The thumbnail looks great, but the full-size image is unexpectedly disappointing.  Although I’ve experienced this often enough as I’m sure many other viewers have, I realize that it’s probably just the opposite of what one would expect.  One would expect the thumbnail image to be a degraded form of the larger image and not the other way around.  Of course, that’s the way it usually is, but it’s odd how thumbnails can sometimes look better than the originals.

Just why would that ever happen?  I’ve considered some reasons for this and I think it has something to do with how people make fractal artwork.

1. Too much detail and no central focus.  When a thumbnail is created it almost always results in loss of detail and blurring of the image.  The result is that smaller elements in the image merge into the background and only the largest are noticeable.  It’s the sort of thing people often try to accomplish with masking except the process is cruder (and much faster).  The result is a greatly simplified and subsequently more focused and less chaotic image.

2. Some images just look better when they’re smaller.  It’s hard to believe, but I think it has something to do with my first point in that our perception of the image is better when we can see it all in a single glance and without turning our head or moving our eyes much.  This happens in offline art galleries; people will sometimes take a few steps back to view a large work of art instead of moving forward to see more detail.  That’s why some of the Great Masters look better as cheap souvenir prints bought in the gallery gift shop than they do as the original hanging in the gallery.

3.  Some images have a great color scheme but really ugly content.  The thumbnail boils that ugly stuff down to just a few tiny, but really glorious, gradients and color combinations.  This is one that always tricks me into clicking on a thumbnail.  There’s something about good color that just excites the visual mind and makes it a tough act for the details of the full size image to follow.  Similarly, some images make better palettes than they do artwork.  The thumbnail contains all there is that’s worthwhile about the image.

4. The Proverbial Art-Hammer.  The process of creating a thumbnail is both creative and to some degree destructive.  The transformative effect usually produces a less interesting image but sometimes the result is better because it does things to the image that careful, fussy artists would never do, that is, blur the entire image all at once with one click.  It’s like one of those wierdo photoshop filters that makes you wonder why anyone would want to make (much less ever repeat) such a simple, degrading effect, until one day you try it on something without really thinking and the result is polished and professional.

Well, there you go.  Thumbnails can occasionally teach us something.  I once saved a thumbnail of mine because it looked so good.  I had to do a screen shot of it because I couldn’t duplicate the effect by simply resizing the image.  The thumnails created by the image viewer for file browsing were made with such a low quality process that no other graphical function could produce the same brutal effect.

Maybe someday thumbnails will be a category of digital art all their own.

May 2009 Cover of the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy at amcp.org

2009 Fractal Universe Calendar Image Gallery at Fractalforum.com

It’s not a big deal or anything and the artist, Keith MacKay, as author of the work, and I would naturally assume also the holder of the copyright for it, is free to do whatever he likes with the image but to me it raises even yet still one more question about the mysterious Fractal Universe Calendar: What exactly is Avalanche Publishing paying for if artists are free to re-publish their selected calendar images elsewhere? Could the artists publish their own calendars and include their winning images in them?

It sure looks like a pretty strange set up to me, although, fortunately, one in which the artists are getting the upper hand for a change. Normally I would expect any commercial publisher to require some degree of exclusivity when they pay for the use of an image, especially when those images are such specialized creative artwork like that of the Fractal Universe Calendar. I mean, if those images can be sold to other publishers then that would reduce the value of them, I would think.

…and especially when that artwork is the front cover of the calendar!

But then the whole Fractal Universe Calendar has been one long series of secrets anyhow. Why don’t they just put this sort of information on their website so everyone knows how the whole thing works? That’s what makes this double published image so intriguing to me: obviously there’s a lot more (that is, a lot less) to the deal between Avalanche Publishing and the contest winners and their selected images than one would expect if the image chosen for the front cover of the calendar can appear on the front cover of a magazine –in the same year. What rights does Avalanche Publishing get for the four hundred or so dollars that they pay for their images?  Evidently, all they get is the right to publish the images once in their calendar (and the mini version of the calendar if they decide to print one).  Artists reserve the right to do whatever they want with their images even submit them as cover art for magazines in the same year.

Hey, that’s a nice deal!

Senorita’s New Attire by Rich Jarzombek.  Click for larger image.

The general field of Fractal Art abounds in pictures that may be largely described as beautiful random designs or geometric shapes. It is rare to find Fractal Art pictures that strongly portray substantive images such as people or specific objects. However, it is the intent of Realistic Fractals to restrict itself solely to the creation of such substantive images.
(from http://realisticfractals.com/introduction.html)

Arab Granny and Child by Rich Jarzombek.  Click for larger image.

Each Realistic Fractal picture was created by its own single mathematical expression. No overlays of multiple fractal pictures are used. Most of the pictures are shown in the ‘as is’ condition directly from the fractal generating software. In some cases, selected areas of the fractal pictures may be slightly ‘enhanced’ using other software in order to permit easier visual interpretaion. However, in these cases, the original basic fractal image is left unchanged.
(from http://realisticfractals.com/introduction.html)

Near East Prelate by Rich Jarzombek.  Click for larger image.

Realistic Fractals consists of Art Galleries created with Fractal Art pictures which have a strong visual relationship to each picture’s title. These pictures are sorted into three types of galleries: People Gallery, Objects Gallery and Religious Gallery.
(from http://realisticfractals.com/index.html)

Bishop’s Invocation by Rich Jarzombek.  Click for larger image.

Rich Jarzombek says:
At present my fractal art interests are in creating equations which, when inserted into Tierazon, have a ‘relatively high probability’ of generating images that are easily perceived as ‘real people’ or ‘real objects’. I do appreciate and respect traditional fractal art forms. From the standpoint of ‘artistic beauty’ they far surpass my crude images. Hopefully, I simply am attempting to show that there may exist a new (?) potential in ‘fractal art’ for the benefit of viewers who might prefer more ‘realistic’ images.

In mid 2007 I designed my own website, Realistic Fractals, which I’ve sorted into People, Objects, and Religious galleries. Each of my fractals is based on its own unique mathematical expression that I created and inserted into Tierazon. In some cases I ‘color enhance’ selected areas of the fractals for easier interpretation while leaving the original underlying single fractal image unchanged. No overlay of multiple fractals, photos, nor other artwork are used.

Bee Keeper by Rich Jarzombek.  Click for larger image.
(Bee Keeper?  Or grizzled old salt decked out in a Sou’ Wester?)

Who is this Rich Jarzombek?  Is he the latest young new face at Renderosity or Deviant Art?

Oh, no.  He’s a self-proclaimed “Old Geezer”, 80-something, retired Chemical Engineer and a Grandfather too.  He claims to have no formal art training, but that’s pretty normal in the Fractal Art world.

