Abstract
Cornu Portraits is a tribute to the pioneers of generative design, or rather, mathematicians and artists that over the centuries have contributed to the research of the relationship between art, nature and mathematics. In this first chapter I decided to portray Leonardo Fibonacci, famous for his series , MC Escher for manipulating reality through his visual paradoxes and Benoit Mandelbrot, for discovering fractals (and fractal geometry of nature) .
In different ways, they describe nature with mathematics, or vice versa, showing a possible way to re-interpret the world around us, so I chose to pay homage to them through the portrait, inevitably generative.
I decided to generate the portraits using a recursive Cornu spiral algorithm, for its similarity to a continuous, hypnotic, hand drawn stroke: a single line, continuous, passing several times for the same points, approximating always more effectively the subject's face.
Some moments of randomness within the algorithm, allows the generation of infinite variations; there isn't therefore "the" portrait, there is an idea of this, and its infinite and unique accomplishments. This means creating generatively: the designer writes an algorithm that the computer will execute.
We are therefore witnessing the loss of complete control by the artist on the artwork; every time the code will run, I will roughly know what to expect but I can not predict exactly as it will appear. Another peculiarity is that the whole process happen at the beginning: the creation and creativity are inherent in defining the process, using the code, the language closer to the computer, this works out a priori. It will be the computer to take care of the rest. Designer as a creator of processes.
In order to expose my portraits "I was forced" to select and print only one copy, I had to isolate and then print one among the dozens and dozens of variations that I had created, with the risk of altering the uniqueness. Digital printing can creates endless, identical copies of an unique variant. So I decided to use a laser cutter to carry the portrait from the digital world to the real one, printing them on wood. The wood has a natural texture that makes each piece unique, again. In this way I try to restore uniqueness and preciousness of the variant.
There have been various attempts before finding the right balance between strength, speed, and cooling of the laser cutter: the effect I wanted to achieve was to give naturalness and warmth to a completely digital process. In the end it worked: the laser engraving also creates a great surprise in visitors, initially seems a hair artfully curved, so thin to be impalpable, the forms are natural, sinuous, but too perfect to be natural, this little disorientation put on show the power of generative design, so complex as to seem natural this is the strength of my work.
Cornu Portraits is a tribute to the pioneers of generative design, or rather, mathematicians and artists that over the centuries have contributed to the research of the relationship between art, nature and mathematics. In this first chapter I decided to portray Leonardo Fibonacci, famous for his series , MC Escher for manipulating reality through his visual paradoxes and Benoit Mandelbrot, for discovering fractals (and fractal geometry of nature).