Skidmore Scope Magazine Annual Edition for 2017

24 SCOPE ANNUAL 2017 “Pattern is how we create order out of chaos,” says Tang Museum curator Rachel Seligman ’91. It’s a concept that was explored frommultiple angles in Sixfold Symmetry: Pattern in Art and Science, a Tang exhibition curated with faculty and integrated into courses across the disciplines. Using art, science, sound, and artifacts to explore the human relationship with pattern, Seligman and co-curator Rachel Roe-Dale, a mathematics professor, collaborated with a wide range of other faculty members: art historian Lisa Aronson, Spanish professor Grace Burton, computer scientist Mike Eckmann, psychologist Rebecca Johnson, musicologist Liz Macy, biologist Josh Ness, religion profes- sor Greg Spinner, and artist Sarah Sweeney. Many of the Tang’s interdisciplinary collaborations begin with a “big picture” question, and in this case, says Seligman, it was “Why do humans seek out, create, repli- cate pattern? Why do we desire it, and how do we use it?” One answer, she suggests, is that we use pattern to help us “make sense of the world around us, in all aspects of our lives.” But pattern also exists in nature, she notes—for example, “in the Fibonacci sequence of a spiraling nautilus shell, and in the way water forms crystals to create snow- flakes.” Perhaps we are drawn to “some inherent beauty” in these natural patterns. The perfect snowflake? Certainly scientists and mathematicians look for pattern, says Rachel Roe-Dale. “In many cases it exists a priori in nature as a fundamental component.” She finds it particu- ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE PAT T ERN I NG THE ART OF SC I ENCE L I T ERACY BY KATHRYN GALLIEN Arthur Evans