A project by
Robin Hill and Janko Gravner

Funded by the UC Davis Academic Senate's New Initiative/Collaborative Research Award Program

Emergence and Structure
March 20 - April 21, 2012
Grossman Gallery at Lafayette College
Curated by Ron Janowich and Dan Hill
Exhibition Catalogue

Snowflakes
January 20 - March 11, 2011
another year in LA
Pacific Design Center

Emergence and Structure exhibition, essay by Jonah Lehrer

Digital Snowflake: From a Mathematical Model to an Art Model
Janko Gravner  (Mathematics) and Robin Hill  (Studio Art) 

funded by the UC Davis Academic Senate’s New Initiative/Collaborative Research Awards Program:

The goal of this category of awards is to advance interdisciplinary research, allowing two or more faculty across the campus to collaborate on projects that bridge academic disciplines.  Such projects include faculty from the natural sciences, engineering or medicine, and the arts, humanities and social sciences at UC Davis.  A goal of this category is the stimulation of projects that bridge the natural and human sciences in order to integrate the campus’s strengths in these areas.

The Project in Brief:

Gravner and Hill investigated how advances in computer graphics can create a meaningful dialogue between art and mathematics. The case study is a recent break- through in snow crystal growth research, which resulted in the creation of digital snowflakes that emulate the real ones. One aim was understand how visual art, through tangible media such as cyanotype and sculpture, affects the perception of objects generated by a computer program and, conversely, to understand how scientific visualization can advance the aesthetic and perceptual inquiry of a visual artist.