Davide Cervone is the artist-mathematician behind a number of intriguing and colorful images that have appeared as cover art in several mathematical journals and books (as well as in this magazine). All are based on mathematical equations, many depicting four-dimensional objects in various ways.
Computer-generated artwork that he created, in collaboration with Tom Banchoff and student associates at Brown, appeared in a 1996 art exhibit entitled “Surfaces Beyond the Third Dimension.” These works use computer graphics and mathematics to form images both pleasing to the eye and challenging to the mind. Each piece depicts surfaces built in four-dimensional space and displayed in ways that suggest the kinds of transformations that appear when such an object is rotated in that space.
After the original exhibit was transformed into a virtual exhibit, José Francisco Rodrigues, of the University of Lisbon (Portugal), saw it on the Internet, and helped transform it again into another physical exhibit, this time adding qualities of the virtual and ideas from the website.
This newest exhibit, which has toured thirteen cities in Portugal and Brazil since October 2000, includes computers on which participants can watch movie clips and interact directly with the objects. It also has its own website, and a CD-ROM that includes the complete website, so people can take the show home with them. But anyone can explore the show, and the math behind it, through the media of hypertext, interactive graphics, and electronic movies. See it for yourself at
www.math.union.edu/locate/Cervone/professional/projects.html.