'One Hundred Views of a Metagon': Notes: About Max Bill
"Concrete Art holds an infinite number of possibilities" 
(Max Bill)
Max Bill produced his series 'Fifteen Variations on a Single Theme' from mind, rule, compass, and traditional drawing
instruments. he made perfectly clear what his mind was in his essays
on the variations and on
mathematics and art.
quite differently. what i present here results from mind and the geometrical
programming of a computer.
I created original software and derived works citing Max Bill's comments
and his lithographs. Of course this software was not meant to remake Max Bill's
work published sixty years ago, although it could do that -imperfectly by design,
but the gist of it certainly.
Readers are encouraged to see Max Bill's original works; for those who cannot,
these links to 'clean room versions' will provide useful hints:
the single theme, variation 1,
v2, v3, v4,
v5, v6, v7,
v8, v9, v10,
v11, v12, v13,
v14, v15.
On the contrary, the software was written to allow infinite expansions, extensions
and explorations of and beyond the seminal theme and the variations, in the spirit
of the introduction to 'Fifteen Variations on a Single Theme'. It is meant to help discover the infinite number
of possibilities, these unpublished variations which are hinted at by Max Bill: "it
would be posssible to develop other variations on the same theme and [...] to reverse
or develop the theme itself or to combine the variations with each other or to try
other colour combinations.".
Max Bill later created a second suite in a related spirit,
"The Sixteen Constellations",
around the theme of three lines of the same length.
About Max Bill... "Geboren in Winterthur am 22. Dezember 1908, gestorben in Berlin am 16. Dezember 1994. sMax Bill war als Bildhauer, Architekt, Graphiker, Designer, Kunsttheoretiker und Publizist eine ausgesprochene Mehrfachbegabung. Von 1927-1929 studierte er am Bauhaus in Dessau und wurde dort auch von der de Stjil-Gruppe beeinflusst. Er vertrat eine umfassende künstlerische Formung unserer Umwelt. Unter anderem entwickelte er Schleifenplastiken aus dem Möbiusschen Band, und er baute 1936 und 1951 die Schweizer Pavillons der Triennalen in Mailand. von 1951 bis 1956 war Bill Direktor der Ulmer Hochschule für Gestaltung, deren Gebäude er von 1953-1955 baute." (by Alexander Bieri)
"Among the modern classics are Paul Klee (1879-1940) and the main representatives of the Zurich movement of 'concrete artists',
Richard P. Lohse (1902-1988) and Max Bill (born 1908). Pioneers of the surrealist movement include Meret Oppenheim (1913) the
sculptor Robert Mueller (born 1920), Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) and Bernhard Luginbuehl (born 1929)." (by Swiss Embassy)
Internet search, january'99: there is not a real max bill page yet...
http://www.archinform.de/arch/1031.htm http://www.mailcom.ch/private/literature.html http://www.artbr.com.br/casa/ http://www.israel.org/mfa/ariel/103-agm.html http://www.invers.de/invers/inhalt/95_06_bauhaus.html http://www.mathematik.uni-ulm.de/stadtulm/unt/05/06.en.html http://www.mathematik.uni-ulm.de/stadtulm/unt/02/02/15.de.html http://www.mkgraphic.com/basic.html http://www.guernsey.net/~gallery/vincenzo.html http://www.mclink.it/n/dwpress/donnarte/4_98/donnarte.htm http://www.newschool.edu/library/parcoll.htm http://www.abaa-booknet.com/catalogs/delakcat/200-1b2.html http://www.swissemb.org/culture/html/fine_arts.html http://www.tfaoi.com/newsmu/nmus66.htm
An interesting reference: "The limits of interpretation", Umberto Eco (Indiana University Press, 1994) and in particular Chapter 12 "Fakes and Forgeries", including Conclusions, notes and bibliography.