Rich, I suspect, is just another one of us folks who’ve discovered something exciting about fractals and pursued it with a passion that comes from imagery itself, plain and simple.  However, he’s headed off on a unique path because that’s what happens when you don’t hang around the losers and back-slappers that cling to the virtual walls of the Cloning Facility at Renderosity and Deviant Art, oozing useless tips and dripping with venom.  That’s right.

Parting of the Red Sea by Rich Jarzombek.  Click for larger image.

I haven’t made any images quite like this in Tierazon myself.  But one thing I’ve learned about fractal programs is that they’re very similar to musical instruments in the sense that they can be made to produce things that the author of the program may never have anticipated.

It just goes to show that you’re never too old to do something new.  And sadly, for all those youngsters at Renderosity and Deviant Art, caught in that fractal House of the Rising Sun, wearing that “ball and chain” it shows you’re never too young to become old and stuck in your ways.  Ain’t that the truth…

Pantheon

Good software makes images that are too slick.  It’s hard to get good software to make smudgy, jagged, off-color stuff.  Purebred imagery is predictable.  Artists often make junk and crazy mistakes but it’s a process of trial and error that leads to new styles.  Good software and professional skills is a toxic combination that gets everything right the first time and inevitably leads to the best fractals — a dead end.

I’ve given the fractal world many bad examples to follow and, unless my disciples are all off in the desert hiding, no one seems to be following my liquid path down the drain.  But success and popularity are difficult obstacles to overcome.  The encouragement of others is sometimes all it takes to keep someone going down a fruitless path to a heartless goal.

If you want to help someone produce better art, not necessarily better fractals, challenge them with negative criticism and encourage them to give it up.  When the lights of success and encouragement go out, only the glow of your art will be left.

There is something that I call “Raw Style”.  It’s imagery that looks better when it isn’t anti-aliased and when it’s not cooked and simply presented “as-is”.  As fractal software has progressed, it’s become easier to process things and to do more to it.  One would expect this to be a good thing, and it is if what you want to do is make better fractals, but it’s bad because users quickly fall into a routine of tidying and polishing everything they make like obsessive-compulsive cleaning maids.  Imagine what news photography would be like if before anyone took a photo of someone, the subject’s mother appeared and combed their hair and straightened up their shirt collar before the photo was taken — every moment would be ruined.  Good art is often ready-made; but we overlook it because we don’t expect it.

The Great Seal

I’m not saying you shouldn’t tweak and process fractals.  What I am saying is that you should ask yourself “Why?” and try to avoid it because it leads to much better fractals and really bad art.  Fractal art is the domain of the Ugly Duckling; stop choking your swans.

The death of contests is good because contests take artists with talent and creativity and turn them into approval addicts.  After just a few contests most artists already start to exhibit the symptoms of mental degeneration that accompany similar dependency disorders: restlessness; anxiety attacks; obsessive grooming; checking their mail every five minutes.

The anti-art tendencies of contests are easy to spot: judges who don’t like art choose the best fractals and exhibit (no pun intended) an ingrained aversion to the bad ones.  A good fractal art contest will present a very pronounced dislike of good fractals and show a real affinity for bad ones.  But people like that don’t run contests — they run from contests.

A few rules of thumb: Great art is always unpopular because anything that’s so intensely specialized and focused alienates at least 90 percent of its audience.   It’s almost a law of mathematics.  But it’s a good thing because it means that your own gut feelings about your work are probably more important and a more accurate measurement of it’s value than the other 9 out of 10 people who may look at it — if we can only stop deceiving ourselves.  The majority is always wrong because whenever a lot of people think they all see the same thing it shows they aren’t really looking very closely.

Art is all about taking the trivial more seriously.  We can start by making bad fractals.

And about these continuous and pointless attacks against Ultra Fractal, maybe you should just start displaying some fractal images that obviously cannot be realized in Ultra Fractal. I haven’t seen any on your blog so far. The ease with which it is possible to implement ideas into algorithms and then works (especially with the new object oriented programming) makes it for me without any doubt the best tool available for algorithmic art. Anyway, a constructive approach would be less boring for your readers.

That was a comment by Samuel Monnier, an unrepentant Ultra Fractal user, commenting on a recent posting here at Orbit Trap.  In keeping with the Space exploration analogy which I used in the title, Sam has the “Right Stuff”, the thing which Tom Wolfe said separated the mediocre astronauts from the ones selected by NASA to go on the elite space missions to the Moon.

What I think Sam is getting at (besides suggesting that Ultra Fractal is being attacked pointlessly) is that he has found Ultra Fractal to be a tool which allows him to easily create Original Algorithmic Art.  Sam (and a few others) are using Ultra Fractal to do extremely un-fractal things.  Isn’t that exciting?

More from Monnier:

I’ve been using Ultra Fractal for about ten years. I’m mainly interested in producing images which display structure at every scale, everywhere, unlike most more traditional fractal images, which display structures at small scale only in some very limited regions. The goal is that the viewer should be able to enjoy the work when looking at it from far as well as when looking at it with a magnifying glass. To this end I developed a private algorithm, taking advantage of Ultra Fractal’s versatile formula editor.
(from http://www.ultrafractal.com/showcase.html)

“A Private Algorithm.”  This sounds exciting.  Actually, anything with the term, Algorithm, in it sounds exciting; Fractal is starting to get a little too small-townish for me, lately.  Private Algorithm sounds more experimental, cutting edge and next-generational.  Like carrying out atomic bomb tests in your basement.

Monnier continues:

The algorithm I wrote is inspired by the one used to produce Brownian clouds. The idea is to draw a pattern, and then sum it at smaller and smaller scales. This gives the image structure on a wide scale range while preserving some kind of homogeneity, as the patterns you will see with your magnifying glass will be roughly the same as the ones you see from far. Each image is a whole little world that is rather difficult to imagine from the low resolution pictures displayed here.

The possibility to use classes in algorithms introduced recently with Ultra Fractal 5 allowed [me] to substantially increase the diversity of patterns this algorithm can create.
(from http://www.ultrafractal.com/showcase.html)

“The idea is to…”  Sounds rather creative and speculative, doesn’t it?  Not the usual Mandelbrot this, or Julia that or tweak-fest tricks.  Could this sort of thing explain why Sam’s artwork is so different than the usual Ultra Fractal trash that fills up that annual garbage can of fractal “art” called the Fractal Universe Calendar?

