Event #3: Robert Gero

Robert Gero at his exhibition

As my final event, I went to see Robert Gero’s exhibition at CNSI. Not only did I get to walk through his exhibition, but I got to talk to him first hand and get some valuable insight on what his work means and how he incorporates math, art, and philosophy into his creations—more specifically into this idea and current exhibition of an “expanding infinity”.

The room was a simple square with plain white walls, containing a series of various size foam polygons within the room that stretched from floor to ceiling, creating almost a spider like structure. There was a projector that projected a moving white light that also contained polygons—creating the illusion that the actual foam polygons were moving. This was all accompanied by futuristic music.

According to Gero, this exhibition is a snapshot of an infinity structure, or the mathematical and philosophical concept of a bounded infinity. The idea is a constantly moving and expanding structure within the bounded and static room. He believes that these types of object exist but are yet to be discovered. His idea was influenced by philosophers and mathematicians—demonstrating the multidisciplinary nature of his art. For example, Leibniz—theorist of the Monad structure which is constantly changing on the outside but stable on the inside and Georg Cantor who calculated the infinity of infinity were huge influences on Gero’s current infinity structure. Furthermore, just by seeing this fascinating polygonal design, one can see how math and geometry in particular played a role in its creation.

Another interesting thing about this particular infinity structure is that he used the architecture of the actual CNSI building, inserted it into a computer program, and then created this exact configuration of polygons that represented the entire building in which the room was a part of. As we talked about in the very beginning of this course—computers, through math, are a powerful bridge between science and art and is a medium for the collision of these two disciplines.

Overall, I thought this was an extremely fascinating event to go to. This has furthered my understanding of how architecture is influenced both by math and art. In addition, since Gero is not a mathematician by trade, I have gathered greater insight into how easily science (i.e. math) and art can influence each other, even without being a professional in both fields.

Selfie of me at the exhibition