Publications
Shedding New Light on Old Islamic Patterns
by <!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="Feature1Author" -->Gordy Slack<!-- InstanceEndEditable -->
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(Steve Beck will present his NOOR Project at the May 2 Research Exchange at noon in 540 Cory Hall)
While the Golden Age of Islam’s mosaic tile patterns may be centuries past, a CITRIS project is revealing them to be very relevant today. A year ago, electronic artist, entrepreneur, and technologist Steve Beck and his chief collaborator, UC Berkeley computer science professor Carlo Séquin, launched NOOR, a project exploring the mathematics and geometry underlying these intricate, mesmerizing patterns. NOOR is part of the larger art and technology research program FIAT LUX, which aims to study the integration of art, science and culture.
In both Farsi and Arabic, the word NOOR means light, and though the project has many aims, chief among them, says Beck, is to illuminate and pay homage to the great Islamic scientists, artists, and mathematicians whose work spanned from the 7th to the 12th century.
NOOR draws explicit connections between the power of Islamic artwork and the math that underlies it. The researchers hope it will shed light on the depth and sophistication of an ancient culture, says collaborator Nezar AlSayyad, Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley, and is part of the world cultural inclusion that is a major character of the University.
Beck is best known for his seminal video art, music, and light sculptures, some of which transform traditional themes—such as Native American weaving patterns—into animated light displays. His video art is in the collections of such institutes as the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum. Beck, who received his Berkeley EECS degree in 1971, is currently a visiting fellow in the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley and also an Executive in Residence at UC Berkeley’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.
Séquin, a world-renowned expert in computer graphics who has long been using computers to design complex sculptural forms, says that the project “employs sophisticated generative algorithms to demonstrate how some of the intricate patterns may have evolved from simple line-and-circle drawings.”
The project pays homage to the profound thinkers and mathematicians of centuries ago, says Beck, but it is also an exploration of very modern themes.
The February 23, 2007, issue of Science, for example, featured an article about recursive Islamic tile patterns known as girih, which embody a mathematical principle known as the quasi-crystal. Quasi-crystals generate patterns composed of a finite set of interlocking units, but never repeat even if tiled infinitely in all directions. Though only described by Western mathematicians in the 1960s, quasi-crystals were perfectly expressed in tiling patterns laid down 500 years ago in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, for example, according to the article in Science.
Beck, Séquin, and their collaborators are using the underlying algorithmic principles embodied in these designs to create giant, animated light emitting diode (LED) sculptures elaborating and amplifying their mathematical themes. They will employ the displays as architectural elements in new buildings or as sculptural accouterments inside or outside of existing ones. “We are very close to securing our first commission,” says Beck.
One of the giant animated LED displays, shown at the Berkeley EECS Annual Research Symposium (BEARS).
LED displays are energy efficient, long lasting, bright, and very adaptable, says Beck. They can be easily attached to the outside of buildings or other structures creating bright, lively, ever-changing skins.
“The original tile patterns are pretty much set in time by the nature of the medium,” says Beck. “We are introducing a temporal dimension to the patterns by animating them.” Adding the dimension of time will unlock and illuminate some of their mathematical and geometric themes, he says.
The patterns, which emerged over centuries as highly stylized or geometrized calligraphic expressions of Qur’anic passages, are still considered sacred in the Islamic world. Beck is working closely with Middle Eastern scholars, including AlSayyad, to ensure that none of the images are inadvertently used in irreverent ways.
“These patterns are not just abstract mathematical expressions,” says Séquin. “They mean many things to different people, which is one reason they are so potent.”
The developers are hoping to install projects in UC Berkeley’s Soda Hall, the new CITRIS Headquarters building, and in Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. A PBS-TV documentary exploring the historical, mathematical, and cultural aspects of the Islamic patterns is also in the works, says Beck.
Like Beck, Séquin has a love for mathematical geometry and says he believes that math and art have a close evolutionary relationship. “One of the first applications of emerging mathematical or geometrical concepts may have been to make repetitive frieze or patterns fit seamlessly around a bone or a clay pot,” Séquin says. “Once some mathematical principles were clarified and expressed they helped artists make still more complex and beautiful patterns, which inspired more mathematical speculation and articulation.”
Carlo Séquin, Robert Birgeneau, and Steve Beck.
Such a “feedback loop” between art and math may have played an important role in the evolution of the human brain and culture, speculates Beck.
To examine what makes these patterns resonate, NOOR will look at their effect on the retina, optic nerve, and visual cortex. Beck is in conversation with Stephen Palmer, director of UC Berkeley’s Visual Perception Lab. In addition to the physiological effects, Beck also wants to study the psychological impact of viewing the geometric patterns.
In the same way that Islamic leaders chose to decorate their mosques and palaces with these patterns to inspire awe and reverence, Beck and Séquin suspect that putting such geometrically evocative sculptures around computer science, math, and engineering students will help them to internalize the logos and beauty of the forms.
“By presenting images pertinent to mathematics, science, and engineering we hope to trigger perceptions—maybe subconscious ones—that would have a favorable effect,” says Beck. “Not to mention the aesthetic enhancement of these areas. These things are really beautiful.”
A. Richard Newton, Executive Producer (In Memoriam), was instrumental in getting the project off the ground by introducing Beck to Khalid Alireza (M.S. in IEOR, UCB ’71) in October 2006. Part of Alireza’s company, Xenel International USA—based in Westlake Village, CA—added a $50,000 seed grant to an in-kind gift in support of the NOOR research of $90,000 from Beck-Tech Corp. in Berkeley. (No University or public funds have been used for this research.)
Though NOOR introduces a temporal element into otherwise static patterns by animating them, the project still deals with the timeless truths of both geometry and aesthetic beauty, says Séquin. Unlike much contemporary conceptual art, art made from geometric principles will always be recognized as beautiful and important, Séquin says, even if re-discovered thousands of years from now.
If beauty is truth, and if truth is practical, then these patterns may even eventually be useful in the development of CMOS semiconductor devices, nanotechnology, and MEMS, a possibility NOOR will also explore, says Beck.
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For more information:
<!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="Feature1Links" -->Contact Steve Beck:
http://media.coe.berkeley.edu/CET/index.php?title=People:_Steve_Beck
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/BEARS/open-house/07noor.shtml
http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/engnews/Spring07/EN09S/pattern.html