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Yanyuwa Song The Yanyuwa aborigines of northwestern Australia believe that music literally has curative properties. In one traditional method, the healer sings a medicine song directly into the top of the head of the patient. The sound circulates through the body, driving out the illness or unease. I was fascinated by the idea of the healing power of music, but more interesting is that when I began the sketches for "Yanyuwa Song," I found that the image spiralled in the exact pattern of the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci code is a pattern of numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.) that increase by adding each pair of numbers together to produce the next one in the sequence. (This sounds confusing, but it's easy when you try it. 1+1=2 1+2=3 2+3=5, etc.) The Fibonacci sequence can be found in many places, from the spiral growth of shells to the spiral arms of a galaxy. I hadn't realized the connection between the sketch I'd made and the Fibonacci spiral until much later -- when I compared the two, I found an exact match. Somehow the image didn't seem "right" until it had this exact shape. Interesting. For more about the Yanyuwa: click here To learn more about the Fibonacci sequence: click here |
"Yanyuwa Song " (2008) |
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About the Fibonacci Sequence: "This simple, seemingly unremarkable recursive sequence has fascinated mathematicians for centuries. Its properties illuminate an array of surprising topics, from the aesthetic doctrines of the ancient Greeks to the growth patterns of plants. "This number was known to the ancient Greeks and was called by them the Golden Mean. It is usually denoted by the Greek letter f (phi), and sometimes by m (mu). They believed that the proportion f:1 was the most most pleasing, indeed the aesthetically perfect proportion, and all of their artwork, sculpture, and especially architecture made use of this proportion. A rectangle whose sides had this proportion was called the Golden Rectangle. (And that is the shape being more and more closely approximated by the “spiralling rectangles” at right.) |
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