Math isn’t always numbers on a chalkboard. Sometimes it’s a work of art—a swirl of repeating lizards, 3-D printed in Penn State blue and white, then installed in a building where math, art, and science intersect. The lizards blend together in a hypnotic pattern, each appearing to shrink as it spirals toward infinity.
The piece, Lizards thatTessellate the Hyperbolic Disk, was imagined by Dr. Joseph Previte, professor of mathematics, who wanted to capture the beauty of mathematics in a form anyone could see.
He took the design to the James R. Meehl Innovation Commons, the college’s open ideation lab, where engineering students Anthony Farrar and Quinlan Barnes transformed Previte’s concept into reality with 3-D-printed tiles and a sharp eye for symmetry.
The result is art born from math—or perhaps math revealed as art.
Dutch artist M.C. Escher showed the world that geometry could be beautiful with his mesmerizing tessellations and optical illusions, where patterns unfolded in ways both precise and poetic.
“For centuries, mathematicians questioned the value of studying this type of geometry, dismissed it as impractical and useless, with no relation to reality,” Previte said. “But it later proved essential to modern science, including helping Einstein describe how time and space work in his theory of relativity.”
While some mathematicians ridiculed the study of abstract math, others reveled in it. English mathematician G.H. Hardy argued that mathematics was a pure art form, divorced from practicality—something he took great pride in. Hardy’s theories later laid the groundwork for encryption, proving that beauty and utility often travel together.
That same tension—between abstraction and application, imagination and reality—now hangs on the wall at Behrend.
Lizards that Tessellate the Hyperbolic Disk joins an existing sculpture, Math in Flight, a stage-5 Sierpinski tetrahedron, a fractal shape featuring a pattern of infinite triangles, that hangs high above the entrance to Roche Hall in the Science Complex.
Math Club students built the sculpture using Zometool construction parts. It consists of 2,050 white balls and 6,144 red-and-blue struts.
Previte has plans to continue adding to the mathematics art gallery.
“I’d like to do the Platonic solids next,” he said. “I am currently looking for a student in Innovation Commons to make that project a reality.”
This spring, students in Dr. Matthew Levy’s AMST 307N: American Art and Society course at Penn State Behrend engaged in a unique interdisciplinary project that blended historical analysis with creative expression. As part of the course, students worked in groups to create tableaux vivants—or “living pictures”—that reenact and recontextualize iconic works of American art that were discussed in class.
Not only did students have to study the formal and thematic elements of a chosen painting, but they also had to consider its relevance to contemporary social and cultural issues.
“Working in groups, they researched their chosen work, gaining a deeper understanding of the social issues it represented,” said Levy, associate professor of art history, music, theatre, and visual arts.
Each group then reimagined their selected artwork for a 21st-century context, using modern props, settings, and interpretations to bridge the past and the present.
“They had to think carefully about props, poses, setting, framing, and more to bring the work of art into modern times,” Levy explained.
Here are several standout projects from the class, along with insights from Levy on what made each piece compelling.
Distant View of Niagara Falls by Thomas Cole: “Where Cole’s view of Niagara Falls depicts the untouched majesty of the falls (represented both by the landscape and the presence of the Native Americans living at one with nature), the students depicted a domesticated and technologized landscape. Using the Wintergreen Gorge as their setting, they drew attention to the power lines, nature trail, and the use of phones to mediate our experience with nature.”
Domestic Happiness by Lilly Martin Spencer: “In the original painting, Spencer offers what was a progressive view of family life for the time, with both mother and father doting on their children. Our students instead depicted a “girl boss” showering praise on the domestic accomplishments of her stay-at-home husband. Notably, no children are present.”
War News from Mexico by Richard Caton Woodville. “Woodville’s painting depicts the latest in information technology—the penny press—which made journalism far more accessible than ever before. Our students depicted a scene in which everyone is responding to the news, not in the shared experience represented by Woodville, but each on their own through their phones and tablets.”
McSorley’s Bar by John Sloan: “Sloan’s painting depicts a scene of working-class sociability in a male-only bar. Our students represented a scene of co-ed sociability in Bruno’s Café on the campus of Penn State Behrend. Again, the presence of devices mediates human-to-human connection. Note how the student group considered the framing of the shot, mirroring the lights and memorabilia on the walls of the original.
Fun fact:McSorely’s Old Ale House is New York City’s oldest continuously operated saloon. The bar did not admit women until it was forced to do so in 1970.”
ABOUT THE COURSE
AMST 307N: American Art and Society covers the history of art in the English colonies and the United States from the seventeenth century to the present, examined through paintings, sculpture, buildings, prints and photographs, as well as exhibitions and national/world fairs.
The course is designed to meet two principal goals. The first is to increase students’ powers of visual analysis and help them build a critical vocabulary for discussing an art object’s medium, composition, style, and iconography. The second is to foster an understanding of the deep implication of the visual arts in their social and cultural contexts.
Four Score, a barbershop quartet that includes three Behrend students and one alumnus, perform the National Anthem at a home track meet at Penn State Behrend in spring 2024.
One of the most amazing aspects of college is that a single class can have a profound effect on your life. It might inspire you to change your career plans. It might be the place you meet your best friend or future spouse. It might ignite a lifelong passion or lead you to a place you never expected.
