'Floating Lines' Exhibit Opens Jan. 21 in Anne Kittrell Art Gallery

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This is one of the pieces featured in the "Floating Lines" exhibit.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A new exhibit called “Floating Lines” features sculpture and surfaces created by mathematics, fine art, architecture and computer science students at the University of Arkansas. The show opens Tuesday, Jan. 21, and runs through Feb. 14 at the Anne Kittrell Art Gallery in the Arkansas Union.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. An opening reception is planned for 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 22.

This show is the work of an interdisciplinary course, with students from the department of mathematics, computer science, architecture and philosophy. The course was led by Edmund Harris, associate professor of mathematics in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, who was assisted by Rachel Smith Loerts, assistant director of the DesignShop in the Fay Jones School of Architecture, and Lynn Fitzpatrick, clinical assistant professor of architecture in the Fay Jones School.

Students explored different ways in which lines can be registered on a computer, and then manipulated. These lines were often turned into objects using computer-aided manufacturing software, CAMel, to drive the three-axis mill. The varied skills of the students allowed them to work with the whole process – from the conceptual design, through the theoretical consideration, to the implementation on the machine.

People are used to lines on a page, to seeing their marks and movements, and it is not a challenge to extend that up into three dimensions. With computer software, it is even possible to manipulate such lines. Once in a computer, a line can be augmented to achieve forms unparalleled by what is possible with the human hand alone. Those lines can even be brought back out of the virtual world. Here in particular, the lines drive a CNC router, removing material with a cutting tool as it follows the lines though space, in order to materialize in a tangible surface.

Most of the time, in using a manufacturing machine, the goal is to control the object the machine outputs. Yet this requires indirect control of the machine through proprietary software. Thinking instead about the line, designers describe the paths the machine will take. This places far fewer restrictions on what the machine can achieve alone. Taking advantage of the shape of this tool and the way it intersects with the material to create pattern, one can represent these lines both with what the human hand can achieve and with the complexity the machine can interpret and reveal.