Orbit Trap

We by silwenka

Happy Valentine’s Day.  By the way, as fractal art, this piece, allegedly, sucks.

There’s an oddly fascinating feature currently on display on deviantART called “People Who’s [sic] Fractals SUCKED!”  I’ll let the author, =Fiery-Fire, self-proclaimed “Fractal Gangsta’,” explain the general idea:

In fractal ‘world’ we have a lot of names which are well known, established, the images from those ‘masters’ or ‘wizards’ leave us in awe and amazement. But did you ever wonder, how did they do, when they first opened their fractal program …whatever it was apo or ultra fractal.

So, there’s the basic set-up.  Ms. Fire selects early and recent works by assorted DA fractalists she considers “masters” and posts samples for before/after comparisons.  What’s supposed to be self-evident, I guess, is that the early renderings are unquestionably amateurish, while the more recent postings are irreproachably masterpieces.

Ms. Fire says she wrote the article to “promote a lot of laughter and amusement,” and, indeed, it does, although perhaps not in the manner she intended.  The feature is worth examining because it serves as a vivid, concrete encapsulation for much of what Tim and I have been observing for years about the fractal art scene.

A helpful beginning might be to look at a few comparisons — even as we wonder if “suckiness” is in the eye of the beholder.

The sucky before:

Purplerain by =Jimpan1973

The masterpiece after:

Monster Julia by =Jimpan1973

What’s the main difference between the two images? Can’t see it yet?  Try again:

The sucky before:

Cosmosis by *milleniumsentry

The masterpiece after:

Smile by *milleniumsentry

Personally, I don’t much care for most of the featured art work Ms. Fire has chosen.  Nevertheless, there does seem to be qualitative differences between the early fractals that supposedly suck and later fractals that supposedly rock.  In nearly every instance, the later “masterpieces” are more slick, more busy, and much more decorative.  In fact, nearly every available space within each later frame is filled (padded?) with eye-popping ornamentation.  The earlier images, by contrast, are rawer, make better use of absence, and sometimes seem better composed — probably just because they are not crammed to the threshold of overspill with visual information.  Consequently, although the later images are better crafted and surely more technically proficient, the earlier images seem to better utilize artistic principles and design elements.

In short, these “wizards” might be going backward.  One could argue that the more the “masters” master their software and polish their craft, the less successful they are in their attempts to be artists.

What happens when priorities are out of whack?  Like when emphasis is placed on “mastering one’s tools,” as Keith Mackay likes to say, rather than on producing fine art?   Isn’t it evident?  As long as what can be done with software is prized over what fine art can be made, the trend shown above will continue.  Fractalbook, truth be told, institutionalizes such thinking with its “challenges” to adjust existing images and par file tweaking games popular on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List and elsewhere.  The priority is to see what the software can do — not what individuals can create as artists.  As long as this is the ruling aesthetic in our community, our “masters” may eventually conquer craft but will rarely produce fine art.

As long as one thinks of tools as toys, one’s work will remain more childishly playful rather than masterfully artistic.  I suppose only in the realm of Fractalbook can some of these featured “artists,” like LoonyL, rise from being a totally sucking noob to an accomplished grandmaster in just a little over two years.

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Worse, the “art” being produced, especially in Fractalbook, nearly always must conform to an overriding, popular rubric of what constitutes fine fractal art in order to receive the longest choral threads of instantaneous praise.  Surfing through DA’s fractal gallery is like taking a trip out to some suburban fractal ticky-tacky.  Look at the less-than-subtle similarities in some of Ms. Fire’s chosen masterworks:

Overflow by JoelFaber

mind reading by *LoonyL

Starry Circuit by ~depaz

the red dragon by ~grinagog

Clearly, a certain look is necessary in order to be proclaimed a “master” in the DA fractal community.  The images above are so, forgive the pun, self-similar and spiral-grounded that I wondered if the Fractal Universe Calendar had been resuscitated.  It’s no surprise that some people feel let down and experience cognitive dissonance when perusing Fractalbook.  This is what is considered the best we have to offer?  And the more it is held up to be so, the more the fractal assembly lines will crank out similar replications.  After all, who wants to run the risk of their praise-packed comment thread shrinking by living up to the site’s name and actually “deviating” from the agreed-upon by-popular-demand template for fractal wizardry and excellence?

It’s a hopeful sign, I suppose, that an occasional, lone voice questions the worth of Fractalbook’s ruling hierarchy. Case in point?  This astute comment from *Aspartam:

I dont get the point at all…Some nice fractals in both categories “before” and “after”. The one thing I see is a tendency to be less mainstream ( less overdone, with more use of space and not so many spirals) in the before category. Is it a way to point out a growing conformity in fractal making?

It certainly looks like a cancerous conformity to me, but Ms. Fire disagrees:

[S]ome of the first fractals are unique …I wouldn’t call them masterpieces not due to shape, but a basic lack of skill of the owner at the time of creation, and yes making the fractals more proper….isn’t main stream, it really requires full understanding of what each variation is doing.

