Venue: BCS London, First Floor, Davidson House, 5 Southampton St, London, WC2E 7HA

We are pleased to welcome Craig Kaplan for our second Autumn Lecture 2013. Craig is Associate Professor at the Computer Graphics Lab in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterlooin Ontario, Canada and is in the UK this year to pursue research at UCL. He studies the use of computer graphics in art, ornament, and design, with interests in nonphotorealistic rendering. He also dabbles in human-computer interaction, computational geometry and programming languages.

Craig is the editor of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, published by Taylor & Francis and welcomes submissions on scholarly research at the intersection of art and mathematics. Along with our own CAS Cttee member John Sharp, Craig is involved in organising the Bridges Conference, an annual event about art and mathematics.

Computer-generated Op Art from Lines and Curves

Op Art rose to prominence in the 1960s with powerful abstract compositions that evoked sensations of movement, vibration, and scintillation. The geometric regularity of Op Art makes it an ideal design space for algorithmic exploration with computer software. In this talk, I will present some of my recent research on computer-general Op Art compositions. I will use Reginald Neal's Square of Three as a point of departure to discuss compositions in which sharp bends in lines and curves communicate shape information. I will then explore the extent to which this style of Op Art can be animated. This research is joint work with PhD student Tiffany Inglis.