Fractal Geometry

The need to study systems qualified as chaotic lead to a series of theories based on complexity science: theory of chaos, thermodynamics of the non-balance, theory of catastrophe, net sciences and more. Between them, the most fascinating one, from an artistic point of view, is fractal geometry.

Classic geometry arises from the man´s need to measure earth and universe conceived as something stable and organized. It is not capable of explaining the universe in which mayhem just happens.

A fractal is a natural phenomenon and a mathematical set. What they have in common is a repeating pattern that displays at every scale. Its irregularity makes them unable to form part of classic geometry. Natural fractals differ from mathematical ones because they are not exact; clouds, snowflakes, ferns, dunes, trees, and the circulatory system are examples of natural fractals.

Javier Barros del Villar says: “Throughout human history, in diverse cultures all around the world, one of the main characteristics attributed to divinity is aesthetics. With geometry, rhythm, and chromatics as three of the main resources of this divine speech, nature reaches the most spectacular and discrete divine manifestation as a hyper aesthetic paradox”.

In my series Angels are sculptures in which the spectator can visualize a basic structure sustaining itself, repeating, and fracturing into similar figures when scaling them up or down, agreeing with fractal geometry principles.