Vlad the Geometer

February 9, 2008 3:17 PM

Vladimir Bulatov enjoys making polyhedra and abstract geometric sculptures.

Many sculptures available for sale on site. Not affiliated with this or any other geometer!

posted by Burhanistan (18 comments total)

the queen of this sort of work is bathsheba grossman. she typically forms the items herself, and her site has some fascinating walkthroughs of the process.
posted by bruceo at 3:45 PM on February 9, 2008

bruceo, her site seems down at the moment, but here's an entry on Make for her, complete with video. Interesting!
posted by Burhanistan at 3:51 PM on February 9, 2008

I see I'm not the only person who was immediately reminded of ms. grossman's work. These are very nice too. I really like some of his wood sculptures.
posted by hattifattener at 4:27 PM on February 9, 2008

I find it interesting that he doesn't have his own printer -- he shops it out to an outfit in California. So other than the final burnishing, the creative process is almost completely done in the computer. It's as if he was designing these things for sale in Second Life, and somehow they messed up and got into RL instead.
posted by localroger at 4:35 PM on February 9, 2008

But can he make dogs act human?
posted by vronsky at 4:37 PM on February 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

The Math Art link lists Grossman first off.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 4:41 PM on February 9, 2008

Modular origami can make polyhedra and other solids, but generally there's no holes. It would be interesting to see these or similar shapes executed in folded paper.
posted by DU at 4:41 PM on February 9, 2008

localroger: I think most mathematic sculptors don't own a rapid prototyping printer, including Bathsheba Grossman. They're expensive piece of kit. I've been working with Bathsheba and Peter Jansen who does the same kind of stuff with strange attractors, and AFAIK they both outsource the printing process.
posted by surrendering monkey at 4:50 PM on February 9, 2008

Yeah I don't know that many artists would be likely to see the return necessary to justify purchasing a direct metal printer, even at $75+ per square inch of finished goods.

Those wood pieces are gorgeous though, thanks!
posted by prostyle at 5:37 PM on February 9, 2008

Ooh love those Burhanistan. Sweet. Something very futuristic about the metal ones. Like playthings for aliens. But also Vlad the geometerish about them too. This Richard Sweeney guy makes paper sculptures that look metal. Flickr set. Vlad lite?

The mahogany one from your link is eye candy.

MetaFilter's Eric Gjerde does modular origami.

I like Gorge Hart's, modular kirigami too.

Love this sculptural geometry.
posted by nickyskye at 5:39 PM on February 9, 2008

Wonderful stuff. And a million big ups to Bathsheba as well (BiasFilter: personal friend).
posted by mykescipark at 5:54 PM on February 9, 2008

I found Bulatov's website some years ago, I'm surprised it hasn't made it to Metafilter before. I seem to remember his site was then down for a time, but I could be mistaken.

I've always felt that it's something of an artistic challenge to depict polyhedra well. Some of the best examples I've seen use simple crosshatching instead of colors, which can often become garish. I'm afraid I don't really care for Bulatov's page of Johnson solids.

By and large though, great stuff, thanks for posting it.
posted by Tube at 6:22 PM on February 9, 2008

surrendering monkey: You're right, on reflection. Probably a bad writeup, somehow I got the impression that Bathsheba had her own printer. It makes sense that artists working at that scale wouldn't want to invest the cash and learning curve and upkeep costs for such a beast.
posted by localroger at 7:00 PM on February 9, 2008

On second reflection, I still think it's weird how Bulatov relates to it. He writes his own software (I've written my own meshers for finite element analysis software so I have a tiny inkling what he's up to there). It's a very personal, primitive creative process where he's in total control, right up to the step where he emails it to California and receives its physical meatspace expression back in the mail. Then he's got to use a friggen tumbler to do further work on it. That is just so mind-blowing.
posted by localroger at 7:05 PM on February 9, 2008

I immediately thought, "Oh, if only Escher was a sculptor."

Here's a neat page that links to some attempts at Lego sculptures of Escher's work.
posted by not_on_display at 8:00 PM on February 9, 2008

Fine jade
posted by hortense at 10:23 PM on February 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

These are nice, and as a mathematician it's always good to know about other mathematical sculptors. Does anyone know if he's got a day job?
posted by leahwrenn at 4:41 AM on February 10, 2008

ooh, another good math/art creator to add to the linkfest!

and FWIW, these sorts of things (rapid prototypers, laser cutters, 5 axis CNC, etc) are just insanely expensive to have yourself - you've got to have a reason to need one on a very frequent basis to even begin to justify it. and doing the rapid prototyping w/ metal costs a bundle just in raw materials alone, much less equipment involved.

I have some contacts who have their own laser cutters (vs shopping it out) and other than house purchases it was by far their most expensive buy of a lifetime.

So far all my hours trolling craigslist have yet to yield a bargain-basement priced laser cutter, but I'm still hopeful one day I will be rewarded!

I'm a big fan of Marius Watz - he recently did the Generator.x 2.0 workshop, and the participants made all sorts of amazing math/art/technologically-created pieces, most of which make me swoon. He's got a great set of shots on the related flickr set.

also of potential interest is British artist Polly Verity, who's surface explorations are always a joy to see.

(and Grossman's work came to mind immediately for me as well, and always will - it's the first art I ever saw from a RP system, and still some of the best.)
posted by EricGjerde at 8:13 PM on February 10, 2008