Apollopsychē Melitaea follows proprietary mathematical algorithm in joining The Dance of Psyche in Greektown Chicago
[CHICAGO, IL, USA; June/July 2023] Scientiquity staff report
You’ve heard of paint by number, but how about number painting art? That’s exactly what Scientiquity has accomplished in its latest piece!
Apollopsychē Melitaea, the title of Scientiquity’s 2023 outdoor sculpture, is a conjunction of the Apollos butterfly species, the Greek god Apollo, Psychē the Greek goddess of the soul, and the butterfly species Melitaea cinxia.
Scientiquity chief polymath artist Terry Poulos was selected for the sixth consecutive year to paint a pre-fabricated sculpture for the Greektown Chicago outdoor art exhibit, titled The Dance of Psyche. The annual exhibition is designed to beautify the streets of Greektown Chicago, provide thought-provoking works of art which brighten the daily commute for pedestrians, and if fortunate enough, educate.
The current exhibit is described by the Greektown Arts Committee as “a kaleidoscope of butterflies titled The Dance of Psyche with 26 vibrant three-dimensional sculptures that showcase the creativity of 13 professional or emerging artists, 2 Chicagoland high schools and 11 local Greek language schools.”
Apollopsychē Melitaea encapsulates the butterfly as a symbol for the union of male/female, as containing the soul of humanity (a common theme in butterfly mythology), and the fractal nature of life. When Glanville fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) caterpillars were introduced to the island of Sottunga in the Åland archipelago, it unexpectedly resulted in three additional species, “which sprang out of the butterfly like Russian dolls,” according to Atlas Obscura.
This is the essence of fractal geometric series iteration and ‘the many from the one’ paradigm of Standard Model Big Bang cosmology. Furthermore, the female butterfly of the Queen Alexandria species features hind-wings with triangular patterns, and as such the sculpture depicts the artist’s very own proprietary Sierpinsky triangles, another ode to fractal geometry. Lastly, the physics of butterfly flight emanates from – among a variety of mechanisms – its aerodynamics which are generated by force via wake capture, vortices at the wing edge, and rotational dynamics. Hence, the artist filled his sculpture throughout with images of spiral fractal repeating geometric sequences.
The artist will be publishing an academic paper summarizing the mathematics of his proprietary schematics, which are geometric sequences serving to naturally render the painting for the artist. Number painting art, opposed to paint by number.
The entire arts project itself “is rooted in Greek culture, mythology and geography,” writes the Committee. “Psyche is the goddess of the soul; Aristotle gave the butterfly the name “psyche” (the Greek word for soul); and the Greek island of Rhodes is famous for its Butterfly Valley (Petaloudes), a lush nature preserve.”
As always, Scientiquity spins its own additional brand of math and science themes into all its works of art.
The Greektown Arts Committee is headed by arts patron and Greektown business owner Eve Moran, who also designed the prototype for the sculptures.
Terry Poulos is a Chicago-area writer, archaeological historian, artist and geometer whose investigations focus primarily on physics, fractal topology, and Number Theory
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