Bucco - Multi-Dimensional Butterflies (Invited)

This work focuses on evolutional butterflies and describes scientific principles as well as applications of aesthetical fundamentals. It explores why butterflies are beautiful from the scientific perspectives of shape, motion, and color. Based on those principles, it aims to “predict” how butterflies looked in ancient times and how they might appear in the distant future.

The main concept is “hypothetical virtual butterfly”. The project begins with various conceptual sketches of hypothetical, multi-dimensional future butterflies. The layers represent the shape of wings and eyespot patterns in each period. Eventually, the work goes so far as to build butterflies from future planets. As a very first approach toward interplanetary, multi-dimensional butterflies, we are preparing a simulation environment for analyses of interaction between bodily dynamics of virtual butterflies and aerial dynamics of a planet. In this simulation environment, planetary air is modeled by small particles, assembly of which can represent fluid dynamics.

One Buccuo sculpture is a huge balloon with very complicated and unique structures. Its wings are constructed of multilayered balloons. The other is a huge object made from fiber-reinforced plastics. Their behavior is affected by the audience. Their eyes react to viewers' movements, and they flap, rotate, and pump up their multi-dimensional, structured wings.

Yoichiro Kawaguchi 
The University of Tokyo