Theme and variation in nature and culture | Peter Randall-Page | TEDxExeter

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Theme and variation are commonly associated with music. They are also ubiquitous in nature, but hardly noticed.

Thank you very much for the introduction.
Good afternoon everybody.

I've called my talk "Theme and Variation",

and that's a term which obviously is
most commonly associated with music.

But I want to talk today

about theme and variation
in relation to natural phenomena

and the way in which the study

of that natural phenomenon,
theme and variation,

has influenced my work as an artist.

In a way, the thing I want to talk about
is so ubiquitous that we hardly notice it,

and yet it drives
the universe that we live in.

The picture you see
on the screen is me age six

looking at fossils that were sent to me
by the Natural History Museum.

It's hard to imagine
that happening these days,

but I was a keen fossil collector

and I wrote, with my parents help,

to the Natural History Museum for advice
about where I might find fossils.

To everybody's amazement,
a few weeks later,

this incredible box of fossils turned up.

I was very dyslexic as a child,

which is why I had to have help
with the letter,

to such an extent that I couldn't read
at all until I was about 12,

which meant my understanding of the world

was much more to do
with direct observation.

I didn't have access
to information through reading.

This is one of the fossils
that I was looking at in that picture.

We're naturally drawn to patterns,
to symmetries, to ordering things.

We're drawn to flowers
and butterflies, and spiral shapes.

One very quickly notices that one finds
similar kinds of patterns

in seemingly very, very different contexts

produced by, often,
diametrically opposite processes.

The other thing
that I suppose one realizes

is that it's almost like
there's a kind of pattern book of form.

A limited, surprisingly limited,
pattern book of form

on which all the variations
that we see around us are based.

We intuitively have a sense of the balance

between theme and variation,
between order and randomness,

and we take a pleasure in that.

In a way, this limited pattern book
could be rationalized

as driving
the evolutionary process itself.

If one thinks of spontaneous
pattern formation

mitigated by random variation,

without that, actually,
the evolutionary process wouldn't happen.

There would just be stasis.
Everything would stay the same.

If one imagines variation, randomness,
without the ordering principle,

well, it's almost impossible to imagine
what that would look like.

It would be undifferentiated
chaos in many ways.

You see the examples here
of the branching patterns of a tree,

which are to do with sap
being drawn up by evaporation,

and the river going
in the opposite direction.

These underlying themes
that I'm calling them,

or ordering principles,

are best understood in terms of geometry.

Mathematics is the study of patterns,

and geometry is the way

in which we can best
understand these things.

This is the Giant's Causeway

caused by the shrinking of molten magma
to create this hexagonal packing.

Another example of hexagonal packing

but produced by
completely different processes:

this is a picture of a bit
of hornet's nest from my attic, actually,

and we see the same hexagonal packing.

But the other thing that one notices
very quickly is that, of course,

neither the Giant's Causeway packing
nor the hornet's nest packing

are actually geometrically perfect.

One could argue that pure geometry
only really exists in our imaginations.

We extrapolate from many examples
to find the archetypal geometric form.

The classic example of theme
and variation is snowflakes

because it's so obvious
and so awe-inspiring

when you look at a whole load of snow

that we know they're all hexagonal
and yet no two are ever the same.

We instinctively
understand this relationship,

and we take pleasure in it

on an emotional
as well as an intellectual level.

One takes pleasure in that frisson

between the dangerous
unpredictability of variation

and the reassurance of theme

as you can see in these pollen grains
which have very obvious geometry,

but at the same time, one can see

the very strong variations and differences
between each particular example.

Of course, variation, by definition,
cannot exist as a singularity.

The whole point about variation is
that you have to have a number of things

in order to compare them.

In terms of art, variation implies
playfulness and expression.

For that reason, much of my work
is built up in sequences.

So by comparison
between the different examples,

which one can see are all related
- we all recognise walnut kernels -

but they are very, very different
from one another,

and by making sequences of drawings

where I allow myself to actually go
with what they suggest to me,

- because the more you look
at walnut kernels

the more they remind you of other things -

in a sense one builds up
a set of different expressive qualities

by that process of comparison,

by comparison with
their siblings, if you like.

The other thing that I think
is very powerful for me

about something like these walnut kernels

is that we seem to respond
very strongly to bilateral symmetry

as in Rorschach's famous inkblot test
that he developed in 1921,

the psychological inkblot test.

I think there's a simple reason for this.

I think, because we are ourselves,
more or less, bilaterally symmetrical,

we're so attuned to reading

expression and meaning
into bilateral symmetry.

This is another kind of pattern in nature.

This is a fascinating pattern

that is seen very much
in botanical forms, in plant growth.

This pine cone is a good example of it

but we see the same
in fir cones, in pineapples,

in the arrangements of leaves on a plant.

It's to do with efficiency.
It's to do with efficient packing.

It's a way in the world of botanical form

that is actually using geometry
through millions of years of evolution

to achieve this packing.

It's mathematically
very interesting and complex,

it relates both to the Fibonacci Sequence
and the golden proportion,

and it's also visually very beguiling,

we immediately notice,
because we are looking for patterns,

we notice these opposing spirals

and it's mathematically
extremely specific.

When I was asked to work
on a project at the Eden Project

for a new education building,

I wanted to make something

rather than to do with variation,
more to do with something archetypal.

I thought this particular
geometric phenomena,

which is called spiral phyllotaxis,

would be - because it's
so pervasive in plants -

a good motif to use.

