Nikki Graziano, an R.I.T. student, photographer, and mathematician, has done a very cool series of prints using complex equations to explain the sensual undulations of the natural forms she comes across.
Nikki's process is an interesting one. She first takes pictures of natural shapes, chooses her images based on what turns out, and then discovers the proper equations to explain them.
If you are interested in getting a custom print of an image in the Found Functions series, just contact the artist herself at nikkigraziano@gmail.com. You can also find more of her work here on her official site.
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Wow, this is so awesome!
can't quantify beauty
Oh my, this is so good it almost makes me like math.
Funny, I'd been musing on the harmonics of plant motion driven by the wind... and how musical that can be.
This is very interesting. The first three photos in particular speak to me.
Alright, THAT is cool.
some people find beauty in quantifying. i like.
LOVE IT. Having been a physics major, I have always found garphs really beautiful. For a while I had experiment results hung on my walls. These just take the idea one step further and combine this idea with photography.
this has inspired me to revisit some old fractal generating code ...
Beautiful! This reminds me of a talk on NPR I heard, about the grammar of nature and incorporating it into architecture. I'm having trouble finding out who the speaker was, but that idea has been inspirational to me.
enginerd heaven...i'm sold.
love
As a scientist I have to stress that these functions don't *explain* anything. It's a cool way to visualize functions, sure, and to make maths more attractive to laymen. But the particular functions have nothing to do with the underlying mathematics that is tied to the physics/geology/biology that actually explain these forms.
@see: I agree that "explaining" is not the right word at all here. I strictly see this as an artistic pursuit and not a scientific one. No one should be looking at this and thinking they will be gaining any scientific knowledge.
beckestra, was the speaker Christopher Alexander by any chance?
Fabulous work - It combines my loves of all things geek and Amanda Friedman's 'Cypress trees against night sky'. I must have a large print of the first image for my front room.
These are very cool. Photographer Caitlin Greer has done similar work with a dancer who is also a chemist, using her body to demonstrate chemistry principles:
http://www.caitlingreerphotography.com/photography-portfolio.php?cat_id=2&subcat_id=7&keywords=Science
and
http://www.caitlingreerphotography.com/MediaFiles/portfolio_images/103_Science_Photography_Dance_Enantiomer_CR.jpg
LOVE!
Woah there, Scientist (@see). As an engineer, i can vouch that all of these shapes have everything to do with the underlying physics of the objects. Those plants/clouds/buildings are a certain shape precisely because of their structure and the loads applied to them.
@ ghunt: You can take a piece of wood and carve it in any shape. You can look at the mountains from one angle and they may look like a damped oscillation, and from the top they will look like parametric plots, and when you go closer they will look like some arbitrary shape. These emergent shapes have to do with how these objects are observed and even manipulated. They have nothing do with the fact that the cloud consists of water molecules, or with the microscopic solid state physics that describe a piece of wood. That's what I was trying to convey and not to sound condescending.
I think scientists have the obligation of teaching the public, which unfortunately is often sold various questionable things as 'scientific'--by this I'm *not* referring to this particular art.
I'm not impressed. There is no talent involved in finding a shape in a picture and assigning the proper function to said shape. Where talent should have been involved is in creating a visual impact between the shape, function and image which I don't think was acheived here.
once again i am fascinated by the comments here...eventhough i am not an engineer or scientist i agree with "see" that anything can be manipulated from different angles to fit formulas however i think this is more about the creative process of even thinking to fit formulas and photography together in this unique application than the actual accuracy.
Nerd-fight!
I love these! I admire the talent used to communicate; to create a dialogue between concrete and theoretical, perfect and imperfect, romantic experience and removed analysis. I totally want the fifth image.
I'm with see and m.schwarz.
There is not much here. The equations only explain one view point and the art/photography is not transcendent as truly good art is. Just some nice photographs with a nerdy trick on top.
and I think the photographs would be much nicer without the equations. And who needs to be remind on how much calculus and trig you've forgotten.