There’s a manifesto to rally around:  Make your art more proper! Exploration has no place in creative acts.  Stifle such impropriety.  And don’t feel bad about grazing with the herd.  You aren’t going mainstream.  You’re just honing your craft and overcoming a “basic lack of skill.”  That way, you’ll avoid the stink of serendipity and never have any cumbersome accidents while making algorithmic art — which, as we all know, is grounded in absolutes and demands precise programming and complete technical comprehension.

Picasso.  Matisse.  Gauguin.  Miro.  Basquiat.  Serrano.  Ofili.  How much more famous would they all have been — if only — they’d made their art — more — proper?

As long as our community embraces prevailing mindsets like

–only programs like UF and Apo can help one become a “master”
–only decorative, spirally, layer-laden eyecandy — like that found in BMFAC exhibitions, the defunct FUC, and this DA collection of “masterpieces” — is “proper” enough to count as legitimate, worthwhile fractal art
–mastering the capabilities of fractal software is equivalent to creative acts of self-expression
–placing work in insular and isolated Fractalbook hidey-holes where social expectations define success based on behavior patterns of false flattery and mass conformity to limited artistic models is comparable to a stratagem of placing work in fairs, galleries, museums, and non-community web sites to be openly seen and widely reviewed

then the general fine arts world will continue to see fractal art and artists as, at best, non-professional — and, at worst, as completely mediocre.

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Perhaps the last word on this whole fractal sucking matter can be found in the signature line from this comment from Jimpan1973:

Awsome news article!

–
Real friends are those you can fart with!

Yes, if nothing else, there seems to be plenty of that going on here.

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Note: Edited to correct a misspelling and to add missing italics.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractals that suck, fiery-fire, jimpan1973, milleniumsentry, joelfaber, loonyl, depaz, grinagog, aspartam, make your art more proper, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Lightning Fields 128 by Hiroshi Sugimoto

I learned to capture the lightning shock…
–Roger McGuinn, “Lover of the Bayou”

The fractal properties of lightning have long been evident in dramatic photographs of self-similar jagged bolts caught in a split-second of illumination.  But few have pursued lightning so deeply “to its hiding place,” as Victor Frankenstein once put it, than Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Armed with a camera, a metal table, and hundreds of thousands of volts, Sugimoto freeze-frames the fractal zing of electrical charges in his “Lightning Fields” series.

Lightning Fields 138

Wired outlines Sugimoto’s process:

He wields a Van de Graaff generator to send up to 400,000 volts through film to a metal table. The resulting fractal branching, subtle feathering, and furry whorls call to mind vascular systems, geologic features, and trees. “I see the spark of life itself, the lightning that struck the primordial ooze,” Sugimoto says.

Lightning Fields 147

In describing his work, Sugimoto reminds us of of the historical connectedness between scientific experimentation with electricity and photography:

In 1831, Michael Faraday’s formulation of the law of electromagnetic induction led to the invention of electric generators and transformers, which dramatically changed the quality of human life. Far less well-known is that Faraday’s colleague, William Fox Talbot, was the father of calotype photography. Fox Talbot’s momentous discovery of the photosensitive properties of silver alloys led to the development of positive-negative photographic imaging. The idea of observing the effects of electrical discharges on photographic dry plates reflects my desire to re-create the major discoveries of these scientific pioneers in the darkroom and verify them with my own eyes.

Lightning Fields 119

The romantic notion of suffering for one’s art appears to literally be true in Sugimoto’s case.  ArtInfo reports that Sugimoto’s creative process can be, well, shocking at times:

The practice is not without its risks (the generator is ominously labeled “Danger High Voltage”). When I ask if he’s ever electrocuted himself, Sugimoto chuckles. “Quite often. Sometimes the spark comes to my belly. It hurts. It’s hard to describe — it’s just shock, it’s like cutting yourself, twisting.”

Self-Portrait by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Genevieve Quick, writing in Shotgun Review, sums up Sugimoto’s achievement as follows:

By essentially establishing a micro-environment in the dark room akin to the conditions of an electrical storm, Sugimoto creates lush large-scale black and white prints that resemble botanical and biological images, landscapes, high-power microscopic magnifications, and lightning itself. This richly layered process creates works that, in the tradition of Talbot before him, elegantly blur the boundary between science and photography.

The fractal properties evident in Sugimoto’s work are simply stunning.  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear these images were rendered in a program like Tierazon.

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Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, digital art, hiroshi sugimoto, lightning fields, art that shocks, cruelanimal, orbit trap

[Photograph seen on Manshion.]

Here are some selected shorts. Apparently, I have no grand vision to impart to start the New Year.

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Orbit Trap has published several recent posts exploring the nature of fractal art, and Tim explicated an image by Guido Cavalcante and analyzed its artistic expression.  In response, several commenters wondered why we haven’t provided more examples of work we consider to be fractal art rather than fractal craft.