Enough words and talking, let’s look at some art:

20080720 by Samuel Monnier, from the Ultra Fractal Showcase
Click for larger view

Strangely, this is one of my all time favorite images, I cannot exactly say why. It is based on a Truchet pattern. The Truchet pattern is constructed from randomly oriented decorated square tiles. In this image, their orientations were chosen not quite randomly in order to create this strange alphabet. Note the symmetries of the “text” between the dark and light regions, and how the fine texture reproduces it.
(from http://www.ultrafractal.com/showcase/samuel/20080720.html)

“…to create this strange alphabet”  Hey, far out.  You really have to take a look at the larger image to see what Sam’s talking about.  Which brings me to the question, What is Sam talking about?

It ain’t no fractal.  Or maybe it is — mathematically speaking.  I guess what I mean is that this isn’t the sort of image one expects to see from a fractal program.  This is the sort of thing I would expect to see from a non-fractal algorithmic art program or coming from a series of photoshop filter mutations.

I think it’s important to note that Sam says it’s one of his all-time favorite images.  Why is it one of his all-time favorites?  I know why.  Because it’s from a distant star and not just the same old sort of thing that we commonly see down here in the everyday fractal world — that place we’ve come to call home after all these years.

It’s time to head to the stars, boys and girls!  Fractals are great but there’s a great big universe of algorithms out there to be explored.  Maybe Ultra Fractal is the ship to take us there.  Maybe it’s time to stop using layers to make wispy, flowery stuff to fill that annual eyesore and start making bold new structures like Sam.

I used to say that the best way to tell if a program was any good or not was by looking at what was made with it.  That’s why I made those “pointless” attacks on Ultra Fractal, because every time I found some glossy, cliche fractal image on the internet it almost always turned out to have been made in Ultra Fractal.  That’s also why the work of Samuel Monnier and Paul DeCelle stood out in such stark contrast — they they’re work is creative, original, algorithmic art.

In my personal artistic opinion I think the programming capabilities that Ultra Fractal has that allow it to make these sorts of “non-fractal” images is something that should be pursued more; it’s more high-class than the traditional fractal stuff.  The fractal image layering and image importing features have very limited artistic potential (unless you like that sort of thing, of course) when compared to using Ultra Fractal as a programming platform for algorithmic experimentation.

Of course embarking on these sorts of algorithmic voyages requires the programming and theoretical skills (math) which the average Ultra Fractal user doesn’t have, but I’m sure when new users see more of this type of artwork it will generate a lot more interest in learning how to write formulas for Ultra Fractal to the point where such specialized skills become a routine part of the creative algorithmic art process.

Yes, some day Space Travel will be common place and perhaps Ultra Fractal will change it’s name to Ultra Math or Ultra Formula or 2001: An Algorithmic Odyssey.

Why I call myself O. Most people think of Chaos as the opposite of Order, but actually Order is merely Chaos constrained. In this respect, Order and Chaos form a continuum that comprises the fullness of existence. The opposite of this “fullness” is the “nothingness” or a Void, often represented by an empty circle.

(from More About O)

Freaky, eh? There’s more:

As O, I play Yin to Chaos’ Yang in bringing forth images that display the fullness of Chaos.

All these images were created with a freeware fractal program called Fractint, using only its standard built-in formulae. In keeping with the spirit of its developers, I have not encrypted these images or tried to make them “proprietary” in any way so that others may learn and improve upon the techniques I have used.

(from More About O)

I have a sneaking suspicion who this artist is, but I’m not making any guesses right away.  Let’s just look at the art. (Click images for larger view)

Harmon01 by “O”

Harmon201b, by “O”

Harmon231, by “O“

Harmon04, by “O”

These images may not be the kind that get people excited over at Renderosity or Deviant Art these days, but I think they’re good fractal art nonetheless.  I suppose most people have moved on from Fractint but have they all moved up to making better fractal art?  The creative power of fractal math, even in an old-fashioned program like Fractint using 256-color palettes, can be more impressive than an image made with a newer program utilizing all sorts of graphical effects but which displays little algorithmic character.

These images really need to be viewed at their larger size to fully appreciate the detail that I find makes them so interesting.  Although they are patterns and completely determined by a formula, they possess an important quality of good design –unpredictability– which is exhibited by the lack of repetition and the high degree of variation that one sees when they’re given a more careful look.

The third one, Harmon231, has a very rich, almost painted style to it that is surprising in something made with such a simple, 256-color palette.  The image reminds me of the painted ornamentation in ancient Egyptian tombs.

In the first and last, Harmon01 and Harmon04, the large Celtic-like rope work displays what looks like symbols at the main intersection points as if the formula was labeling itself with it’s own custom algorithmic hieroglyphics.

The second, purple one, Harmon201b, is perhaps the most interesting of the group because of it’s most pronounced design element, the empty, colorless holes with irregular shapes.  Some of the line details are a single palette color and don’t even appear to be anti-aliased and yet complement the rest of the work which resembles a cross between thermal photography and avante garde painting.  All that from using an old dinosaur of a program like Fractint!

Well, that’s the way it is with Fractal Art, or I guess any kind of art: it’s not so much what tools you use as how you use them.  Some people might view this artwork by “O” as being very simple and maybe even primitive, but the artistic effect obtained with them rivals anything created with more complex programs.  And it’s all about making art, isn’t it?

Fractal Guernica, by Pablo Picasso II
(guernica03.loo)

In the same category as room-temperature fusion, perpetual motion and the age-old alchemical quest to turn lead into gold, is added yet another bold and fearful challenge: to make a piece of fractal artwork that rivals the depth of expression of Picasso’s famous painting, Guernica. I threw down this challenge recently albeit in a very off-handed way, via a blog posting and near the end of it, suggesting it was merely something mythical and hypothetical which would be good for one to contemplate and aim at, even if it was out of human reach.

Well, wonder of wonders, here it is — all algorithm and all art.  You could call it an accident, I suppose, but that’s the whole point of the hitherto mythical Fractal Guernica concept: algorithms don’t express anything other than algorithms.  If algorithmic art is just an accident then fractal art is all about chasing ambulances and spotting crash scenes.

For those of you who like big art, or are just getting old and need to see everything large, here’s a large version.

Anyhow, let’s get the discussion of rich, visual symbolism started, the kind which only a really great work of art can provoke.  Hopefully we’ll be able to decode everything the artist is trying to say, because these things can be pretty complex and convoluted.  And that’s without even attempting to psychoanalyze the artist or take a Marxist perspective.

What’s it all about?  Hey, slow down.  How about, what’s that bull with the half-moon head all about?   That’s what I saw first too (foreground, left).  Did the artist rip that right off Picasso or what?  Actually, we ought to get something straight, right off the bat: the artist is the algorithm.  What does an algorithm know about that?

