2026 Joint Mathematics Meetings
Rebecca Lin
Artists
Rebecca Lin
PhD Student
MIT: CSAIL & Media Lab
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Statement
My work explores how simple shapes, through small variations and combinations, evolve into intricate patterns, textures, and forms. Mathematics and computation are central to my practice—languages whose vocabularies, like those of any natural language, open new ways of thinking and making. Though my designs emerge from mathematical and computational abstractions, I ground them through physical making—often in collaboration with machines such as laser cutters and finished by hand—draped and sewn, or meticulously assembled.
Artworks
Untitled
21.5 x 10.0 x 10.0 cm
lightweight cotton blend
2025
This skirt was created using an encoding–decoding framework for Islamic art–inspired constellation patterns. The process begins with a graphical description, which the system decodes into a circle-packing scaffold. Onto this scaffold, traditional compass-and-straightedge construction techniques are applied. By combining mathematical abstraction with computational tooling, the system allows designers to define motifs and their relationships without the painstaking work of resolving geometric inconsistencies for seamless composition. The outcomes range from classical recreations to experimental, organic, and even chaotic forms, such as the one used here. The skirt pattern was then laser cut, hand-draped, and sewn.