science meets art

After Monday's class I had Digital Interactive Design, where my teacher had mentioned a website that uses science to create forms of art. I was interested in the topic, having discussed the connection between the COR classes, and wrote the website link down.

Levitated.net is a website I am still trying to figure out myself. It "contains visual poetry and science fun narrated in an object oriented graphic environment," in other words it showcases science through art through flash modules (http://levitated.net/contact/infoAbstract.html). In one of the applications entitled Invader Fractal, you continuously click on the "invader" until it breaks down into several more "invaders." This "space filling algorithm" consists of hundreds to thousands of invaders arranged computationally until the space is filled completely.

	"figure b. the internal bitwise representation of the Invader is only 15 bits, while its graphic appearance is 25 bits."
	(http://levitated.net/daily/levInvaderFractal.html)

I suppose these flash modules are used to help people better understand or even memorize such information, while at the same time being aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Levitated.net takes these equations of scientific information, or whatever it is they are using, and makes them beautiful. This can be related to society nowadays in the sense that there are many people who take interest to interesting looking or beautiful or entertaining things rather than taking the time to learn about, say an algorithm. However, when put into a different medium, science can take on an entirely different audience and that simple, or not so simple, algorithm can be considered a work of art.


"figure c. 1,936 unique Invaders, a mere 6% of all possible Invaders."
(http://levitated.net/daily/levInvaderFractal.html)