The bull is actually a cow (unimportant) and is an allusion to the cow jumped over the moon nursery rhyme.  But the moon has now obscured the cow’s head and left it confused and blind.  This is a direct reference to the space race and how it got bogged down once it actually landed on the moon subsequently losing it’s direction and which since then has literally gone nowhere.  The strength of the space age has become deluded by it’s own achievements.  The big green thing beside it comes later.

Background, left (top,left) is one of the most shocking off all images.  It represents aircraft and perhaps bears some similarity to the original Guernica.  The airplane has a huge mouth and is attempting to consume the Earth (the blue round thing).  While in most of the world aircraft represent modern, advanced transportation, in other parts of the world aircraft are entirely different and play the role of the most voracious of all war machines.  Don’t think Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet; think Mig-29 or F-18.  If you’ve ever seen, and particularly heard, a modern fighter jet maneuvering in the sky above you, the deep rumble, the sound of the sky ripping apart and your chest reverberating, ear drums rattling — then this image is easily understood.  The aircraft is depicted not as a gleaming white bird, but like a crocodile, an ancient lizard with a long, teeth-lined snout, pursuing the Earth itself.  Snake of the sky, King of the Air.

Bottom, right.  It is modern man himself (herself).  Notice how long the arms are; very long, they’re extended.  Technology has extended the arms of modern man but at the same time weighed them down and reduced their choices.  The golden glow (a recurrent theme, representing technological enlightenment) distorts his face and his head is turned at an angle which is out of sync with the things around him.  There’s more, but it’s obvious.

Middle, right, above modern man.  The volcano has a strange eruption on top of it because it’s not a volcanic eruption at all — it’s an allusion to the Biblical tower of Babel on top of a natural tower, a volcano.  The tall structure is a broadcast antenna.  Broadcasting what?  Babel sounds.  The communication that links and informs so many all over the world is ultimately a source of confusion and something which discourages people from cooperating: propaganda; biased news reporting; stock manipulation, liar-mercials.  Well, it’s a small part of the total work, so let’s not dwell on it.

Above the moon which is on top of the cow’s head is a series of legged creatures enveloped in a golden glow (remember the golden glow?).  Bonus marks to the art history students who guessed, Bruegel’s Blind Leading the Blind.  Except in this case it’s the technologically enlightened who are blindly stumbling, one after the other.

Finally, the main element in this work, the golden glob of stuff dropping down (mid-picture) colliding with the green glob rising up.  The golden glob is filled with things coming down from above — space industry spin-offs — biotechnology, genetic engineering, creatures dark and intriguing.  The golden glob is the descending technological world which should be ascending, but has reversed direction and now comes into sharp conflict with the green movement of environmental responsibility and technological restraint.  (Notice the purity and simplicity of the green glob as contrasted with the complexity of the golden one, although there is something like a red scorpion with his tail sticking out, in the green glob.)

On the large scale, note how the elements are at the same time detached from each other and yet in collision with each other.  It suggests that their movements or trajectories are conflicting but not intentionally conflicting.  Instead, the collisions come from the expression of their nature and not any sort of conscious will — a sort of Babel like manifestation of decay through mental confusion rather than through conflicting or competing desires.  Everything just falls apart because it no longer has any connection.  The modern world is freedoms in collision.

Stepping back even further, there is some irony here that a work that depicts technology as some horrible thing destroying people and their relationships was in fact made using a fractal generator, one of the most technological of all things I would say.  In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this artist is in fact a hypocrite; demonizing technology and yet at the same time using it to to make art just for fun.  Is he blinded by that golden glow too?

Whoa.  Far out.  That is so 21st Century.

There is no fractal art community.

There is no fractal art community; not in either a formal or practical sense.  What might, in the minds of some, pass for a fractal community is in my analysis nothing more than a few groups of like-minded people gathered around:
1) Ultra Fractal software;
2) Fractal Universe Calendar;
3) Various networks of friends at the online art portals, Renderosity and Deviant Art (i.e. “Fractalbook”)
4) Two dormant, but still plugged-in, web-rings
5) The occasional, courageous person who starts up a new fractal forum

Everyone else left over who has an association with fractal art belongs to primarily:
1) a few individual programmers (some active, some retired)
2) about a hundred individual artists (personal websites, web-ring members)

The fractal art world is a very small and fragmented bunch of people and programs.  I don’t think that’s a “community”.  The few clusters that I’ve mentioned have given very little shape or direction to what is called “fractal art”, a genre, or much larger entitiy, which I would say exists merely as a descriptive label (art made with fractals).  What these groups are doing through their association is developing one or two very casually defined styles by pursuing what interests them and looking at what each other is doing.  If they appear to be rejecting photoshop filtering transformations or artwork which expresses themes from real life or socio-political ideas, I think it’s largely because:
1) It doesn’t interest them
2) It’s hard to do with fractal imagery, post-processed or not

Maybe in the past, in the old days when fractal programming was developing and people used newsgroups to communicate, there may have been something resembling a community that had an identifiable identity and coherent standards, but that was before my time, and currently I don’t see anything like that.

I think fractal art of any style or school of thought will be evaluated by it’s audience in the same way that any other type of art is judged: composition; expression; color; style; overall impression; message — the sort of things you’re advocating.  Fractal artists may have a unique perspective on their art but I don’t think their audience will.  Boring art is a self-limiting disease, whereas exciting new styles attract attention and recruit new followers and more growth.

You talked about getting rid of the idea that fractal art is this or fractal art is that — the “this” or “that”.  I think that is happening, but the result is that fractal art is evolving into a number of unrelated styles — all fractal art, that is, art with fractals — but only nominally related; a rather weak association.

There is a distinct Ultra Fractal style (although not all Ultra Fractal artists exhibit it) that incorporates layering techniques and is best seen in the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest selections.

I prefer a more classical style that depends on the algorithms for effect and is primarily made in single layer programs but can benefit from some graphical effects which enhance the algorithmic imagery.  I am also somewhat of a lazy artist too.

What you do Terry, is yet another style of fractal art that expresses themes and ideas in the way that traditional artwork made by hand does.

I think fractal art as a genre is becoming as meaningless a label as say, silkscreen art is.  Andy Warhol did a lot of work using silk-screening, but that doesn’t mean him and people who make t-shirts with animal cartoons on them have very much in common as artists.  “Fractal” describes what we all do less and less and is becoming more of a trivial connection than a core attribute.  A disintegrating community, if there is, in fact, one at all.

I think fractal art is not and can not be defined by any one person or group, but rather is defined by the artwork that is actually being made and exhibited; and that artwork, and the people who make it, I believe are diverging and fragmenting, not converging or solidifying.

