Modular Art
Modular arithmetic isn't just for clocks anymore.
A casual visitor to the North Hollywood campus will
notice, upon passing by the auto mechanics room, that the
walls seem to have been painted with large murals in
geometric patterns. Although they may look like art
projects, the murals are heavily based on modular
arithmetic. Follow that link if you want to learn more
about it. If you already know what modular arithmetic is,
keep reading.
The students, as a project, choose an
operation: either addition or multiplication. They work
out the approriate table in mod 6 (using numbers 0 to 5).
Then comes the artistic part
each number is assigned to a swatch
of pattern, and the patterns are then substituted for the
squares in the grid corresponding to their numbers. The
interesting bit comes when new shapes and styles of grid
are introduced. There is a boring square grid, but hardly
anyone uses that one when such options are open as a
- Circular grid,
- Triangular grid,
- Vasarely-Style bubble grid, or even a
- Pentagonal grid.
More grid types are added each year
as we experiment with the capabilities of the computer
software we use to generate them. Click here to see a
mural based on the pentagonal grid.
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