By: Kenia Nova
Last week SGI welcomed Jesse Louis-Rosenberg, Co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Nervous System, a generative design studio. Inspired by natural pattern formation, Nervous System creates software and computer simulations that famously mimic organic structures to produce unique mediums of art. Since 2007, Nervous System has looked to Laplacian growth and Voronoi structures to develop algorithms that are “generative”, meaning each art piece is one of one.
Recognizing the lost artistry of jigsaw puzzles post the Industrial revolution, Nervous System “hacked” together the idea of a multiphase model of dendritic solidification to create a puzzle cut generation system. The simulation begins with a “seed” that represents the initial piece location, from which it will expand towards its neighbor, until the interlocking structure is formed. The images for the puzzle are created by another cut system, based on the idea of growing elastic rods, where a cellular p-shape’s edges bend and collide to form mazelike patterns. These systems allow for each puzzle to produce a unique combination of patterns. After the puzzles are 3d printed, they are laser cut. In order to avoid flash backs while cutting, each piece undergoes a process of shellability, where the connected components are turned into a local property in the ordering. From there, the computational artists determine which pieces are useable in the final stages of production and distribution.
In 2011, looking to the infamous topology of a Klein Bottle, Nervous System set out to create the infinite galaxy puzzle – a double sided jigsaw that tiles continuously. Due to its lack of a fixed shape, starting point, or edges, the puzzle can be recreated thousands of times without ever producing the same image. Using similar processes, Nervous system also offer hundreds of products from black hyphae lamps to tetra kinematic necklaces.
Today, Nervous System’s art and algorithms can be found everywhere from the Museum of Modern Art in New York to 3D printed organ research at Rice University. It serves as source of inspiration and reminder for researchers to explore the artistic richness at the intersection of design and computation.
