A Videogame Explores the Beauty and Geometry of Islamic Art
A digital spirograph celebrates the elegant geometric aesthetic of Islam.
Art and mathematics share an essential, millenary relationship. From the golden ratio and theories on the vanishing points within paintings, spectacular works of Cubism, to the impossible objects of M. C. Escher, that relationship has resulted in artworks of both beauty and elegance. But if we add another factor to the equation, technology, we find examples that take on another dimension entirely. This is the case with Engare, a videogame which uses mathematical, artistic, and architectural elements to create a kind of virtual puzzle which challenges users to emulate geometric bodies with patterns referring clearly to the aesthetics of the art and architecture of Islam.
The game’s creator is a 24-year old Iranian, Mahdi Bahrami. Engare emerged from his deep love for mathematics, but even more so, for geometry. It’s no surprise that the creator’s mind was able to find, in forms, something that not all of us perceive. “When I see these mathematical shapes in a mosque or some other places, I feel like I can see the rules behind it, I can see the mathematics of it,” he said in an interview.
The game works like this: the user chooses a previously created structure and then emulates it using tools (similar to those of a spirograph). These, in turn, bend or move, making geometric patterns. The beauty of Engare is never overshadowed by the seeming cold of its mathematical precision. The highly visual quality is what makes it, despite being a game of exact geometries and measures, an aesthetic exercise rather than a technical one. In the end, it’s a game about art, full of details and delicate curves.
The purpose of the game was never to spread Islamic art, but Bahrami has accepted the idea of reminding the world that the cultures of the Middle East don’t only celebrate war and violence. He shows that their art is among the most sophisticated in the world. While the video game proudly includes characters and numbers in Persian, the art of the region differs still further Western art. The most obvious way is in its resistance to representations of humankind and most other living beings (a religious restriction). This is one reason for the great abstraction of Islamic artistic expression.
Unlike most video games – with simulations of war, races or sports games full of strange caricatures – Engare stands out as an ode to art. Its geometric towers, mosques and mosaic-covered surfaces remind us of the mysterious, deeply emotional language of mathematics.
Related Articles
Pictorial spiritism (a woman's drawings guided by a spirit)
There are numerous examples in the history of self-taught artists which suggest an interrogation of that which we take for granted within the universe of art. Such was the case with figures like
Astounding fairytale illustrations from Japan
Fairy tales tribal stories— are more than childish tales. Such fictions, the characters of which inhabit our earliest memories, aren’t just literary works with an aesthetic and pleasant purpose. They
A cinematic poem and an ode to water: its rhythms, shapes and textures
Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water. - John Keats Without water the equation of life, at least life as we know it, would be impossible. A growing hypothesis holds that water, including the
Watch beauty unfold through science in this "ode to a flower" (video)
The study of the microscopic is one of the richest, most aesthetic methods of understanding the world. Lucky is the scientist who, upon seeing something beautiful, is able to see all of the tiny
To invent those we love or to see them as they are? Love in two of the movies' favorite scenes
So much has been said already, of “love” that it’s difficult to add anything, much less something new. It’s possible, though, perhaps because even if you try to pass through the sieve of all our
This app allows you to find and preserve ancient typographies
Most people, even those who are far removed from the world of design, are familiar with some type of typography and its ability to transform any text, help out dyslexics or stretch an eight page paper
The secrets of the mind-body connection
For decades medical research has recognized the existence of the placebo effect — in which the assumption that a medication will help produces actual physical improvements. In addition to this, a
The sea as infinite laboratory
Much of our thinking on the shape of the world and the universe derives from the way scientists and artists have approached these topics over time. Our fascination with the mysteries of the
Sharing and collaborating - natural movements of the creative being
We might sometimes think that artistic or creative activity is, in essence, individualistic. The Genesis of Judeo-Christian tradition portrays a God whose decision to create the world is as vehement
John Malkovich becomes David Lynch (and other characters)
John Malkovich and David Lynch are, respectively, the actor and film director who’ve implicitly or explicitly addressed the issues of identity and its porous barriers through numerous projects. Now