But a quick trip through OT’s archives will show many positive reviews.  I think it’s safe to assume that if we complimented someone’s work, then we probably felt that work was an example of fractal art we admired.  Here is a short list of fractal artists whose work we have praised in the years we’ve been blogging:

Morgen Bell, Tamrof Boynton, Guido Cavalcante, Jock Cooper, Paul DeCelle, Manas Dichow, Stephen Ferguson, Terry W. Gintz, Earl L. Hinrichs, Rich Jarzombek, Simon Kane, Maria K. Lemming, Jos Leys, Elizabeth Mansco, Kerry Mitchell, Samuel Monnier, Philip Northover, O, Stacy Reed, Jürgen Schwietering, Bryan A. Smith, Fernanda Steele, Mark Townsend, Harmen Wiersma, and Dan Wills.

As I say, this is an incomplete list, and OT’s archives contain more examples.  So, I wish our adversaries, like Ken Childress, who persists on whining that we are whiners who mostly wallow in negativity, would finish their reading before beginning their writing.

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Last year, I said my favorite fractal art image of 2008 was one of Paul DeCelle‘s UF renditions of Lars-Gunnar Nordström.

I think my favorite image of 2009 was this one:

The Google Search Engine by Garth Thornton

Orbit Trap also named Thornton our “Man of the Year” for the moral courage he showed over his resignation as a judge from the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest.  Unlike two other fractal software authors, Thornton understood serving as a judge would create an inherent conflict of interest.

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The Ultra Fractal Mailing List was offline for over two weeks at the end of 2009. Naturally, given his customary penchant for secrecy, there was no explanation for the outage from the list manager. No one on the list had the temerity to ask why everything went dark; instead, once service returned, users blithely exchanged New Year’s greetings as if nothing had ever happened.  I suppose one analogy would be to the power company.  When the juice cuts out, you just sit tight semi-patiently for the lights to come back on.  Either that, or UF List participants have read their Old Testament and know that questioning their provider-god tends to just annoy him and make him more prone to vengeance.

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Ice Cream from Neptune by Daniel White

The latest “it” sensation in Fractaldom seems to be the 3-D Mandelbulb.  Like the Buddhabrot craze of a few years back, the 3-D Mandelbulb doesn’t much excite me as it maybe should — probably because I’m more interested in processing fractal images than I am in rendering them.  Still, it’s clear that many of the images of the Mandelbulb’s extrusion of the classic Mandelbrot set are impressive — especially these seen at Skytopia.

For more information about the 3-D Mandelbulb, check out this discussion area of Fractal Forums.

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Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, ken childress, garth thornton, benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, ultra fractal mailing list, 3-D mandelbulb, selected shorts, cruelanimal, orbit trap

A framed print of To the Joust.  My cat studies its intricacies for hours.

I’d like to talk about my experience with making prints.  Let me begin by making clear that I’m not claiming to be any kind of expert in this area.  There are plenty of professionals who know more about the ins and outs of printmaking than I.  So, to show good faith, I’ll provide some links to a few more learned people at the end of this post.  My purpose in writing about making prints is simply to give an account of my own experience — and to try explaining why the decision to make prints has re-shaped the way that I see and create art.

What first set my dials to printmaking?  Thinking about presentation methods was the initial baby step — and then beginning to explore various ways in which fractal/digital art could be showcased.  All artists (with a capital A) have multiple means of presentation.  A musician’s song can be recorded, played live, played “unplugged,” be utilized as background music in a film, be transformed into a visual narrative using video, and so on.  Likewise, a poem has similar possibilities for being displayed — read privately, read aloud, performed, slammed, audio recorded, video recorded, inserted into multi-media, and so forth.

Fractal/digital art is no different.  Such art can be viewed on a  home monitor, be uploaded to a Fractalbook repository to take its place amidst the socializing and tabulating, be printed (on either paper or canvas) and hung in a home-business-museum, be displayed digitally on a hi-def, large-screen state-of-the-art television, be printed in a book, shared as a par file, reduced to a navigational thumbnail, and — as we’ve seen from past OT posts about Phase Two thinking — be sculpted or painted or blown or constructed or imprinted on t-shirts, mugs, balloons, frisbees, and thongs.  The paradigm shift for me occurred when I made a conscious decision to present my work offline as well as online.

The first thing I vowed to do was to take presentation seriously — as seriously as I do my own art.  I began to research and quickly discovered that to make decent prints I’d have to render images at much larger sizes — and so I did.  I found it was not too difficult to render fractals at larger sizes, at least in the fractal software I use, but the extensive post-processing I commonly do could be a problem.  I began to experiment pushing the size constraints of my “studio” to discover the comfort boundaries of the computer I use to make art.  Each time I can afford to build a new machine, I try to make sure it packs affordable maximum firepower to enable me to work larger and faster.  I first stepped up to images sized at 1800 x 1200 pixels, and now I can work and post-process at the notorious BMFAC-required sizes of 8000 x 8000.

