Robert Krawczyk

Assistant Professor, Illinois Institute of Technology, College of Architecture.

Breaking Wave I, II and III

2004, Computer Generated Art

The seemly tightly woven series of bends slowly unravels as the surface begins to disintegrate.

Technical Background: Simple programs create complex patters.

These images were produced with a related series of Strange Attractor equations. Each was generated by 24 to 57 million computed points. The order of the points is recorded in each location during hte computational process. This ordering becomes the basis for assigning a color to each point. The element of time is interpreted as color levels of red. The result is a two-dimensional image that has three-dimensional characteristics. A custom program was written in Microsoft VisualBasic for the computation of the points and the assignment of the color values.

Artistic Intent: Structured, unstructured; visible, invisible; logical, illogical; perfect, imperfect; intentional, unintentional; two-dimensional, three-dimensional. An unpredictable assembly of scattered points congregate into perceptual patterns. Our visual perception overrides any logical order we wish to establish.

Robert J. Krawczyk is an Assistant Professor in teh Collegeof Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology focusing on digital craftsmanship. During his twenty-two years at IIT, he has developed and taught a series of CAD and digital design courses covering 2D and 3D CAD, image composition, animation, and form generation methods. In addition to teaching, he is an advisor in the PhD program on form generation, fractals, 3D blob modeling andother related digital design methods. His digital design and computer generated artwork have been published at the Mathematics and Design, Bridges, Generative Art, MOSAIC, ISAMA, ACADIA, and ACSA conferences. Digital design exhibits have included the ACADIA Digital Media 2000 and 2001 exhibits, InterSculpt 2003, 2001 and 1999. Digital artwork includes work exhibited at: University of Michigan immedia 2001, IV 2001-2004 in London, and the SOMARTS Gallery, San Francisco, and the Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, CA.

The Curved Spirolateral Series were displayed at the SIGGRAPH 2001 N-Space Art Gallery and the first series of Strage Attractors was displayed at the SIGGRAPH 2003 Art Gallery. They have also been displayed at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Beecher Center for Art and Technology, and recently at the Rockford Art Museum and at the ArtFutra exhibit in Chicago.

The full Strange Attractors series can be seen at: home.netcom.com/~bitart and www.iit.edu/~krawczyk for student work, papers, and other artwork.