Chaotic Symmetries

Chaos

In the middle to late 1970's, Physicist and Mathematician, Mitchell Feigenbaum, while working in the Theoretical Division at a National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, developed a theory that ultimately described random form, chance and dimension as found in nature. This theory was called the "Chaos Theory." It describes not only how nature manifests itself through random form, but also the method by which chance evolves and that this process occurs within a continuum with dimension and size that is relative in both microcosmic and macrocosmic scale.

In essence, this theory has become the most comprehensive description to date of our natural and randomly existing reality.

Within any Chaotic system there is "self similarity"; the elemental components that appear to be and are similar to each other while still not having any one exact size, shape or placement (no two pine needles are the same; no two leaves or rocks or blades of grass, etc. are the same, yet they can be identified by their similarity to their individual genre). When you combine self-similar elements influenced by naturally existing chance of placement and/or growth, a more complicated form or "fractal" emerges. When you look at pine needles that have fallen to the ground or the disbursement of leaves within the growth of a tree or after they have fallen to the ground, or watch water crystallizing into ice on your windshield, or more abstractly, when you view an irregular coastline flanked by water, you are seeing a "fractal pattern." A fractal pattern is the manifestation of a multitude of self-similar forms or fractals combining into a more complex form as influenced by the environment and chance over time. Consequently, a seemingly complex irregular coastline can be broken down to its most basic irregular component shape through use of the Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory is also responsible for evaluating, describing, and predicting within random systems such as the stock market, psychological profiling, gambling strategies, climate and weather cycle forecasting, etc.

Chaotic Symmetries

The initial intent of the work was to investigate "Chaotic" patterns in nature by introducing and utilizing symmetry as a tool to structurally alter fractal self similarity, thus bringing an induced or forced sense of order to random form, chance and dimension, and to not necessarily evoke the primitive pseudo sentient images that have emerged. It became clear that while this visual phenomenon was apparent early on in the investigation, it would also become a repeating dominating visual factor and effect in all of the works to follow.

As these art works progressed, I became more and more conscious of how their elusive imagery continued to allude to something I felt compelled to identify with. The images in each piece suggested some underlying pre-existing structure and order that revealed an almost primal or spiritual sense of animation and being. Because these patterns had been derived from nature, the immediate associations I began to construct in my mind seemed to correlate with many images which I have seen that primitive people within their early societies had developed and utilized to describe their spiritual relationships to and with their environments.

This seemed somewhat profound that through induced symmetry on naturally occurring chaotic patterns that there would be a correlation to early primitive imagery developed by man. This also seems to say something about the hidden order within nature and how early primitive people subconsciously viewed reality and intuitively extracted representational imagery from it.

Titling of the Work

Consequently, I felt compelled to title these images (even though I had originally planned to provide a numeric description only). The strength of the images warranted titles, but the titles had to be more (or less) than literal yet encompassing in a categorically general sense. With the completion of some ninety artworks, the process began in grouping the pieces into individual series that exhibited a relatively similar visual response and subjectivity. The titles have become a hint of what I, as the Artist, interpreted from the imagery while still realizing that each individual viewer will experience their own inherent intuitive responses relative to how they interpret the visual information evoked by the individual Art piece.

Title Definitions

Bio Morphic - Change in the form and structure of living material (those things relating to external nature after biology
Conifer - Any large group of cone-bearing trees or shrubs (mostly evergreens)
Ethereal - Heavenly, celestial (not earthly)
Fetish - Any object, animate or inanimate, natural or artificial, regarded with a feeling of awe, as having mysterious powers residing in it or being the representative habitation of a deity
Geo Morphic - Pertaining to the shape of the earth or its topographic features
Grassland - Spanses of land with one or many types of grass
Heteromorphic - Differing from the standard type or form (different forms at various stages)
Indigenous - Native to or produced naturally in a region
Metamorphic - Change in the form and structure of rocks (those things relating to external nature after physics)
Nagual - The unknown, hidden or unseen realms of spirit (a Native American term)
Preternatural - Different from or beyond what is natural
Primitive - An Artist or a work of art that belongs to or is suggestive of an early period pertaining to the beginning of the earliest times or ages, original and first
Shaman - A Priest or Shamanism, a wizard or conjurer among those who profess Shamanism, the religion or doctrine regarding healing and the workings of Good and Evil
Teratogenic - Producing monsters
Totemic - Relating or belonging to a totem, which among primitive peoples refers to an animal or natural object considered as being related by blood to a given clan and taken as its symbol
Woodland - Pertaining to or inhabiting the woods