Under Red Sea, by maruscya

But when one looks at the larger world of art which contains works of social commentary, intense emotional expression, and other creative work drawing heavily from imagery found only in the human world (faces, buildings, technology), then what are we fractal “nature photographers” to do if we want to produce fractal art that is more than just weird patterns or the proverbial eye-candy?

In the pursuit of more than just eye-candy, fractal art faces the same challenges (frustrations?) that abstract art does:  It’s hard to express complex themes from the realm of human experience without the rich symbolism that realistic imagery provides.  This is why attempts to do this with fractal/algorithmic imagery often depend heavily on the title the image is given — you have to tell people what it is.  I don’t think fractal imagery is very good at conveying ideas or themes in the way that photography and the hand-made arts (painting, sculpture…) are.  It’s an interesting aspect of fractal art to pursue, and maybe some really profound works in the future will change my opinions regarding this — like the creation of some sort of Fractal Guernica — but I feel it’s not the sort of thing that fractals have a lot of potential for.

I think it’s just the nature of fractals that they don’t say much or fit well into social/political commentary.  In that sense, nature photography actually has an edge over fractals as it’s quite conceivable that animals and other elements from nature can be convincing metaphors for things in the human world, like predators for criminals; peacocks for pompous, narcissistic rulers; eagles for noble virtues; and that sort of thing.  There have already been a number of books written using animals as metaphors for certain kinds of people, although as far as the artwork that might accompany them goes, I’m sure the illustrations weren’t photos of real, natural animals because they’re not likely to express quite so effectively those human characteristics as well as a hand drawn, artificial caricature would.

Although I am still thinking these things through, it’s my growing opinion that fractal and algorithmic art will achieve its greatest successes by being more fractal and algorithmic and focusing on the beauty of mathematical/algorithmic imagery.  If others can succeed in other innovative ways using fractal imagery such as creating the Fractal Guernica of our times, then I think that’s a noble pursuit and I admire them for taking up that fractal art challenge.

The Mona Lisa is famous for her “mysterious smile”; but is that enough to make it a great work of art?

I find the formal art world to be a breeding ground for fads and self-promoting theories which inhibit artistic creativity because they don’t reflect what art really is and subsequently present a confused perspective to art viewers and new artists corrupting their minds by convincing them that they can’t think for themselves and need to be educated by the experts in order to make sense of art itself, which is essentially a personal experience and needs no explanation any more than a cup of cold water on a hot day needs a set of instructions.

For those of you readers who’ve been following this sequence of posts on Orbit Trap, you will be aware that me and my co-blogger, Terry Wright appear to have some different views about Fractal Art and what makes it “art” or not.  He’s mellowed a bit in his last response, but I find there’s still something about his perspective on fractal art that bothers me.  I’m also not quite sure what that “something” is, but here’s my latest input into the discussion.

Terry wrote…

This or that has got to go. We need to start thinking of our art form as more of a straight line, doubled-sided arrow — sort of like the “Threat Assessment Chart” Rolling Stone currently uses. On the left end of the arrow is the word FRACTAL, and on the right end is the word ART. All of us fall someone on this arrow — some resting closer to FRACTAL and others resting nearer to ART. Fractal art, then, can never be this or that. Instead, it’s a wonderfully complex and richly varied continuum. All each of us does is decide on what point of the arrow we want to set up our own house.

I like the bit about getting rid of the “this or that” restrictive definitions and the part about everything being wonderful, rich and varied, but I take exception to the continuum thing with just plain “FRACTAL” at one end of the scale (bottom end, I’ll bet) and the old, holy, shining, “land of Plato’s perfect forms” ART at the other end of the scale.

But I’ve misunderstood what you’ve said before, so maybe I’m oversimplifying or distorting this double-arrow concept, too.  What I have a problem with, I guess, is the that “ART” thing.  I think that’s the disease we need to rid the fractal art world of — next.

I would say… Art is subjective, a personal experience, easily influenced by social forces, highly contextualized, can’t be trusted and ought to wear an ankle bracelet with a GPS tracker so we can all start running when it enters the room or approaches our neighbourhood.

Art is a moving target, hard to hit and even then it only stumbles a bit and continues on it’s way perennially avoiding capture and captivity.  Those who define art in absolute terms have only grasped art for a brief moment and pulled off part of it’s tail or a patch of fur and then mistaken it for the entire creature that is still at large.  Art is a shadow, placed under bright lights and thoroughly examined by a committee.

Rather than being some all-inclusive, double-ended arrow heading in the two directions “fractal” and “art”, I would say that fractal art  is a total wilderness with a dozen or so people pursuing creative interests that have nothing in common except for the use of fractal imagery which is about as meaningful as saying that both Picasso and Thomas Kincaide are artist’s.

Some fractal artists are more akin to flower arrangers and many others have more in common with Photoshop digital artists whose work is heavily transformed and though it may be appealing in other ways, has little fractal appeal.

Does some fractal art have more art to it than others?  I would say that the so-called higher forms of art (“arty” art) are actually just different forms of art and not categorically higher.  Picasso’s Guernica tells a story, expresses intense emotions, gives insight into human tragedy, and does it all in a very primitive, appealing and creative graphical style.  Guernica is one of the best examples of high-class, masterpiece art.  But who wants that hanging in the living room to meditate or reflect upon?  It’s a graphic depiction of a vicious bombing raid on innocent civilians!

We ought to evaluate fractal art and all forms of art just as we would a set of household tools.  Some art does one thing and other art does something else.  Screwdriver art is not as forceful as hammer art, but can be much more intense and do more sophisticated things with greater detail.  Chainsaw art is very appealing when one is outdoors, but inside the house it’s harsh and almost obnoxious.  Most people like to look at circular saw art or admire a piece of mitre saw art when in a more refined environment.  This is much more than I think Terry is suggesting.  I’m saying that a chainsaw and a screwdriver can be compared to each other, but that it makes no sense to measure their strengths by the same standards because they are unrelated to each other except for occupying the same general category of “tool”.

I would say, in my opinion (and art is the domain of opinion — personal and collective) the highest, most excellent works of art are all from the surrealist category of art.  Surrealist art is the highest, most worthy form of art.  It also cuts across almost all styles, media and schools of art.  Almost any kind of art can be surreal because surrealism is an experience that the mind of the viewer has.  We all make better art when it has stronger surrealist qualities.  It is always my goal and the direction of my effort to create surreal images. 

That’s why I like algorithmic or machine-made imagery the most; it’s better at creating odd and startling imagery than the human mind is.  So in that case, more ‘fractal” means more “art”!