But not quickly.  Everything slows down considerably once you go large.  Render times drag.  Working in graphic programs like Photoshop take patience and medication/meditation when effects and adjustments slow to a snail’s crawl.  One side effect, although not necessarily a bad one, is that the time lag corresponds to less output.  I probably (mercifully?) now produce 1/4th the amount of work than I did in the same time frame when I first discovered fractals.  Although I hope I’m more discerning about the work I now make public, it’s also true that it takes me substantially longer to finish individual pieces.

There is another side effect.  My canvas is now six to eight times larger than it used to be — and, consequently, I’ve become much more particular about how that space is filled.  Artistic concerns — like texture, balance, highlights, dominance, unity, overall composition, and (especially) perspective — become more integral (and more time-consuming) in the process of shaping and finishing a given work.  In fact, in previous OT posts I’ve described the effect of increasing the digital canvas as a significant mental shift moving from perceiving work in “monitor mode” to perceiving work in “wall mode.”  In other words, all through the composing process, I envision a work displayed large (wall mode) rather than small (monitor mode).

Once I made the conversion to wall mode, I then began searching for a professional Printer (I’m using the capital “P” to designate a person and not a machine).  Finding a good one turned out to be a difficult, hit-and-miss journey.  I’ve had no experience with places like Zazzle or the printing services provided on some Fractalbook sites like deviantART, but my experiences with online printing sites were frustrating.  The prints just looked funky — colors appeared over- or under-saturated, depth seemed washed out, and one image even came back exploded and reassembled as a neo-cubist collage.  Even several local print shops could not reproduce images to my satisfaction, although the turnaround time improved.

Finally, one afternoon, I saw a series of prints of nature photographs in a local museum.  The prints were breathtaking — exhibiting a clear sense of depth and a stunning clarity.  I called the artist for information, and he told me that he did the prints himself, and that he ran a print shop as a commercial venture.  I asked if he’d work with me, and he agreed — mostly, I think, because he’d previously worked exclusively with photographers, and he wanted to get some hands-on experience printing original, “pure” (his term) digital art.

I believe having a proficient, trusted Printer — one with an artistic eye — can make a noticeable difference in the quality of prints.  My Printer is exacting and takes pride in his work — making small test prints to see if color and resolution look right, or trying trial runs on various grades of paper to better obtain an ideal reproduction.  Again, taking your printing endeavor seriously is non-negotiable.  I insist on using the highest quality, archival inks and papers to try to produce professional Giclée (ink-jet) fine art prints. I was fortunate to find a Printer who is also an artist — and one capable of skillfully pulling off the sizable magic trick of bringing a digital image into the physical world.

You also have a decision to make at this point.  Should you use paper or canvas for a background?  In general, paper is the preferred choice for making archival, museum-quality, Giclée fine art prints.  Paper prints are de rigour for galleries and collectors, but they also come with their own set of problems.  They are delicate and can be easily damaged.  Smudging and sun-fading can occur, and liquids are their mortal enemy. So, paper prints must be matted and framed under glass to keep them safe — and, depending on the size of the print, the glass and frame can quickly become quite heavy.

Your other option is to print on canvas — although such prints seem to be less desirable for collectors and regarded by museums to be near-gauche.  Canvas prints, not surprisingly, are much more like a painting and are even stretched and mounted on a wooden frame — which means even large canvas prints are considerably lighter than small glass-enclosed paper prints.  Canvas prints, especially if covered with a protective lacquer, are certainly much more durable.  To my eyes, canvas prints tend to flatten out an image and degrade texture, but they retain more color richness and hue.  Paper prints, on the other hand, tend to lose bright colors a bit, or start to develop watercolor-like traits if the paper isn’t well suited, but they preserve both texture and depth far better.  In a good paper Giclée, textured forms can become visibly embossed and take on distinctive 3-D qualities.

So, now you’ve worked large and made your print — what next?  Admit, as a digital artist, you are working with a generally agreed upon disadvantage.  You have no original — no concrete, tangible masterwork — no unique physical object, like a painting or sculpture, that can be shown or sold.  A painter, too,  can make high-quality fine art prints — but she or he also possesses the original painting — the mold from which copies, even Giclée prints, can be made.  Naturally, as a fractal/digital artist, you also have a master, as does, say, a digital photographer.  But such masters cannot function in the same ways as do paintings or sculptures.  (Or can they?  More on that later.)  Therefore, facing such an inherent shortcoming, how can you try to insure that your prints will have value?

You limit the number you make.  From what I can tell, practices on limited-edition prints vary widely.  You’ll have to decide what idiosyncratic approach and commercial specifics best serve your needs.  What I eventually settled on doing was limiting each image of mine to a Variant Edition (V.E.) of 25 prints of any type or size.  That means only 25 prints — large or small, canvas or paper — will be made of any given image.  Once the 25th print of an image is made, I ask my Printer to delete the “master” file of that image from his computer.  I also allow making up to 2 “artist’s proofs” per image — that is, running off a small number of prints for the artist’s use that are set aside from the edition prints.  Artist’s proofs, because they are more scarce, tend to be more valuable.