Max Rohl, a senior Interdisciplinary Science and Business major, never dreamed he would be on stage accepting first place in a barbershop quartet competition in Rochester, New York. He had never even sung in a group until he signed up for Concert Choir class in his first year at Behrend.
“Some of us in the class started a kind of club where we would meet up in Ohio Hall to work on our songs,” Rohl said.
One night, at the end of a choir meet-up, he asked if anyone in the group had any other styles of songs they wanted to work on. Rohl, who had been a fan of the barbershop quartet classic, 76 Trombones, was about to suggest barbershop songs when Wade Williams, now a junior History major, said, “I’ve always wanted to start a Barbershop Quartet.”
“Me, too,” Rohl said.
Wade is a bass singer, Rohl is a baritone, so they needed a tenor and a lead.
They found both in Joey George, a senior Computer Engineering major, who had grown up singing in choirs and at church and could sing both tenor and lead.
The trio looked all over Behrend for a fourth member before Wade did an internet search and found Lake Erie Sound, an established Erie barbershop chorus. He reached out to its leader, John Donohue, who directs the chorus of about two dozen men.
“He probably thought, ‘Why are these college kids bugging me?’ but we talked him into coming to listen and sing with us,” Rohl said.
After that one practice, Donohue, a 2015 Mechanical Engineering alumnus, was in.
“It just sounded so good when we sang together that I knew we had to put our efforts toward getting better and refining our performance,” Donohue said.
The group began practicing a couple of times a week, meeting when Donohue, who is about ten years older and has a job and family, could join them.
“It was great to meet young people who had been bitten by the ‘barbershop bug,’” Donohue said. “They were eager from the start and soaked up any knowledge I shared with them.”
They chose a name—Four Score Quartet—and performed the National Anthem at a Behrend home track meet in the spring. They hadn’t considered doing much more until Donohue mentioned a nearby competition—the Seneca Land District of Barbershop Harmony Society District Competition in Rochester, New York.
“He said, ‘Hey, there’s this competition in twenty days. Do you guys want to do it?’” Rohl said.
They not only did it; they won it and were named district champions.
“John was not surprised, but we were!” Rohl said.
The group sang four songs, two in preliminaries and two in the finals: “Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie,” “A Son of the Sea,” “Sweet and Lovely,” and “That Old Black Magic,” which earned them their highest score of the day. Each song is scored separately, and then song scores are added together to get a final score.
If it sounds easy, Rohl will assure you that it is not.
“It’s actually really difficult to sing barbershop harmony, but I love challenging myself and doing hard things,” Rohl said. “When you have to work hard at something, mastering it is much more rewarding.”
Barbershop singing is different from any other type of choral group singing but it still requires plenty of talent and practice.
“Although the technique is different than in a classical choir, it’s still very demanding from a musical perspective and can really push an individual both vocally and emotionally,” Donohue said.
Donohue is happy to see younger people interested in barbershop quartet and said that while it is sometimes viewed as an old-fashioned type of singing, that perception is changing.
“In the past ten to fifteen years, quartets have began to adopt more musical theater pieces and songs from pop-culture,” he said.
Winning the competition solidified the students’ commitment to the quartet.
“We’re all very dedicated to it now, even more so than before,” said Rohl.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, every barbershop had its own quartet. The term “barbershop” in reference to harmonizing was first documented in 1910, alongside the release of the song Play That Barbershop Chord.
During this time, barbers were more than just hairdressers; they also pulled teeth and performed minor surgeries. Barbershops gradually became social hubs where locals could gather, play instruments, and sing while waiting for their turn in the chair.
DID YOU KNOW?
Barbershop harmony is believed to be rooted in the Bllack community. According to a post on The Barbershop Harmony Society blog: “Lynn Abbott, a jazz archivist at Tulane University, was an expert on early African-American popular music and gospel quartets. He discovered overwhelming evidence that barbershop quartetting was pervasive in African-American culture in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including among many men who went on to become the pioneers of jazz. Abbott published his findings in a 1992 academic paper that forever changed the way Barbershoppers understand their roots.”
The Four Score Barbershop Quartet includes, from left, John Donohue ’15, and Behrend students, Joey George, Wade Williams, and Max Rohl.
Students in Photo 202: Fundamentals of Professional Photography recently completed a photo essay project based on “The Land Ethic,” an essay written by Aldo Leopold in 1949 that argues for a deeper connection between humans and the natural world.
Leopold suggests that humans need to expand their concept of ethics beyond just people and animals to include the land—soil, water, plants, and more. The “land” is not something we own, but something we are a part of, and we should treat it with care and respect. Leopold proposes that we should think of ourselves as caretakers, responsible for maintaining balance and harmony with nature.
Urban park. CREDIT: Chelsea Quijas
Tommy Hartung, assistant professor of digital media, arts, and technology, instructed students in the class to choose an area and create a series of five 360-degree panoramic images that document the landscape and the biome it contains.
“The site they chose could be anywhere from urban to complete wilderness,” Hartung said. “Students were also required to take notes documenting the ecosystem and use their notes to draft a 500-word essay to go with the images.”
A second part of the assignment involved time-lapse photography.
“The element of time and motion related to photography has allowed humans to see systems develop by compacting time into short motion clips,” Hartung said. “It allows a focus that the human experience may overlook about the location.”
Dobbin’s Landing in Erie. CREDIT: Evan Gerdes
The students’ essays are impressive and thought-provoking. See for yourself at the links below:
BEHREND BLOG 