Actually, we designed the roof structure
based on this principle,

and I made a very large granite sculpture
which sits at the heart of the building

which you can see in the picture there.

Interestingly, in a scientific experiment

where electrically charged particles
of oil were dropped

into a circular Petri dish
at regular intervals,

repel one another

and after a while, they naturally produced

this extremely complex
and very specific pattern.

This is another kind of chemical pattern.

This is a high magnification image
of two chemicals that won't mix.

I became very fascinated
with looking at these images

and looked at lots of them,

and started to try and analyze
what the underlying principles were

that determine this pattern.

Actually, it comes down
to just two very, very simple rules.

You can go on developing that pattern
and inventing in a playful way

- and the idea of playfulness
is very important to me as an artist -

without repeating yourself
but still using these same rules.

For me, this kind of pattern,
and working with this kind of pattern,

was very much to do

with a kind of visual evocation
of improvisation in music.

I suppose I was thinking of jazz
or of Baroque music,

and all the variations and permutations.

I decided to make a large piece of work
painting on canvas

which you can see there.

The other extraordinary thing
about this inorganic chemical phenomena

is that most of the stripy animals
we see, and fish, in nature:

zebras, tigers, and so on,

this chemical phenomena
produces those patterns.

When the creature
is at a very early embryonic stage,

these two chemicals
are secreted onto its surface,

and they lay down a chemical pattern

which later on with pigmentation kicks in

to produce the kind of camouflage patterns
that we see on the mackerel

that you can see on the screen behind me.

So I wanted to play with that idea

both the musical idea,
the improvisational, the playful idea,

and the expressive nature of the pattern,

and also to allude
to that idea of camouflage

because those patterns in animals
are very often used for camouflage.

The piece of work
you see on the screen there

is the result of this.

It's called "Rocks in my Bed"

which is after the wonderful
Duke Ellington blues number.

In the foreground, on the canvas,
are naturally eroded boulders

painted with this same technique,
with this same system

so they kind of blend into the background.

Another way in which I've worked
with the concept of theme and variation

is in trying to embrace
the idea of chance.

Variation implies an element of chance.

A sort of "how else could it be"
kind of curiosity.

So I've often chosen ways to work

where I choose a random element,
and a structuring principle,

and bring those two together
in such a way

that between the two
I have space to play and invent.

Naturally eroded boulders
are pretty much as near as one could get

to random three-dimensional form.

They're formed
by innumerable chance events

over a geological timescale
back to the beginning of the Earth,

so they really are nothing to do
with the human being.

In this case, you can see that I'm laying
over that a geodesic structure

which is a complete network
over the whole surface.

What's interesting to me

is the way in which, what was
just quite an amorphous shape,

when it's structured in this way,

one is able to perceive the form
so much more intensely.

It slows your eye down.

The increments of the form
enable you to see where it's bulging;

the individual hexagons and pentagons
swell and get bigger,

where it's relatively even and flat
they go into a regular packing,

and where it's concave,
they all get scrunched up together.

This may seem a rather incongruous image
to throw in the middle of all this,

but, of course, exactly the same principle
applies to the fishnet tights.

They enhance
our understanding of the form.

They make us see the form more clearly.

They give us a sense of where it's pushing
and shrinking and so on.

And, of course, that's why
fishnet tights are very good

at being able to enhance
our appreciation of a leg.

This is a group of stones
- we're back to stones again, I'm afraid -

this is a group of pieces
which use that principle.

The thing about this is, of course,
I've strangely, as a sculptor,

relinquished the responsibility
of the overall shape.

That's become a given.

But I'm very interested in what happens
while my brain is busy with the puzzle

of trying to make the reconciliation
between this random lumpen thing,

nothing to do with anything human at all,

and my structuring principle.

Actually, there's surprising room
for unselfconscious play and invention.

And, for me, making art is all about
getting one's head into a space

where you can unselfconsciously play.

So actually, what I'm
fundamentally interested in

is not stones, not clay, not charcoal,

I'm interested in what makes us tick.

And all the ways that I develop to work
are to do with trying to find ways

I can unselfconsciously bring that out,

rather than illustrating ideas.

The rule here is just a continuous line,

rather as Paul Klee would have said,
"Taking a line for a walk."

So it's one continuous line,
my own self-imposed discipline.

But, of course, there are
an infinite number of ways

that one could traverse
a form with a line.

So, while I'm trying to reconcile the two,
I'm also being playful.

With these works, I've taken, really,
the diametrically opposite approach.

With these pieces, the forms themselves
are highly ordered, highly regular.

They're like curvaceous versions
of the five Platonic solids

which are the five
fundamental regular polyhedra.

But the material is utterly chaotic.

The material is like gas,
or like swirling liquids.

And, of course, when the material
was formed deep in the ground,

it was a melange of molten material

which then, literally, is petrified

and I've kind of rationalized
that chaotic thing

into something
which is very highly ordered.

The sort of shapes you see
in atomic and molecular structures,

and crystalline structures,
and right the way through,

because it's basically
the way stuff fits together.

It's the laws of physics and the way
things fit together in our universe.

Back to spirals again.

I hope now that you might get
a sense of how pervasive

this theme and variation is on all scales.

And, theme and variation, in a sense,
are two sides of the same coin.

Theme without variation
would be just monotony, endless monotony.

Variation without theme
would be chaotic and almost unimaginable.

But the two combined,
the relationship between them,

produces creativity
both in the natural world and in art.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)