Hi Frédéric,

Here's a review of "Oeil Complex" I'd run with the interview I'd like to do with you. Hope you're interested and get a chance to answer the questions I sent you. And that the sky is blue in Paris.

Regards,
Jim Andrews


"Oeil Complex" is a piece of work that children would enjoy endlessly. It's fun, and all those eyeballs. It's lively. Surprised. Surprising. An entity unlike others. Partially and femininely human, but further away than Mars. From the mind of Frédéric Durieu who, as a Parisian artist-programmer, is way out there with the best of them.

"Oeil Complex" is also fascinating for older kids who have studied geometry. Just how many pretty brown-eyed peepers are peeping? And in what shapes? A little investigation reveals that at times there are 3*3=9 of them; at others, 4*4=16, or 5*5=25, or 6*6=36, or 7*7=49. If you move the mouse in a certain way, they are displayed in one plane. If you move the mouse elsewhere, they appear to bend into 3D space and form into various shapes, depending on how many of them are on the screen at once (and where you position the mouse).

And if you click the mouse, they transform into different manifestations of the same eyeballs or, in one mode, warp into a kind of eyeless honeycomb.

So just what is going on here? And what is significant about this as art?

In an important sense, the significance of the piece as art is self-evident. Its enigmatic, dynamic multiplicity—but more importantly, it's quiet liveliness, its 'life' as an entity unlike any other is all one needs to recognize to see its significance as a piece of art. The significance of art can be conceptual or political or historical or related to other spheres, but if it ain't got soul, you gotta wonder whether the hubub is a lot of self-important art talk.

"Oeil Complex" has presence and character. And mystery. Would love to have a look at the source code. We'll see if Fred coughs it up to me. But even if he doesn't show the source code, the real interest is in the mystery of "Oeil Complex" and its being situated deep in the mind, as an entity of the mind, and as an entity arising from a meditation on the Platonic solids and the way that shapes fit together in 3D space. It is a deeply intellectual piece, although children can enjoy it.

There are only five Platonic solids possible: the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosohedron. Each face is the same shape and the angle between any two contiguous faces is the same as the angle between any other two contiguous faces. The Platonic solids were described by Plato in The Timaeus ca. 350 BC. Plato equated the tetrahedron with the "element" fire, the cube with earth, the icosohedron with water, the octahedron with air, and the dodecahedron with what the constellations and heavens are made of. They would also have known that there were only 5 of these types of shapes possible (in Euclidean space).

These are some of the fundamental 'building blocks' of most anything, therefore.

The geometry of "Oeil Complex" is mysterious; it changes quickly enough, is dynamic enough that you can't quite pin its geometry down before it changes and has a different number of peepers peeping and forming the ever-changing entity. It is a mysterious entity even to the most prying and analytical of eyes. Except if we get a look at the source code and, about two weeks later, maybe understand the basics.

In any case, it is a meditation on the static Platonic solids made very dynamic, almost alive. As such, it combines artistry, great programming skills, mathematics and the history of ideas beautifully. To the point where the entity seems to be situated between this world and another, between this world, deep in the mind, and the realm of the forms. I find it a stunning achievement in artistic programming fused with mathematical beauty and liquid animation.

Hi Andrews

I'm sorry for the delay but I was very very busy. I'm also sorry for my very bad english. Also thanks for your interest in my work. It's not the first time that someone has asked me so many questions about the source of "Oeil Complex"....

I love your attempt at explanation but that's not the good direction.

>Would love to see the code for "Oeil Complex"
> if you are OK with that. I am a programmer and
>mathematician also.

The code is very very simple ... I can't give you my code but if you are a mathematician you can find the solution easily. Think of the name of the piece...

I don't know. I was so surprised when I met this creature. It never speaks to me. I think that this creature is mute. It looks maybe a little bit desperate.

I find it quite accomplished artistically, concerning programming, and mathematically. And very funny! To me, it is located between the realm of the forms and this world. It combines artistry and mathematics and programming beautifully. But mostly it has an intriguing and intelligent presence as a work of art.

You say you were very surprised. I had a similar experience with the creation of Ur Grrl. Up until then, I merely had body parts. I remember an old teacher of mine saying years ago that bad erotic poetry often reads like a collection of body parts, people reduced to body parts. It was when I started exploring symmetries, after having explored using a pen with images on the nib, that Ur Grrl emerged. Accidentally, to start out with.

No. I was using Photoshop and CorelPaint to do pieces, and a bit of Java, at that point, mostly in 96.

The role of mathematics in your work is fascinating to me, Fred.

I like the power of mathematics.

But i always try to hide this aspect in my work.

Mathematics is only an easy tool to build all my toys.

(I say toy and not game because I don't like applications where you need to win.)

I'm an engineer (the real name in belgium is civil engineer ) (the school was equivalent to the ecole polytechnique in france). I don't really have a main center of interest in mathematics but most of the time I use kinetic (physics) laws to move things on screen with acceleration and friction. I like very much the fact that I don't need to be exact (mathematically speaking) in my work. only the final effect on the screen is important. sometimes, errors or the side effect in the code give very interesting results. It's exactly the opposite of what I learned in my studies.

what do you think about puppettool?

It's my main work now and it gives me a lot of pleasure.

Ha ha! Yes, you give it some interesting work to do, which doesn't often happen. Such an art is incomprehensible to most—though they can appreciate the computer's reading.

Are there other works of yours that you would like to mention?

I like "week-end" , the zoo and puppettool shortcuts are www.LeCielEstBleu.com/weekend www.LeCielEstBleu.com/zoo www.LeCielEstBleu.com/puppettool

And one of my best works is the "Alphabet" CDROM. 15 prizes in the world.... It's a compilation of 50 interactive screens (Oeil complex is also included in with others graphics and with the microphone reactivity). Amazon is selling it in North America (it's a tivola product)—Dadamedia.com sells it in Europe. While I was working on Alphabet, I met Jean-Jacques Birgé. It was a real pleasure to work with him on the interactive musique. He his incredibly creative and we still work together regulary on LeCielEstBleu.

141 lines.
I can understand why you don't trust me.
I think it's because you misunderstand how it works.
I can give you a little help.
do you know complex numbers in mathematics?

it's not easy to explain all the theory but here is a introduction to the complex numbers: http://www.ping.be/math/complget.htm.

bravo

i'm impressed.

Ha ha, thank you, thank you.

I like this sort of elegant puzzle, Fred. Important and high level mathematics in the service of art. Bravo to you for creating such a fine work!

But I am still curious about the general nature of the function. The more eyes, the more it seems to tend toward a mapping on a sphere. The fewer eyeballs, well, the mapping is odd and suggests the Platonic solids--though I understand that may be the wrong approach. What is going on here?

it's only because we are working with the complex numbers. If you see how odd the mandelbrot set is and the complexity of his structure when you zoom in. I don't know exactly what kind of shape it produces here. It seems to be a sphere but I'm not sure (if the number of facettes = infinity).

a lot of different functions give very good (strange) results.

the function is 1/ (a+bi).

Simple things are often beautiful! No?

Mais oui!

Merci, frère!