To further insure the legitimacy of the print edition, I sign, number, and date each print — and, of course, keep records of the printing history of each image.  I also provide a “certificate of authenticity” to be included with each print.  These are made using my production company stationary and include background information on the print — title, year it was made, edition number, Printer info, Framer info (if applicable), ink and paper stock information, caring for the print notes, process/composition notes, and background notes (when appropriate).  Some artists go further and take the step of having their print certificates notarized to further bolster authenticity.  I even saw one artist display and discuss his prints while wearing white gloves.  That might seem like overkill, but the gloves made an impression that stuck with me.  It was obvious he considered his work to be valuable and acted accordingly.  I stress again, there’s no point in undertaking making prints unless you do so in a professional and earnest manner.

I have a challenge for you.  Work on an image you want to print.  From the start, make it larger than you usually would.  Reflect carefully about texture.  And perspective — squint at the image with your nose to the monitor, then stand across the room and see how it looks in complete darkness.  Take your time until you are satisfied with every detail.  You aren’t making this image for a desktop background.  You aren’t making this image to upload to a social networking site.  You’re making this image for a physical space in your home.  When it’s done, print it.  Print it — seriously.

Seriously — as in not at home on your PC’s HP deskjet or whatever.  No, take it to a shop.  Print it at a larger size than your home printer can handle.  Choose paper carefully.  Use archival materials, if available.  Title, date, and sign your print using a graphite pencil.  In fact, make it an “artist’s proof” (it is, after all, isn’t it?).  Then, frame it — seriously.  At a minimum, buy a frame set that includes glass and a functional matte.  Better yet, have your print professionally framed.  Carefully choose the frame and style and color of matte.  Take your matted and framed print home.  Find a suitable space.  Hang it.  Let it be.

For at least a month or two.  And see what happens.  See if you don’t develop a different relationship with your image — or come too see it in a new way.  Does it fill space in a manner unlike viewing it on your monitor?  Do the other surroundings in the room help determine its effect or shape its meaning?  Do guests or family members react to it?  Take my challenge and see if changing the way your work is presented changes the way it is perceived — by you and by others.

Making prints has certainly changed my own perceptions — both of my work and my process.  As I said earlier, I am only relating my own experience of making prints — but I hope you can tell it’s been exciting and pleasurable.  I have many prints nestled in around my home, and I have also been fortunate to place some into shows, as well as to sell some.  But, again, I’m not claiming any high level of expertise.  So, if you’d like to know more about prints and printmaking, you might want to check out these knowledgeable folks:

Here’s an interesting conversation from MOCA on “Printmaking: Traditions and New Trends” between Professors John Antoine Labadie and Ralph Lee Steeds of the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

Thinking of doing your own professional printing?  Also from MOCA, you might consider following the example of J.D. Jarvis and his account of printmaking in his three-part essay entitled “From the Box Up: Life with a New Printer.”

About.com has articles defining Giclée prints, explaining how they are made, and advice on how to sell art prints.

Wikipedia on Giclée prints.  Authoritative as written by who knows who can be.

There are, of course, numerous books you can buy on this general subject — like Mastering Digital Printing by Harald Johnson and (for those with Phase Two leanings) Digital Art Studio: Techniques for Combining Inkjet Printing with Traditional Art Materials by Karin Schminke et. al.

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And, yes, I know what some of you are thinking.  I can hear you clearly across the vastness of cyberspace.  Fractal art is a digital medium.  It’s an art of light and code.  It is best presented and viewed digitally.  If it’s not, so much is lost.  Colors dry up.  Depth is scuttled.  Distinctive elements, like lighting features, evaporate when placed outside a digital environment.  Moreover, there’s no quarter given on this point of view.  Intrinsically, it’s a disservice not to display and view fractal art in a digital milieu.

Well, I agree.  Digital art does become something else removed from digital space and reconstituted in physical space.  But, remember, I’m not advocating one presentational method is preferable to another.  I’m only pointing out that there are various avenues from which to present one’s work.  Each has advantages and disadvantages.  Frankly, I think the future looks promising for digital purists.  That’s probably because I had another eye-opening experience recently.  I took the master copy of one of my images, burned it to a DVD, and carted it over to a friend’s house in order to view it on a high-def, 65 inch, flat screen TV.  And, yes, its pixels jumped and buzzed in a visceral way that no print I’ve ever made could match.

So, don’t lose hope, digital true believers.  The days of Total Recall, wall-sized, high-definition, digital screens or “frames” are not science fiction.  I think museums and collectors will soon have to come to terms with the imperative of sometimes presenting digital/fractal art in digital space.  They’ll feel compelled to invest in high-end screens and to meticulously set the ambiance for an optimal viewing experience.

I only have one caveat for digital experience enthusiasts.  Be consistently serious.  Treat each image of yours as an individual work — a work deserving its own screen/frame.  If you’re thinking of just sticking a flash memory card into a digital frame and rotating through 1000 of your images with overly busy wipes and squiggle special effects, you’ve already cheapened yourself as an artist by settling for a screensaver on steroids.  Worse, by suggesting that your work is obviously disposable and replaceable — a Fractalbook mindset that implies today’s mass-produced “masterpiece” is as awesome as yesterday’s — you lost the war being fought to present your work as fine art.  In the end, after your many labors and tears, doesn’t your vision deserve better than a hokey digital billboard?

