The Art of Nathan Selikoff » Faces of Chaos

Faces of Chaos Category Description

nathan — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 01:05:39 +0000

After working with the equations in my Strange Attractors series for a few years, I began to wonder if there was a way to capture the nature of the system, visually. In other words, what is going on here at a higher dimension, at the “meta” level? These questions birthed the Faces of Chaos series, which visualize the system using a unique mapping of the Lyapunov exponent to the image plane. At a more subconscious level, the images and titles I chose from the myriad of possibilities evoke an almost mythological aura, with archetypes such as “king” and “warrior” emerging from the chaos.

Owl King

nathan — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:59:53 +0000

Owl King by Nathan Selikoff. 2007. Dimensions variable. Open edition print.

What do you see? An owl, spider, space ship… something else? There is an incredible partnership between solid form and fine filigree-like structure in this artwork.

Owl King (detail) by Nathan Selikoff.

Mathematical Background

This artwork is a two-dimensional plot of the Lyapunov exponent of a chaotic dynamical system. The Lyapunov exponent is a measure of how chaotic the system is, and in this case, the system is a strange attractor with a four-dimensional phase space. Two of the dimensions are static, and the other two vary in the x and y directions of the image. A custom program renders four 16-bit grayscale images, which represent the different “components” of the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents. These images are combined in Photoshop using a pseudo-color technique to bring out subtle coloration in the final artwork.

Death Mask 1 & 2

nathan — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:58:03 +0000

Two artworks created from thousands of individual “faces” during my exploration of Lyapunov space. With gaping, leering mouths and fractured skull-like forms, these images evoke tribal customs surrounding death or spiritual forces.

Death Mask 1 by Nathan Selikoff. 2007. Dimensions variable. Open edition print.

Death Mask 2 by Nathan Selikoff. 2007. Dimensions variable. Open edition print.

Chinese Warrior

nathan — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:09:22 +0000

A quote from Strangely Attractive by Lisa Delgado on Rhizome.org, regarding my Faces of Chaos series:

Mythology meets chaos theory in Nathan Selikoff’s Faces of Chaos series. A leering death mask and the smiling face of a Chinese warrior are just a couple of the forms the artist discovered while sorting through hundreds of images he created using the Lyapunov exponent, a commonly used measure of how chaotic or predictable a dynamical system is.

Chinese Warrior by Nathan Selikoff. 2007. Dimensions variable. Open edition print.

Lisa interviewed me after seeing the Math and Art exhibition at AXIOM, where I exhibited Chinese Warrior and four other pieces in the series as part of a group show.

Tiled Faces

nathan — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:07:08 +0000

Experiments in Lyapunov Space

In my Faces of Chaos series, I seek to visualize a chaotic dynamical system, using a unique mapping of the Lyapunov exponent to the image plane. Tiled Faces is one result of this exploration, and its 1,024 images combine to reveal the “face” of the four-dimensional system’s chaotic behavior. This emergent figuration draws the viewer in, closer to the surface, where a myriad of individual “faces” are revealed. Because I approach the challenge of representing four dimensions from an aesthetic perspective, I am free to bring the underlying equations to light, to visually and intuitively understand them. Tiled Faces juxtaposes order and chaos, artistic sensibility and mathematical depth, within its pixels and pigments.

Tiled Faces by Nathan Selikoff. 2007. Dimensions variable. Open edition print.

This artwork captures the essence of a chaotic dynamical system by visualizing its 4-dimensional parameter space. The X and Y of the whole image map to two coefficients, while the X and Y of each of the 1,024 individual images contained therein map to the other two coefficients. More details are available on the Tech Notes page for this series.

Tiled Faces at Axiom Art Gallery in 2008 with the artist, Nathan Selikoff