From simple shapes, audio-visual arrangements emerge that react to touch or gesture. “Magnets” references the tradition of ancient geometric puzzles – from the tangram to Archimedes’ Stomachion – combining it with intuitive play and digital precision.

“Magnets” is one of the simpler Miniatures, exploring the interrelationships of visual and audio compositions composed of several simple elements. In addition to control via a touchscreen or mouse/touchpad, it allows for gestural control and the “pinch”/grab gesture using the index finger and thumb. The latter mechanism is built on a combination of AI image perception (hand detection) and a traditionally algorithmic system that interprets the position and movement of the hand as “grab,” “release,” or transfer. “Magnets” is one of the classic Miniatures, accompanying the family program at the WRO Art Center since the exhibition “Traces” (2020), curated by Małgorzata Gawlik.

Besides the obvious analogy to the magnets used to attach photos, notes, and so on to refrigerator doors, Miniatura draws loose inspiration from the ancient Greek stomachion (also known as Archimedes’ box) and the Chinese-origin puzzle known as the tangram (this name likely comes from English) or 七巧板 (Chinese). A tangram is a set of seven geometric pieces (triangles, squares, parallelograms) created by cutting a square. There are many ways to use the set, including playing a game of reproducing a pattern designed by someone else based on its outer contours. Proto-tangrams were constructed by, among others, the famous Song Dynasty polymath Huang Bosi (黄伯思) and the renowned mathematician Liu Hui (劉徽) who lived during the Three Kingdoms period. There’s a theory that the tangram was a visual computational tool that aided research in geometry. It’s also worth noting that an alternative, completely false (and legendary for its blatant baselessness) story of the tangram was circulated in 1908 by American chess player and amateur mathematician Samuel Loyd in his book “The Eighth Book of Tan.”