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Tags: fractal, fractal art, fractal blog, digital art, digital prints, giclee prints, on making prints, printmaking, monitor mode, wall mode, who are you to say my hokey digital billboard sucks, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had never experienced the least lascivious desire that might change her body?

Art and photograph by adak’76

Repeat viewings of the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest winners consistently leave a bitter aftertaste.

I’m convinced, especially after reading Tim’s latest OT series on the distinctions between art and craft, that very little of what BMFAC will exhibit next year merits being called art.  The winning works are, at best, well-crafted craft — decorative, ornamental, and technically accomplished eyecandy.  With perhaps one or two exceptions, none of winning images fulfills any non-motivated function of art — like mysterious experience, imaginative expression, universal communication, or symbolic function.  The winning images also come up short in meeting motivated functions like social inquiry (as Guido Cavalcante’s recently discussed image does), psychological purposes, contemplating thought, elucidating concepts, or provoking ideas.  I’d even settle for lesser pursuits like demonstrating open propaganda.  No, for the most part, only one criteria apparently is necessary to be a BMFAC winner: beauty.  The winning images are, without fail, pretty pictures.

One recent commenter, Esin Turkakin, responding to Tim’s last post, seemed to confuse craft with medium — as if the two things were one and the same. She went on to say:

If you only judge images by their artistic value as you seem to do, medium becomes completely irrelevant – we can’t talk about “fractal art”. It’s merely defined by its message and expression, independent of the medium used.

This is nonsense.  Would you make the same claim about sculpture, ceramics, or photography?  If we judge photographs by their artistic value, can we no longer talk about photographic art?  Absolutely not. Actually, what we should no longer assume is that fractal images that are merely well crafted automatically rise to the level of art.  This is the modus operandi of BMFAC, the late Fractal Universe Calendar contest, every Fractalbook high schoolish it’s-another-masterpiece mutual admiration society comment thread, and (sometimes it seems like) the whole fractal “art” community.

But if you’re going to use the term fractal art, then I sincerely hope you’re judging such work by its artistic value.  Maybe if BMFAC was a little more “independent of the medium used,” we wouldn’t have nearly every winner using the very same “mediums” (UF and Apo) — that is, fractal generators coincidentally designed by two of the contest’s judges.

Art should always be the primary concern for critical judgment.  Otherwise, let’s start talking about fractal craft instead and just spend our time swooning over studying the intricacies of par files — which, by the way, is the preferred entertainment of the UF Mailing List.  Art remains art across mediums — whether the format be painting, sculpture, music, poetry, fibers, film, criticism, or computer-generated work.  Art certainly can be well-crafted — but just as emphatically does not have to be.  Is Duchamp’s urinal “well-crafted”?  The question is irrelevant, even absurd.  What matters is expression.

And that’s the limitation of craft.  It doesn’t express anything.  It just lies there and looks good.

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Another commenter, Nada Kringels, makes the following observation as to whether Tim’s contention in his last post that an image by Guido Cavalcante rises to the level of art:

I do respect Guido’s passion and engagement, but hadn’t I been told what the image was all about I wouldn’t have seen it by itself. I had to read the whole horror to interpret something as garbage which I had seen as an unhappy color combination before. An instrument has to be practised, studied and played a lot before, MAYBE, it has this direct magic.

Using Kringels’ logic, here is an extrapolation of what she’d probably say about Picasso:

While I admire Pablo’s “passion and engagement,” looking at “Guernica” I saw just a bunch of “unhappy color combinations,” and I “had to read the whole horror” to interpret it as something like firebombing.  If only Pablo had taken Janet Parke’s VAA course, then he could have “practiced his instrument,” meaning Ultra Fractal naturally, and better honed his craft to produce more “direct magic.”

Did I mention that both Turkakin and Kringels are recent 2009 BMFAC winners?  Check the links on their names above and you can determine whether their soon-to-be-exhibited entries are well crafted.  But do either rise to the “direct magic” of being art?  If not, then can they be said to live up to BMFAC’s billing of presenting “the most important fractal artists in the world“?    And maybe because OT asks such questions is why both Turkakin and Kringels keep showing up here to argue that, at least when it comes to fractal art, distinctions between art and craft are arbitrary and/or meaningless.

~/~

The question of artistic mediums raises another problem I have with BMFAC.  It is far too limited in its vision of what fractal art is and can be.  To me, fractal art is precisely what it says: art with fractals.  BMFAC believes fractal art is art (well, craft actually, but let’s not get caught in a recursive loop) with programs — and, really, after examining what won, pretty much only Ultra Fractal and Apophysis — whose authors, if you don’t mind my pointing out the same feedback cringle once again, conveniently served as BMFAC judges during the last go around (talk about getting caught in a recursive loop).

