So long, and thanks for all the fish
Orbit Trap is closing down. This is the last and final post you will be reading here. No, this is not a joke. After almost 6 years of continuous weekly and sometimes daily...
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On Style 7
Surfing Squirrel by Maria K. Lemming I Know What I Like — Or Do I? Part Three: I may not always know why I like a given work of art, but I...
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On Style 6
FaeryRing by Jennifer Stewart [Click on images to view full-size.] I Know What I Like — Or Do I? Part Two: I began recent entries in this series outlining with some certainty...
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On Style 5
Fly Me to the Moon by Tina Oloyede I Know What I Like — Or Do I? Part One: Last time, I was on surer footing as I attempted to explain why...
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On Style 4
The Listening Heaven by Elizabeth Mansco I Know What I Like My aesthetic sensibilities apparently run counter to the prevailing grain when it comes to my personal taste in fractal art. Photography,...
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Phase Two: Byte 2
Three Gravity Stools by Jólan van der Wiel [Click on images to view full size.] Tim’s third eye opened (again) and recently puzzled out the mysteries of fractal art’s Phase Three. But...
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“Special” Holiday Fractal Finds
There is fractal art and there is the analysis of fractal art, and then there’s fractal events: contests, calendars and the occasional news item. But then there are those occasional “things” that just...
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Phase 3: The Relentless Pursuit of Color, Shape and Pattern
We’ve all watched or taken part in, at sometime or another, that great quest to “define” fractal art. Although few members of the fractal world seem very interested in this sort of “constitutional...
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Phase Two: Byte 1
Fractal Alchemy (Detail) by Carl Scrase Now that the decorative dust has settled from the most recent (and oftentimes lamest) iteration of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC), I figure it’s time...
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Best Fractal Calendar Ever!
Christian Kleinhuis of Fractalforums.com has just published a 2010 fractal calendar. Featuring the best artwork form Fractalforums.com and printed large size and spiral bound, it hopefully marks a new era in fractal art publishing. A review of the images and background on how the project came about.
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Apophysis + Deviant Art = Flaming Piles of Garbage
Let’s just jump to the heart of the matter: Why is Deviant Art such a garbage dump? What is it about fractal art, and especially the flame fractal category in particular that leads...
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The Echo of El Greco
"Sheeny", distorted and shadowy: Is it not the echo of El Greco? I like the simple title, too. The image is simple but potent. In this tiny drop of formula there is river, desert, mountains, sky, clouds and eternal silence.
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Flame Fractals: Get the Fire Extinguisher!
My continuing Odyssey in the seas of Deviant Art has brought me to what I shall refer to as the island of Apophysis, that being the great flame fractal program created by Mark...
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Fractal Paintings of Tralfamadore
The intersection of Brummbaer (he doesn't use a first name) and fractal art is something worth taking a second, and more careful look at. Brummbaer brings with him several decades of graphical and artistic experience and his "Tralfamadore" series of images are worth studying as well as appreciating for their fractal-ness. There's something to be learned from Brummbaer's fractal artworks.
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My Deviant Art Odyssey
“A lot of the people I hang out with at dA are the same people that are at Fractal Forums…” Hal Tenny said that in a comment here on Orbit Trap recently. After...
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Renderfeast!
A collection of uniquely rendered fractal things. And a few that are just traditionally intriguing.
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Fitz vs. The BMFAC 2011
As the Robin Hood of the Fractal Kingdom, I feel compelled to take up the cause of our fellow countryman, “Fitz” and right the wrongs of the evil Prince John and his minions,...
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Wormhole!
Fresh and only recently uploaded to Fractalforms.com, the Times Square of Fractalville, comes this modestly named image, Stable Wormhole. Created by none other than the author of the famous Mayan-something images, Reallybigname… ~Click...
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Hello Everybody!
Sometimes I just like to share interesting things that I find online that I think will be of interest to Orbit Trap readers who are “on the same wavelength” as me. Perhaps that’s...
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A Golden Straight-Jacket for Madman
It’s not often I click on fractal videos these days. Video is just tricky with fractals, especially when you’re trying to combine it with music or some sort of meaningful sound. But when...
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Why the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011 Won’t Work
Or: Why the Offline Promotion of Fractal Art is a Waste of Time Here are 6 reasons: There is no such thing as “Great” Fractal Art This is the key problem, really. I...
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Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011: Judging Part 2
And another thing… If you’ve only got one or two judges then there’s nothing that really needs to be explained. But when you’ve got 12… one would naturally wonder how a much more...
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The Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011: Judging the Judging
If they’re going to… not consider a second artwork by any artist rearrange the judging results to include a “wider range” of styles declare in the rules they don’t want “garish” art let...
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Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011 Losers Announced
In case you haven’t seen them, the winning images are all here. Of the 25 winning images which will make up the entire exhibit shown sometime within the next year, there’s only really...
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The 2011 BMFAC Winners Are Announced
Why don’t I ever seem to get better, Dr. Jones? [Image seen here.] I feel strangely unmotivated to write about the 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) "winners" this go-around. I’m...
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An Art Form of Shape and Color
By looking at all these weird fish images my hope is that you’ll stop seeing them as fish and start seeing them simply as objects of shape and color. ~Click on images to...
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Image Spam vs The World! -some advice for Fractalforums.com
It had to happen sometime. Fractalforums.com is a wide-open, free access forum that allows image uploads. And many fractal artists subscribe to the old belief that if you throw enough “stuff” at the...
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A Fractal Made Me Smile!
If you’ve been following my recent revolutionary thoughts about fractal art you may have noticed a few comments posted by readers here and in other venues relating to emotional experiences and feelings triggered...
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Hardwired Brain Fractals
Who knew this was a documentary? [Image seen here.] It’s been a rather heavy week in science. An international scientific team in Italy claims to have recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than the...
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Scenes Inside the Goldmine
Why do people make fractal art? Well, actually they don't make it so much as they find it... steal it... dig it out of the dirt. Some of the best pieces of fractal art are things just picked up off the floor of the gold mine. The fractal miners don't call them art. They don't call them anything. They're named by where they were found or by a date.
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Fractals: A New Medium
I think I’ve found a better way to explain what makes fractal art so different than other art forms. The differences are there simply because fractals themselves are a different medium to work...
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A Fistful of Fractals
~Click on images to view full size on original site~ Mayan Trickster by reallybigname was a great piece of design but this one here by Jesse Dierks is what I would call a...
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Reallybigname = Reallygreatstuff
The only place I ever go on a regular basis to see fractal art is Fractalforums.com. I don't pay much attention to the names only the artwork. So when a name like "reallybigname" becomes familiar to me it can only be because he's been consistently uploading interesting work.
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More Manifesto Retorting
Some time has now passed since Tim posted his thoughts on "The Fractal Art Manifesto" — basically arguing that Kerry Mitchell’s document glorifies the artist’s role and downplays the computer’s contribution. Mitchell, in...
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Speak, Fractalbookers!
How dare you? Really, really, really… [Image seen here.] It seems a flash mob of Fractalbookers has lowered the drawbridge and surged out of their virtual fortress. Upon hearing Kerry Mitchell’s clarion call...
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The Fractal Art Manifesto Revisited
While it may not be as well known today as it has been in the past, The Fractal Art Manifesto, written back in 1999 by Kerry Mitchell, is one of the very few...
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