of the design process for the mathemalchemy exhibit, a collaboration of over 24 mathematicians and artists interested in showing the creativity and whimsy of mathematics. Part of that exhibit was to be a lighthouse standing tall above the exhibit as a whole. The decision was made to adapt the flexible "Zipform" system for this construction meaning that the construction method of the building itself illustrated mathematics. These pieces are the studies made as the surfaces were adapted into the final form.
Artworks
These pieces are studies for using the Zipform system (created by Emily Baker and Edmund Harriss) for the mathemalchemy lighthouse, in collaboration with Sabetta Matsumoto, who made the models with Ásgerður Johannesdottir. The zipform system takes flat cut pieces and connects them at right angles creating a beam along any curve. It was initially used to create beams lying on a sphere where one of the surfaces of the beam will always match the surface. Other surfaces are more restrictive, and the beam must follow line of principal curvature where the ribbon of surface bends but does not twist around the tangent. These models show a possible construction for a hyperboloid and for a small pertebation of the hyperboloid to give a helical path.