Futurism & String Theory
Nov 9th, 2007 by Brad
I’ve been studying Futurist paintings for some time. The notion of using different representations of movement and change in a still image is intriguing to me. I also continue to read theoretical physics. In my mind an artist must tap from all manner of sources and combine this with their unique experiences to create interesting art.
Below, one of these images is Umberto Boccioni’s “Dynamism of a Soccer Player” from 1913 and the other is a modern 3D representation of the Calabi-Yau manifold which is used in various String theories of fundamental physics. 
Futurism
Umberto Boccioni and the other futurists tried to come up with universal models of movement. Boccioni said, “Dynamism is the lyrical approach to forms, which are interpreted in the endless phenonmenon of the reality of absolute and relative motions of surroundings and object, down to the formation of an overall phenomenon: surroundings + object. It is the creation of a new form, intended to represent the relativity of mass and extension. Between rotating and circling motion in other word, life itself is captured in the form which life engenders in its endless succession.”
String Theory
In various string theories of modern physics there are 10 or 11 dimensions with many of these extra 6-7 dimensions (beyond our 3 spatial and one time dimension) so small as to be undetectable in our experience. These special dimensions must have special properties to fit all of the intrinsic properties of elementary particles. These dimensions are described as Calabi-Yau spaces. These manifolds can be visualized in a 3D projection. Wikipedia entry for string theory.
I think the ties are even closer than some of the visual connections that you may have noticed in a quick and cursory glance. More at some point…
Image info: Calabi-Yau manifold (3D projection), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Calabi-Yau.png This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.
