Would you like Waffle Fries with that?

With having a lot of freedom to create basically anything that we want, I once again referred to trying tie together art with physics/math.  Our only limitation was that it was to be a public art piece and our model had to be made of skewers.  After researching different patterns, I remembered those parabolic curves we use to doodle in grade school.  After transforming this simple doodle into a 3D shape multiple times, I began to play with how to fit them together.  Originally I wanted to create a tunnel.  I decided that once the shape was big enough to fit a human under it and then allow some extra room,  that this tunnel would just be really big and overwhelming,  so I decided to just keep it sculptural.

I wanted to still incorporate a tunnel feel into it, so I had my units spiral upwards, still creating a tunnel, but not really one that can be walked through.  Upon being asked what kind of material I would make this out of, I am still unsure.  I like the natural wood because it then fits in with all of the trees lining the walk through that part of campus, but I would also like it to be made of something similar to the building to help make the connection a little stronger.  I am not sure if this connection would really need to be made stronger.  I would think a good color for this piece would be a dark gray so that it still fits the building and a gray wood would match the trees.   This piece can be viewed as waffles fries (as my family continued to call it while watching me make it over break) to the everyday Joe, or it can be seen as hyperbolic paraboloid to those who understand the concept.  I feel like this piece would obtain the nickname of Waffle Fries no matter what just like how the Cloud Gate is commonly known as the Bean in Chicago.

One change I would like to see how it would impact this piece is if I were to trim off all of the ends that hang off the sides and make them a clean V-shape.  If this piece were to actually be built, I would create another model with those ends measured precisely to lie flesh on the side and to get a common consensus of which is favored.

I would love to see how my piece would interact with the different seasons and times of day.  I’m sure it would cast some fantastic shadows from the sun.  It would also look gorgeous after a huge snowfall when it is stacked up on the  grids.  The grids would also cause a huge trap during the fall for all of the leaves and debris, but it wouldn’t be anything that a leaf blower wouldn’t be able to handle.  In the spring, I would like to see a bird nest or two find a spot in my piece.  I am curious to know how all of the squirrels will interact with it.  Overall I can see students hanging out by my piece chatting between classes, using it as a meeting place, and during those nice days during finals week in the spring, I can see students sitting under it studying.   Overall, I have a really good feeling from this project and feel that it has the potential of being created.

(I forget who I was talking to, but it was suggested that my art make its way to another planet.  So, I got NASA to capture it for me.)

Skewer Progress

So after spending the whole last project working with little thin sticks and hating life, here we are again, working with thin sticks.  I would much rather be eating shish kabob’s off of these skewers than trying to get them to stay glued together.  This time, super glue is my best friend instead of Elmers!

Upon my scavenger around campus to find environments, I noticed that there are a decent amount of sculptures evenly scattered around campus except on the science mall.  Go Figure.  I mean, art and math/science? How do those mix asked the physics and art major.  Well, I know how to fix this.  I’ve always found interest in fractals and the fibonacci sequence.  I researched other geometrical and mathematical patterns and I stumbled across the Seifert surface.  These looked pretty neat, I just wasnt sure how to translate that into skewers without continuing to hate life.  I then stumbled upon hyperbolic paraboloids.

Seifert Surface

Hyperbolic Paraboloid

Now, we all remember doodling hyperbolic paraboloids in middle school right? Well I decided to take those doodles up a notch and make them 3D.  Here is what I have so far.  I would like this to go outside of the math building, but I would look decent in other environments as well; it just wouldn’t make the same connection.  I also think the sine wave on the math building fits with this well.

My shapes individually look pretty cool so far.

But they also can create a unique tunnel when put together.