Yes.  I think I’ve won the thread!  But there’s no shame coming in second to a Champion like me.

Hey, look at me! I’ve got texture!

Terry,

Whoa.  That Algorithmic Worlds thing of Sam’s is just the sort of thing I was talking about.  If it wasn’t for guys like Sam I’d say Ultra Fractal was the biggest software rip-off of all time.

As for texture; Even Mondrian’s plain colored squares with black outlines have it.  But I think that’s because Mondrian didn’t have Ultra Fractal — or Photoshop.  The texture was a by-product of the materials he used: canvas and oil paint.  What he probably wanted was something more like glass or plastic, which wasn’t available at the time.

Mondrian’s famous square collages are a good example of “art”.  I saw one once in a gallery somewhere (I think he made a lot of them) and you know what I did when I saw it?  I moved in close and took a look at the surface of the picture — just the sort of thing that your binocular images allow viewers to do with your artwork despite the fact it’s viewed on a monitor.

I remember seeing a painting by uh, Klee, Paul Klee, I think.  It was full of squiggly little creatures against a surreal and colorfully painted background.  I’d seen it before in a book.  The kind of photograph of art that you’ve mentioned, and is lacking in detail and texture.  When I saw the original hanging on a gallery wall (and I took a good close look at it — no hanging rope barrier or plexi-glass case in the way) I hated it.  It looked like something I’d painted in art class.  In the book it looked more professional, but in high-resolution on the wall (more like “full-resolution”) I could see the brush strokes and it looked like Klee has just slapped the thing together in a few minutes.  That shouldn’t matter, really, but the point is the high-res version — with lots of texture and detail — looked worse, not better.  To me, anyway.

Getting back to the Zoomify things, I think they’re pretty gimmicky.  Sam’s “…atl2” is interesting, but the other one doesn’t benefit from the zooming.  Janet’s is not a good one for zooming either; probably because it’s too fractal, actually, and the recursive pattern is repetitive rather than revealing of something deeper or more subtle, which is what zooming into an image is usually done for — to show you the artwork’s underlying architecture.  In defense of both of them though, I’d say that the Zoomify feature is relatively new and they’re just experimenting with it at this point.  These examples are just the beginning.  (Although Jock Cooper’s Zoomables are better done and with much simpler technology, too.)

To compare my “Sterling-Worlds” with the Zoomify flash applet, the first thing I’d say is that Zoomify doesn’t go deep enough to mimic fractal zooming but it’s not a good magnifier either because it goes too deep for that and presents you with details that are not even noticeable in the top-level view.  What it’s good for are maps and diagrams where the relationship of the detailed view to the top-level view is abstract and doesn’t have to be related to what you’ve currently zoomed into (a street intersection or the connections between several atoms on a molecule, for instance).  What I’d prefer to see is a parameter file that you could load into Ultra Fractal and explore like you can the Sterlingware parameter file I posted.  I’m not even sure that’s possible with Ultra Fractal.  The program is so “refined” that it’s abandoned its fractal origins which the single layer programs have maintained and developed.  Ultra Fractal is more a graphics program now that does creative layering employing fractal themes in a trivial, decorative way.

I find Fractal Art (art with fractals) appears to be simple to define on the surface, but when you start to consider it’s algorithmic nature (deterministic, mechanical) and particularly it’s abstract, non-representative characteristics (it doesn’t really look like anything), evaluating it according to established principles of what is good art and what is bad art, is something I still find to be elusive.

The other thing is: I consider the computer monitor to be a adequate “canvas”.  I guess that’s why I consider the parameter file, generated world, to be the only real zoom or exploration that counts.  If someone was to print out my images and see something more, or less, than is visible on the computer screen, I’d say stop looking at prints and stick to what you see on your monitor — that’s the real thing.  Whatever extra shows up in a print is just artifacts, by-products — as artificial as Mondrian or Klee’s brushstrokes.  Is that crazy?

Climb the mountain, explore the caves, or check out the little islands off shore… Just load the parameter file (shellcity02.loo) into Sterling2 and this whole little world is yours.

Fractals are a unique form of artistic imagery.  They are more like sculptures and dioramas than the flat, static paintings they are often presented as because they can be viewed from more than one perspective.

Fractal Art in it’s simplest form is more like photography because the image is made up as much by what is left out as what is included.  Fractal Art is an artform of editing and selection — browsing and choosing — from what the generator creates.

In a simple, single-layer program like Sterlingware however, there’s no reason why an artist has to limit himself to merely presenting still images to his audience.  It’s possible — with fractals — to present the viewer with the parameter file that will recreate the entire fractal environment and allow the viewer to explore it like it was a sculpture to be walked around and viewed from many angles.

In this way, fractals have the potential to be an interactive art form just like the Grand Canyon in the United States is interacted with by tourists.  Despite the fact there are plenty of photographs and documentaries of the Grand Canyon, people aren’t satisfied with all that and still want to see it for themselves and experience it in its natural, interactive setting.

I’m a big fan of Sterlingware because it’s a creative tool that I just seem to get better results with than other fractal programs.  I’ve always included parameter files alongside the images I posted on my blog and website because the parameter files are the Grand Canyon itself, so to speak, while the image is just a single view of it.  With a program like Sterlingware, you can share an entire world with your audience and not merely a snapshot of it.  The program automatically saves a parameter file everytime you save an image; and they’re small too — a 300 byte simple text file.

It’s like the image is a door and the parameter file is the great big world behind the door.  When given the parameter file, viewers can walk through the doorway and explore the whole world instead of just standing there and looking at the door.

Maybe I’ve looked at fractal generation differently.  The way I’ve always worked right from the start with making fractal art is to adjust parameters and watch the effect it has on the appearance of a formula, in general, and then go hunting around for something to take a snapshot of.  A good parameter setting in Sterlingware sets the stage for an ongoing harvest of interesting images.  The combination of formula, render setting and color settings and a few other things creates a gigantic tree which now needs nothing more to complete the creative process than to be climbed and picked.

With multi-layered programs the process, I suspect, is fundamentally different and yields results which are also fundamentally different.  The parameter file of a multi-layered fractal program (like Ultra Fractal, for instance) is like a photoshop file composed more of layers and transformational effects than “fractal stuff”.  The result is that one doesn’t create a Grand Canyon, one creates a Grand Photo.  Nothing wrong with that except that the process ends with just an image or two instead of starting with it and opening up a whole new realm for exploration.  It’s just a difference in the way the two types of fractal programs and creative processes work.

