Author: Tim

The Creative Device Synthetic art has only one principle to it: the creative device.  As a result, the synthetic aesthetic is not bound to any particular medium but rather is a way of being creative…

This is the third part of a series on The Synthetic Aesthetic: artwork which is mechanically made as opposed to handmade ( Part 1 / Part 2 ).  Fractal art borders on this synthetic realm…

In the first part of this series, I introduced a few new ideas which have a central part to play in my concept of the Synthetic Aesthetic.  I believe it might be of great benefit…

This is another one of those theoretical postings; you might want to skip it and go look at some fresh fractal art instead.  But if you’re still interested, in this posting I intend to examine…

What shower of insults and rotten tomatoes are provoked up by such a play on the expression, “Paint by Numbers”?  And yet, to those who know what galactic boundaries are quickly traversed by just a…

Our brains need a vacation.  And what could be a better Brain Resort than the electronic paradises of the fractal realm.  Here’s a sampler of some of the most interesting fractal scenery and composite images…

Yes, fellow patients, and particularly those in the line-up waiting for shock-treatment, we are sometimes gripped by that psychotic condition which I would label, “fractalsport”. What is fractalsport?  You know what fractalsport is and are…

First, let me explain.  I make such a bold statement not because I hate fractals (or fractal artists) but because I love fractals and include myself among the hopelessly deluded. A quaint anecdote I came…

With 3D printing technology, fractal art can cheaply and easily enter the domain of sculpture.  It’s an exciting development and offers the ever dazzling world of fractals another venue in which to capture that proverbial…

From the developer’s, Tim Day’s site: Fracplanet is an interactive tool for creating random fractal planets and terrain areas with oceans, rivers, lakes and icecaps. The results can be exported as models to POV-Ray and…

Stop what you're doing, forget everything you know --and just jump into fractals! Synthetic. That's a good word in computer art. You like synthetic things if you like computer art. There's too much color in…

Dave Makin, in a thread over at Fractalforums.com suggested that the mandelbulb deserves more attention: Anyhow, while still shaking my head and wondering (like taurus66 in the quote) why anyone would be interested in that…

I travel the internet, I make “Viewmarks” of artwork worth reviewing, and sometimes I end up with little scraps of things that I just can’t seem to fit into a proper blog posting.  But I…

DorianoArt has a real talent for mixing fractals with photography and doing it with style.  It’s not the typical marriage between earthy fractals and leafy scenery.  It’s more like an extraterrestrial romance between mother earth…

Back, several postings ago, when I reviewed the latest Fractalforums.com calendar, I heaped abuse on Pauldelbrot’s image from his Mandelbrot Safari series calling it retro and not cutting-edge.  The owner of Fractalforums.com and publisher of…

There’s a theme that binds all these images together but I can’t seem to find the right words for it.  Freaky; harmonic; other worldly; sacred symbols; journey into mystery: they all fit for some but…

Like the elegant orchids and other surface-dwelling plant species called epiphytes, image comments can have a richness and uniqueness that is surprising when one considers their tiny size and extremely casual origin. And also like…

Arvinder Bawa recently had a showing of his fractal artworks in Laredo, Cantabria, Spain at the Sala Ruas gallery.  The poster explains it best: ~Click on images to view full-size on original site~ Arvinder has…

~Click on images to view full-size on original site~ Just a neon sign, cloudy sky and moon, but what a transformation.  A number of 3d fractalists refer to having an “architectural style” and here you…

Fractalforums.com’s owner, Christian Kleinhuis (aka Trifox) is attempting to put out another fractal art calendar this year.  I reviewed last year’s and called it, “The Best Fractal Calendar Ever!“. I hope that review scored me…

Does it seem that no one has any interest in the old, 2D fractal images anymore?  And furthermore, does it seem that since the advent of the 3D fractal craze that there are more fractal…

I found his gallery on Flickr during a routine search of the word, “fractal”.  I clicked on a couple of unusual looking thumbnails and quickly headed straight to his main gallery page. ~ Click on…

Hey!  Wasn’t Orbit Trap supposed to be closed down?  Wasn’t Orbit Trap supposed to be finished with and over and all that sort of thing? Well, let me explain.  In short, I got tired of…

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 (hourly?) publishing,…

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 don’t fall…

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 debate” everyone…

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…

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 to the…

"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,…

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 Townsend which…

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…

“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 my recent…

A collection of uniquely rendered fractal things. And a few that are just traditionally intriguing.

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, the various…

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 on images…

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 only one…