Ralf Jacobs

Biography

Ralf Jacobs (born 1985, lives and works in Eindhoven, the Netherlands) is an artist and designer based in Eindhoven, working at the intersection of physics, mathematics, and material culture. His background in optical systems and nonlinear dynamics informs a creative process that blends scientific inquiry with poetic expression. Central to his practice is the idea of signal poetry—the translation of mathematical behavior, waveforms, and chaotic systems into physical artifacts. For this fashion piece, Jacobs used the Van der Pol oscillator—a classic nonlinear circuit—as a generative engine. He first visualized the oscillator’s phase portrait using analog computation and Python simulations, then adapted these patterns into vector-based embroidery files and textile print motifs. The materials include digitally printed cotton twill, laser-engraved leather, and custom embroidery, constructed in collaboration with a local textile lab in Eindhoven. Jacobs approaches fashion as a form of narrative surface design—each garment becomes a relic of a signal, a wearable trace of dynamic behavior. His work resists fast fashion by emphasizing uniqueness, historical depth, and interdisciplinary storytelling. Inspired by both the 1930s aesthetics of early electronics and the elegance of mathematical systems, Jacobs sees each garment as a convergence point of theory, craft, and memory. His design ethos is rooted in slowness, experimentation, and the belief that garments can carry meaning—not only through symbols and prints, but through the embedded logic of the systems that generate them.

Looks

About the look

Vd Pol printed pants 1

polyester textile, sublimation print

2025

This fashion item is inspired by the phase portrait of the Van der Pol oscillator—a nonlinear differential equation first described by Dutch physicist Balthasar van der Pol in the 1920s. Working in Eindhoven at the Philips NatLab, Van der Pol studied self-sustaining systems such as radio circuits with regenerative feedback, which are now recognized as foundational to the study of chaos and nonlinear dynamics. The phase portrait of the Van der Pol oscillator, a visual representation of its dynamic behavior in state space, becomes the central design motif in this fashion project. By translating the equation’s evolving waveform into embroidery, laser engravings, and printed textiles, we merge the mathematical with the material, turning invisible signals into wearable relics. What makes this fashion item unique is its layered symbolism: it is both an homage to a local scientific legacy and a meditation on the beauty of instability. The garment becomes a signal carrier—a sculptural surface bearing traces of oscillatory motion, mathematical elegance, and technological history. In doing so, it proposes that mathematics is not only a tool for understanding the world, but also a language of texture, rhythm, and form.