Sociotecture, Joan Truckenbrod

One of four similar works in a series, this piece was included by Frank Popper in Art of the Electronic Age. Joan Truckenbrod’s Sociotecture series, initiated in 1991, explored the unseen dimensions of the human experience. Informed by the mythology of Native American beliefs in animating spirits, Truckenbrod’s algorithmic images embody these invisible forces. The series gradually evolves, mixing mathematical symbols within a natural ecology of leaves and flower petals. The project was inspired by emotional echoes of Gertrude Stein, John Cage’s avant-garde methods and Pierre Boulez and George Benjamin’s compositions.

Truckenbrod herself wrote of the work:

“To create my early algorithmic images I created my own personal geometry that embodied these animating spirits. Coding was a vehicle for giving form to algebraic formulas that scientifically describes invisible forces such as how light waves reflect off of irregular surfaces.”

Listen to this author’s (Peter Bauman) Le Random’s talk with Truckenbrod here. (transcript)