Etienne Boulais

Statement

I am a visual artist and physicist. My scientific work is focused on fluid mechanics, transformations of space, and the connection between the microscopic and macroscopic world. In my numerical art, I exploit the tools I build in my research to aesthetic ends. My aim is to discover simple rules which can generate complex abstract pictures. In my abstract works, I try to evoke a sense of space, and capture the way I view the immense complexity of the world around us. I am in awe of the intricate patterns which appear everywhere at both the small and large scale, something George Bataille has called “The Labyrinth”. Keeping with Bataille, I want to develop advanced mathematical tools that have expressly nonutilitarian, aesthetic purposes.

Artworks

Microscopic interactions combine to create large scale structures. Smooth space twists and turns, warping things around. Deceptively simple rules underlie the infinite complexity surrounding us. The piece is a mosaic of images created using combinations of conformal transforms, modified Ising models, and gaussian warping maps. It is part of an ongoing artistic effort to create visual analogs to the experimental electronic and noise music I listened to as a teenager, and which influenced me to study mathematics and physics. In particular, I wanted to reproduce the strange, abstract feeling of space evoked by the work of Autechre or Robert Henke. I describe the process for making these in more details in my conference presentation.