Generative Art

2022, Jul 24 Georgios Varnavides One min read

Bloom Strange Attractor — Nonlinear Strange Attractor with 5-fold symmetry.

Together with some friends in the DMSE department, I’ve been teaching a generative art workshop during MIT’s Independent Activity Period (IAP) for the past 5 years. IAP 2022 was the fifth* iteration of the workshop (previously taught in 2017 and 2018 with Emma Vargo, 2020 with Amina Matt, Jovana and Nina Andrejevic, and 2021 with Jovana and Nina).

The 4-day workshop walks through python and Wolfram Language notebooks, covering the following broad topics:

Geometric Fractals & L-Systems
Strange Attractor & Wallpaper Groups
Cellular Automata & Discrete Physical Systems
Continuous Physical Systems & Reaction-Diffusion Systems

You can find the most recent notebooks on the 2022 workshop website, as well as peruse the 2020 and 2022 workshop galleries.

* All instructors have recently graduated from MIT. If you’re an MIT-affiliate and interested in teaching this in IAP 2023, please reach out – we will be happy to help and share our notebooks/experience.