Previously on OT, Tim outlined the necessity for fractal art to iterate into Phase Two, and I gave examples of what a Phase Two exhibition of fractal art might look like.  So let’s talk mediums today, or, more specifically, avenues for expressing fractal art that are not heavily dependent on software.

Photograph and art by adak’76

When I first saw the image above, I thought it was a digital/fractal image that had been post-processed with Photoshop filters like Flaming Pear’s Lacquer.  But this is a photograph, and a horizon can clearly be seen near the top of the picture.  Whatever this is, it’s big.

Exploring adak’76′s other galleries on Picasa provides some clues.  This shot, in particular, suggests the artist is proficient in metalworking and constructs his artistic installations on a grand scale.  The reflections of light on the photographs of fractal forms above suggest these pieces could be the size of a small bedroom floor and are likely highly varnished.

This fractal artist seems like a perfect fit for BMFAC.  After all, his installations far exceed even BMFAC’s massive file restrictions.

Fractal 23 by Takeshi Miakaya Design

I saw this on BoingBoing.  It’s a fascinating example of 3-D recursiveness, although the task of having to dust “infinite” drawers seems a bit daunting.  There are twenty-three functional drawers on this chest, and you can own this piece for a mere $19,000.  One commenter noted that Miakaya built two of these — one for himself and one to sell — but then quit and observed that such fractal furniture was “a pain in the ass” to make.  I suppose such sentiment qualifies as suffering for your art.  Unfortunately, I could find no working web site for Miakaya.

A fractal carving by Terry W. Gintz

Terry W. Gintz is a true Renaissance Man.  He’s a programmer, artist, poet, photographer, and sculptor — and even a superb cook.  He’s recently updated his fractal carvings gallery — small sculptures based on 3-D fractals created with QuaSZ and other Mystic Fractal programs of his own design.  Gintz notes that “like fractals, every rock tells a story.”  In truth, Gintz has many fascinating galleries of his lapidary art.  I especially like his Flintstones Minatures gallery.

Gloria Caeli, a balloon by Jonathan Wolfe and Friends.

Sky Dyes, a project headed by Jonathan Wolfe and his friends, designs “flying fractal art balloons.”  Talk about an impressive palette.  In this case, it’s the sky itself, surrounded by (fractal) clouds.  Wolfe notes that:

The fractal balloons will contain roughly 100 billion pixels, about  the same number of stars as are in our galaxy and as many neurons as are in our brain…

Well, that should be big enough to (barely) meet BMFAC’s gigantic size limitations.

A fractal thong courtesy of Fractal Generation Galleria

Software is so passé.  Thongs are the new new wave in cutting edge fractal art.  Nothing proclaims your seriousness as a fractal artist more than slapping your work over the genital areas of complete strangers.  You never have to worry about penis envy when someone’s family jewels are draped with your self-similar infinity.  Perhaps BMFAC could make fractal thongs a separate category in the 2011 competition. Then, finally, one could honestly claim those massive entry sizes do matter.  Moreover, such skimpy, fractally-enhanced undergarments might be just the ticket for presenting “our art form to a world that largely does not know it.”  Why maybe the BMFAC selection panel members (no pun intended) could even model the contest finalists — strutting the pageant ramp in a live YouTube fractalpalooza.

I’d buy that for a dollar.

~/~

UPDATE:

On September 25, 20o9, on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List, Damien M. Jones made the following remark concerning my OT post about a mysterious “winners page” where BMFAC director Jones appeared to be sorting contest entries into winning and losing categories before the BMFAC judging panel had ever convened:

The interpretation of what [Terry] saw was all his; he elected to spin it in a way that favors his cause. It’s demagoguery [emphasis mine].

On December 6th, as a comment to this post, Esin Turkakin, one of BMFAC 2009′s winners, made the following remark:

What I find sad is why you’re actively trying to avoid a civil discussion and immediately resort to demagoguery [emphasis mine] .

Does it sound to you like someone has marching orders to repeat established talking points?

Isn’t it interesting how quickly you can become a “demagogue” as soon as some people disagree with what you’ve said? They’ll earnestly accuse you of incivility — as they flat out call you names.

~/~

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, art criticism, more phase two thinking about fractal art, benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, esin turkakin, nada kringels, adak’76, takeshi miakaya, terry w gintz, jonathan wolfe fractal balloons, fractal thong, the perils of deep zooming private parts, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Have we got a deal not for you…

Photograph: The Scam Truck by jepoirrier

I know how exciting it is when someone contacts you and wants to purchase your work. Who among us doesn’t want to be discovered and sell or display our art?  Just make sure those who come knocking have good intentions.

In the past week, I had two such inquiries — both worded in a similar manner.  You’ve already guessed where this is going.  Both offers were scams.

I knew both emails were from con artists because I received a nearly interchangeable come-on last year.

