CHAPTER 30Epilogue: Art
Data science and machine learning are frequently presented as an art rather than an exact science given their complex nature and lack of universal recipes. Certain meta-parameters do not always allow for simple formulas and construction of the most suitable models is often the result of experience and a certain form of craftsmanship. In that spirit, we would like to conclude this book with a bit of pure art.
The motivation for this chapter is the work of Czech artist Zdenek Sykora. Sykora is well known for his black-and-white geometric paintings, the Structure. His art was also affected by the collaboration with mathematician Jaroslav Blazek which resulted in computer-assisted art pieces, where the artist combined various abstract elements and deterministic rules. What was unique to Sykora was the usage of mathematical rules and the emphasis he put on them. This led to the author's “line” era, where he worked with clusters of curved lines, whose properties – like thickness, position, colour or curvature – were solely driven by mathematical expressions. A famous piece from this era is Lines No 24.
We look at the early stage of Sykora's paintings and use q
to produce some black-and-white geometric art which follows the artist's philosophy: the combination of geometric patterns and randomness driven by formulas. To depict the drawings themselves, we use qPad
. The objective is not to provide correctly rendered graphics but rather give an artistic taster. ...
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