Fourfield: Computers, Art & the 4th Dimension

Robbin, Tony; Rucker, Rudy (Foreword by), and Henderson, Linda Dalrymple (Introduction by)

ISBN 10: 082121909X / ISBN 13: 9780821219096

Published by Little, Brown and Company; A Bullfinch Press Book in association with the International Center of Photography, Boston, 1992

About this Item

199 pages, illustrations (some colour); 26 cm. Near fine. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Age toning. Stated First Edition. Dust jacket, with light edgewear, protected in a mylar cover. *** "Although a fascination with the fourth dimension and the search for ways of depicting it have engaged artists for more than a century, only the computer makes such depiction truly possible. Using the computer as a tool, painter and sculptor Tony Robbin has devoted his life as an artist to this quest. Fourfield is both a record of that quest and an eloquent testament to the value of its fulfillment. The understanding and appreciation of space as presented in works of art have changed over the centuries, and Robbin suggests that the time is ripe for our perception of space to undergo another radical shift. He makes clear that "seeing" space in three dimensions is merely a culturally based assumption, no more and no less valid than apprehending space in any other way. This realization frees us to understand space much as a computer might--as fluid, ever changing, and dynamic. It has also freed Robbin to create exhilarating and amazing works, derived from his original blending of art, science, and mathematics. Fourfield is a firsthand account of the artist's visual, intellectual, and philosophical evolution, which has taken him from paintings in a traditional two-dimensional format to those in which rods extending from the canvas and the shadows they produce present a visual experience of four dimensions. Most recently, Robbin has created sculpture that incorporates quasicrystals ('crystals' made up of nonrepeating patterns) and whose appearance varies with the viewer's position and the orientation of light. This experimentation is suggesting startling new directions in architecture as well. To assist the reader in comprehending this seemingly magical world, Fourfield comes with an image of a pattern of four-dimensional cubes, known as hypercubes, and special glasses through which to view it. Also included is an order form for a diskette containing a number of the computer programs developed by Robbin as he explored the world of computers and art. Written with a voice of eloquence and clarity for anyone interested in art, science, mathematics, computers, or philosophy, Fourfield is, however, not for the timid. Just as Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach and Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance altered their readers' perceptions, readers of Fourfield will find their way of seeing the world changed forever." - Publisher. *** CONTENTS: Foreword, by Rudy Rucker; Introduction, by Linda Dalrymple Henderson; 1. Einstein's Cave; 2. Emotional Equations: Space in Mathematics and Art; 3. Chinese Boxes and Shadows from Heaven; 4. Patterns in the Ether; 5. Curvature: Lobofour and Nonclid; 6. Time in Space: Three Enigmas of Space; 7. Exebar Speaks!; Appendix 1: Vincent Van Gogh's Letter; Appendix 2: Hardware and Software Notes. Size: 4to.

Seller Inventory # 050938

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Fourfield: Computers, Art & the 4th Dimension
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; A Bullfinch Press Book in association with the International Center of Photography, Boston
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 082121909X
• ISBN 13: 9780821219096
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Book Type: Collectible
• Seller catalogs:
  • Movements::Digital Arts
  • USA::6. Late Modern, 1945-1999
  • XXX::COLLECTIBLES
  • XXL::Extra Extra Large

About this title

Synopsis

An artist blurs the boundaries between art and science and probes into the realms of relativity, non-Euclidean geometry, hypercubes, and quasicrystals in an effort to depict a fourth dimension.

Reviews

Robbin, a painter and sculptor, uses computers in his quest to represent the fourth dimension. Although Einstein's theory of relativity seemed to define the fourth dimension as time, Robbin disagrees, arguing that the fourth dimension is spatial. In this he finds support in the work of Einstein's former teacher Hermann Minkowski, a Russian mathematician who created a four-dimensional goemetry that is used to conceptualize Einstein's special theory of relativity. Robbin's technically demanding text is accompanied by 109 illustrations (36 in color) of his arcane graphic attempts to make the fourth dimension visible. There are paintings in which rods extend from the canvas, simulating 4-D space; pointillist dot-pictures that attempt to render light visible; and crystal-like sculptures whose appearance changes radically as the viewer moves. This remarkable book includes an insert picture of hypercubes (a hypercube is a 4-D cube with 24 square faces) plus 3-D glass for viewing it.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Shades of the Fifties: Red/blue cardboard glasses, cubist forms, and science fiction cyberspace are the first things one encounters in this diverting work. On closer inspection, they offer an interesting entree into an extradimensional world and the exhilarating and intriguing new ways it can be depicted in art and science with the help of the computer. The mathematical themes may at first be daunting, but the enthusiasm of the artist/author carries the reader, hesitantly perhaps, into expanded space and eventually into a fluid, dynamic view of the universe and the self. The application of new computer techniques in art and architecture are examined, but Robbin's work is essentially a personal account of a philosophical and intellectual journey into the fourth dimension. The bibliography ranges from "Flatland" to "The Principle of Relativity," the glossary from "Big Bang" to "Wormhole": evidence of a complex investigation by a creative mind. Although clearly not to everyone's taste, this book is well worth the effort for those to whom the computer age is not a threat but a promise.
- Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.