2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Benjamin Trube
Artists
Benjamin Trube
Fractal Artist, Software Architect, Writer
Marion, Ohio, USA
Statement
I’m a software engineer and fractal artist working with self-developed programs. I enjoy fractals for their variety and their complexity that arises from simplicity. My process is both playful and iterative; I will often generate dozens of images before settling on a favorite. For the past few years, my focus has been on variations of the Abelian Sandpile Model, poking and prodding its simple rules to produce something unique and beautiful.
Artworks
Edge of Chaos
22.5 x 42.5 cm
Digital Mixed Media
2024
This piece was created by combining two techniques from my Bridges 2024 paper “Chip-Firing with Walls and Dying Vertices.” 25 million chips were dropped at the center of a Hilbert curve. The curve forms walls through which the chips cannot be moved. Each vertex in the graph also has a firing limit of 2048, after which it “dies”, and no more chips can be fired into or out of the vertex. This changes the spread dynamics and creates intricate patterns, in this case “waves” or “ribs”. The artwork is a crop of the result (the Hilbert curve cannot be seen; it is an invisible influence).