Composable Art

Composable art objects are objects consisting of various pieces that can be assembled in many ways. The designer of composable art chooses the limits within which variations are possible, and provides a mechanism by which different compositions can be made. Once a composition is made, the composable art object is in some fixed or stable configuration.

• Composable Tapestry: 54 rods of different lengths, colors, and material that hang horizontally from each other by hooks.
• Composable Painting: 6 colored panels with randomly positioned holes through which the panels behind can be seen. Panels can be inserted and removed, exchanged, and slid sideways.
• Kandinski's Color Shapes: A red square, a blue circle, and a yellow triangle, each with a few holes, that can be hung from each other by aligning two holes and inserting a peg.
• GeoMecca: 9 wooden rods of three lengths and with three colors, each with regularly spaced holes. Rods can be connected by pegs.
• Matisse's leaves: Wooden pieces that hang from the ceiling and each other using holes and rings.

• Diago: 20 wooden rods that can be connected by the logging cabin principle, and which make an arrangement using the
• Diago II: 24 wooden rods, smaller and with different colors than Diago.
• Nested Squares: 7 squares of consecutively smaller sizes are nested, and positioned using bent wire.
• Composable Tower and Facade: Many small cubes and several larger blocks fit over vertical rods to make a tower or a facade.
• Hexa Steps: Ten wooden hexagons and a set of metal bars can be arranged in structures where the hexagons are horizontal and the bars are vertical.
  

Other objects

• Shape with a red square, a blue circle and a yellow triangle
• Warning: bird lover
• Kissing snakes
• Composable Christmas card

Nationale Wiskunde Dagen

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Presentations and papers

Composable Art and Combinatorics. PowerPoint Presentation given at the Joint ISAMA-Bridges conference in Granada, Spain, July 2003.
Design of Geometric Puzzles. PowerPoint Presentation given at the Dutch Computational Geometry Day in Eindhoven, March 2004.

Composable Art: objects that can be arranged in many ways. Paper that appeared in the proceedings of the Joint ISAMA-Bridges conference in Granada, Spain, July 2003.
The search for a cube puzzle. Paper that appeared in Cubism For Fun 65, 2004.

Information and contact

All ideas, designs, and constructions are by Marc van Kreveld. The photos are by Marc van Kreveld and Rene van Oostrum.

Email: m.j.vankreveld [curly symbol] uu [point] nl

Last modified: Marc van Kreveld, August 29, 2012