Single-layer programs produce imagery; multi-layer programs produce images.  The imagery from a single-layer program is dynamic and almost limitless because it can be explored, zoomed, browsed, etc…, this gives it the potential to be more than just a still image creator and to exist as an artform which can be viewed from many different zoom levels and explored in many different locations.  There’s a term for this sort of thing; generative art or interactive or something.  This sort of art is more than just a picture to look at and as such, the viewer’s experience can be more than just look-ing; it can also be zoom-ing, search-ing, discover-ing.

I’m not saying something crazy, such as a program like Ultra Fractal doesn’t produce fractal art; I’m just saying that the way it works is much more complex and input-oriented and because of this it lacks a feature that the simpler, single-layer programs have, which is the interactive, flowing, real-time, mission-to-Mars capability that makes a program like Sterlingware so much fun to use and so much fun to share.

When I first started using Sterlingware I saved thousands of images because using it was like going on a journey or expedition.  I took snapshots of everything I saw because it was all so freaky and awesome.  Later on I calmed down and learned to just capture the things that were really exceptional.  But now I’m thinking that the journey and the expedition are unique aspects to the fractal artform and ought to be something presented to the audience as a form of fractal art in its own right.

Made in Sterling2
(parameter file: shell01.loo )

That great fractal classic by Stephen Ferguson, Sterlingware, has been been reconfigured by Tad Boniecki (aka Soler7) with 50 new formulas and released for download as Sterling2.  And it’s totally free too.

Now many of you will know me as a sort of Sterlingware sage; the renowned author of Tim’s Sterlingware Tutorial, that classic guide to using Sterlingware 1.7.  I’ve spent thousands of hours experimenting with Sterlingware 1.7, the previous version made in 1997, and learned just about everything there is to know about it.

So you’d think a guy like me would have known that an updated version had been released — a whole 6 months ago!

No.  I only found out about it because I was surfing around and – I forget exactly how – found myself at Paul N. Lee’s list of fractal programs.  My first thought was how old and out of date these listings must be. I could remember visiting this very same web page back in 2002 when I’d first discovered fractal programs and wanted to find and try out every one available.  In fact, I think this was where I originally found Sterlingware 1.7.  So you can imagine how stunned I was to see right below the link to that venerable,  decade-old, SterlingWare 1.7, a brand-new link for SterlingWare “2.0”.

Tad Boniecki tells the story this way:

In mid-2007 I contacted Stephen [Ferguson], as I thought that Sterling was an excellent program that lacked one key feature – a formula editor. He told me that adding a formula editor would be a huge job and that in any case the development environment to compile all the parts of Sterling was no longer available, as it is obsolete. However, he encouraged me to do the next best thing, which was to change the formulae in the program. With his help I set up the development environment on my PC and was able to recompile Sterling and to make changes to just one part of the program, ie the formulae. Other parts could not be changed.
(from http://www.soler7.com/Fractals/Sterling2.html)

Tad seems to share my view of Sterlingware (aka SterlingWare, Sterling, Sterling-Ware).  The program does an awesome job of rendering fractal formulas and it lacks nothing in its creative powers except for just more of those formulas to render.  The natural response to this, as Tad already mentioned, is a formula editor (parser,compiler) which would allow users to input whatever formulas they like.

I don’t know all the ins and outs about how Sterlingware was built.  Actually I don’t know any of those sorts of things.  But I do know that Stephen Ferguson has other fractal programs, such as InkBlot Kaos and Tierazon, and they both have formula “parsers” which allow users to input and experiment with custom formulas.  I’ve used the formula parser in InkBlot quite a bit and it really extends the creative abilities of the program although it’s not as fast as the built-in formulas that come with the program.  Sterlingware is different in some basic ways, and this is what I’m sure gives it its special, photo-realistic capabilities.  Sterlingware does things that I’ve never seen any other fractal program do.

More of the story from Tad:

Between June 2007 and August 2008, I spent some 100 to 200 hours changing formulae (that’s the quick part) and then testing them to see which ones produced interesting images. It turned out that creating good formulae was much more difficult than I expected. In the process I made and saved some 1,600 fractals. That’s not counting about 30,000 that I partially made but did not save. I have finished this process, so Sterling2 now has 50 formulae, all different from those of Sterling.

“100 to 200 hours changing formulae”.  It’s a lot of work to produce even just a modified version of a program like this.  If Tad spent that much time just adding new formulas, I wonder how many hours Stephen Ferguson must have spent designing, programming, testing and debugging all the other parts of Sterlingware?  It takes real dedication and devotion to produce software of this quality.

I can confidently say that Tad has done a magnificent job in his selection of these formulas.  I’ve spent at least 10 hours over the last couple of days since I downloaded it (only 437K) and I’m very excited about the potential for making great images that these formulas have.  The image up above was made with one of Tad’s new formulas and it’s precisely the kind of formula that worked so well in the original Sterlingware (1.7) and is the kind of formula I would have hoped a new version of Sterlingware would have.  Tad’s new formulas are right up there in the same category as the original ones Stephen Ferguson included in version 1.7.  A really excellent addition to the previous Sterlingware version.

I want to stress that all credit for creating this program belongs to Stephen Ferguson. My role was restricted to modifying the algorithms. I also want to thank Stephen for helping me to modify his program and for allowing me to release it as freeware, here on my site.
(from http://www.soler7.com/Fractals/Sterling2.html)

Hey, that’s no empty, trifling comment that Tad is making.  Not only has Stephen Ferguson helped him out by providing the source code and help with configuring the “obsolete” development environment to allow for recompiling the program, he’s also allowed Tad to give away the revised program for free from his website!

Three cheers for Steve, man.  He’s made one of the greatest and most creative fractal programs ever, and now thanks to Tad, one  very talented and hard-working fan, it’s just been reloaded with 50 spectacular formulas for a 10-year anniversary encore performance.

Let the fractal feasting begin!

photo by Aether

Photo caption from Aether’s Flickr page:

did some experiments last night: wood + saline + high voltage supply + variac = fractal burn patterns. tried different kinds of wood with various effects. unfortunately my recollection of which types of wood are displayed are spotty. will update later. stay tuned for photos of my fractal wood burning coat rack. **Update: there’s a lot of interest here about how to do this. I will either an instructable, more detailed flickr feed, or youtube myself in the next few weeks.**

Here’s Aether’s YouTube video of the electric woodburning process in action :

Here’s another example, with more colorful commentary.  The YouTube description for it says “Jerry Rutherford of Robomo during a build session showing us a technique of using a neon sign transformer to create patterns of conductivity across a board.” Among other things, the video is tagged “fractal”.

If I heard correctly, in the video Jerry Rutherford says “Sometimes you get ugly… and sometimes you get these really cool patterns”.

Doesn’t that sum up this whole fractal art thing? 

Fractal Tiger by Richard Diggle (ricdiggle)

Of course this new photoshop filter, Fractalius, by Redfield Plugins undoubtedly owes it’s existence to that great inferno of flame fractals, Apophysis. Just as the name of the filter suggests, flame fractals have been the inspiration for this new digital wonder/abomination. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (unless you count theft).

But what an interesting world it opens up.  Or is it nothing more than a cheap imitation?  Knock-offs of what is really a much more sophisticated artform?  A trivialization of fractal flames by reducing the entire artform to nothing more than a mere fibrous outline and surface texture?

Hypno Tiger, by Richard Diggle, (the image from which Fractal Tiger was made)

It’s ironic that a photoshop filter can capture the essence of that type of imagery and enable it to be used much more creatively.  Now anything can become a flame fractal!  Whereas in the past, most flame fractal artists were obsessed with trying to make flame fractals become something.

There’s a big lesson here for the genre of Digital Art: In the end it’s all just pixels.

Image by Peter De Rycke created with Fractalius

Think of it as a variation of the Turing Test for artificial intelligence as applied to artificial anything: if you can’t tell whether or not you’re interacting with a computer or a real human being, then the computer and the person are categorically the same (i.e. intelligent).

Except of course that genuine Apophysis flame fractals will have parameter files while photoshopped, or Fractalius images will not.  And then again a good fractal artist will be able to tell which one is a real fractal flame, too.  Naturally.  You can’t fool the experts. Can you?

But that’s just the point: if you have to ask for a parameter file to verify that an image is a genuine flame fractal, or ask what program it was made in then you’ve been fooled already and you can’t really tell what it is without asking for its digital pedigree to sort out whether the image is from a noble family or just some imposter who’s walked in off the dirty digital street.

Image by Peter De Rycke created with Fractalius

I think it will be possible to make Fractalius flame fractals (although they’re not really flame fractals, you know) that look better than the real things.  Just like it’s possible to make fruit juices (the kind Mother Nature never intended…) that taste better than natural ones — Coca Cola for instance!

But Coca Cola isn’t a fruit juice!

Yes it is!  From a new kind of fruit!

Fruit grows on trees or vines and there’s no such thing as a Coca Cola tree!!!

Oh yes there is!  There certainly is!  It’s just a different tree, with tubes and steel leaves and hissing moving things hidden in buildings and tended by armies of strange new farmers wearing hair nets and watched by security cameras to make sure they don’t steal anything or spit in the formula.  Another marvel of the modern age – bigger, faster, sweeter.

There’s a big lesson there for the genre of Fruit Juices: In the end it’s all just taste buds.

His Master’s Voice? (Image by Peter De Rycke created with Fractalius)

When an art form becomes simple and repetitive then it’s ripe for being replaced by a machine.  A machine that will be much better at performing simple and repetitive tasks and greatly enlarge the current plateau the art form is “resting” on (resting as in Monty Python “just resting” sense).  Workers who do nothing but push buttons and turn dials have often been replaced by machines.  Mechanical functions are easily mechanized.  It’s been a good thing for them, too.  Now they’re free to find more intelligent and sophisticated work.  Creative stuff.  Not the brainless things that got them automated and out-sourced in the first place.

Technorati Tags: Fractal Art, Flame Fractals, Fractalius, Photoshop Filters, Apophysis, Art Forgery, Fractal Tiger, Richard Diggle, Peter De Rycke, Flame On!, The one and only fractal art blog,

fractal-81786 by Jock Cooper (click for full-size image)

I’ve reviewed Jock Cooper before. But for those artists who are multi-talented, I simply have to have multiple reviews. Previously I reviewed Jock Cooper the Innovator; the artist who created surreal machines and leading edge fractal animation in full multimedia. This time it’s Jock Cooper the Old Master; the Spiral-angelo of Fractal Art.

If you visit Jock’s website fractal-recursions.com, the artwork of his I’m referring to here is what he has labelled his Traditional Gallery. Traditional — yes, but not cliche or stereotypical. I would simply call it Classical Fractal Art just as music has a Classical category to it.

What I like about these works (and almost all of them exhibit the same appealing characteristics) is simply their fractal-ness. The fractal patterns and structures are enhanced by Jock’s extreme skill in coloring and excellent eye for composition. Although there are a whopping 904 images in this section of Jock’s gallery, there are very few that aren’t of high quality. I had a very hard time finding a few to present as the finest examples because there’s simply so many equally good ones there.

fractal-91581 by Jock Cooper (click for full-size image) I would rename this, “Octopus With Monocle”

Although I cringe when entering an Ultra Fractal gallery because it usually means witnessing artwork that has undergone death by a thousand layers, Jock’s images rely on the visual power of the fractal algorithms themselves and that’s why I think he’s been able to produce such great quantity and still maintain such great quality. Jock embellishes and enhances the fractal imagery but lets it keep it’s natural form and architecture. It sounds simple, but there’s very few fractal artists like Jock who seem to be able to do this or for that matter, even try. Jock’s work is a great tribute to what Ultra Fractal can do when used creatively instead of imitatively.

The coloring is often astounding. No doubt due in part to Ultra Fractal’s sophisticated coloring methods as well as Jock’s expertise in working them. Glowing but subtle; metallic but not cheap and shiny; colorful but never garish; refined but not bland; classy but not pretentious; muted but still energetic; classical yet new and different.

I noticed something else while browsing the entire collection from beginning to end; Jock wasn’t always the Spiral-angelo that he is today. If you view the galleries in sequential order you’ll see the development of Jock’s style over the years and gain some appreciation for the fact that just like every other form of art, fractal art gets better when people practise it longer and get comfortable with experimentation.

fractal-728j3780 by Jock Cooper (click for full-size image)

I think if you wanted to introduce someone to the wonders of fractal art and not just to some flashy eye-candy, you couldn’t go wrong by directing them to Jock Cooper’s Traditional Gallery. The intensity of detail; the wild, unleashed creativity of fractal math; the broad panoramas; and the delightful shock of stumbing on an alien world — all these themes that traditionally characterized Fractal Art are vividly represented here. So whether you’re new to the whole Fractal Art world or someone who thinks they’ve seen it all, if you haven’t checked out Jock’s Traditional Gallery then you’re in for a great discovery — or re-discovery — of Fractal Art in it’s classical style.

Technorati Tags: Fractal Art, Fractals, Jock Cooper, Classic Fractals, Fractal Recursions, Ultra Fractal, Traditional Fractals, Digital Art,