The most recent email was from “Lewis Martins” at a generic sounding gmail address.  The subject line was “am interested in your work……….”  Here is the email text:

Hello,
Top of the day to you .. i would like to know more details and descriptions of your artwork after checking out your profile on [Name of Art Site] but i was unable to get a name and details of the art as i am higly intrested and would like to buy as a birthday present for my wife. Kindly get back to me with info on how to get you the name of the artwork in order for you to get me details as well as final asking price of the artwork.i would await your response as soon as possible……

Several things ought to be fishy immediately.  The grammatical and spelling errors do not necessarily mean the inquiry is not from a cultured art curator, but the mistakes don’t give me confidence either.  There is a noticeable lack of specifics about the message — no mention of my name or the title of a specific art work, information that any semi-professional art site will surely have, and zero data on Mr. Martins.

Here are other common templates for similar art scam letters.  See why I instantly got bad vibes?

If I had responded to Mr. Martins in the hopes that he would purchase work from me, here is what would have happened.  Any of these circumstances should make you gun shy about further pursuing a sale.

1) Mr. Martins will be in a big hurry to complete the transaction — now — or, better yet, yesterday.  He can’t wait.  His wife’s birthday is looming. Your work is the perfect gift and he needs it immediately.  If you explain reasonable delays like taking days to make a print and taking longer to get that print shipped, Mr. Martins will be unable to tolerate the hold up.  His wife’s present can’t be postponed; he’ll have to look elsewhere if you drag your feet.  But the reason he is rushing you is because he wants to pay by

2) Writing you a check — which he hopes will not have time to clear (which it won’t) before you fall victim to the scam.  Which might be to send him art work, but, more likely, he’s after your money.  He’ll tell you there’s no need to ship the work — he’ll make the arrangements or have someone pick it up (and thus need your home address).  Or, and this should raise major red flags, he’ll concoct some convoluted reason to write you a check over the amount of your asking price — thus setting you up to pay him back the difference.  Since his check will bounce, you’ll be out any overage you agree to return.

What to do?  Don’t be in a hurry.  And don’t take checks.  Cashier checks are especially easy to forge.  Set up a PayPal account instead (and be aware that these can be prone to phishing schemes).  Insist the buyer use a credit card to purchase your art.  True, credit cards can be stolen, but at least the scam artists will be easier to track.  If you do decide to take checks (certified checks or postal money orders included), be aware that checks can sometimes take up to a month to clear.  Never send out any work until you are absolutely certain the check is legitimate and has been fully processed through your bank.

Be skeptical of anyone inquiring about your art that, for whatever reason, needs personal information about you — like street addresses or (shudder) a bank account or Social Security number.  Scrutinize carefully agents who love your work (for a fee) or galleries that want to represent you (for a fee).  Insist on written contracts and study them rigorously.  The same due diligence applies to any company that wants to license your work.  And, generally, be aware of ways to safeguard yourself from being a victim of identity theft.

It’s strange when I wrote Mr. Martins back saying that I suspected his interest in my work was actually a scam and threatened to turn his message over to the Attorney General’s Office, he never wrote back, although I assume his wife’s birthday was just as imminent as before.  Sadly, he now probably wants to “purchase” other art work for her.

Just don’t let it be yours.

For more information on art scams, visit this site at ArtWanted and this site (with email examples) by Max Magnum Norman.

~/~

What has to be one of the strangest narratives I’ve seen in the twelve years I’ve been involved with fractal art?  This tale found on LaPurr’s journal on deviantART.  It’s worth reading an extended excerpt:

A while back, out of nowhere, I was contacted by this person ~debora321 asking me if I’d try out her program, Fractal Magic, FMSetup.exe which was supposed to help render UF images more quickly. I don’t recall exactly what else she said about the program and I wasn’t really interested but I downloaded the program just to check it out. When I tried to open it, my computer went a bit nuts so I deleted the program and cleaned my computer. I wrote to her and told her that she had a problem and she said she’d fix it and for me to try again. There’s no way I’d open anything of hers again, so that was the end of it.

For me, anyway.

I got a note today from ~0Encrypted0, who told me that he was also contacted by ~debora321 regarding her little program. He tried to open the program and as a result, she somehow managed to get hold of params of his. He wrote in part:

“…it looks like my computer was hacked when I downloaded a file called FMSetup.exe that debora321 asked me to try out.

I think some or all of my Ultra Fractal parameters were copied.”

He sent me links to a couple of images that clearly show she ripped his params somehow.

Here is his original image from January 16:

Here is her version from October 15:

Here is his latest version to showcase the likeness, with links to the other images:

I have to assume that this woman somehow got ~0Encrypted0‘s params.

If you were one of those people who was contacted by her, and I’ve seen some of your names on her user page, I urge you to go through her gallery and see if any of your images are there, in a slightly altered form. See if any images you recognize are there. Most importantly, I think you need to get her program off your computer. Whatever you choose to do, please be careful.

When I first read about this incident, I thought it was a hoax.  I mean, why go to the trouble to build malware designed  simply to steal Ultra Fractal parameter files?  Why risk committing art theft — not to mention facing criminal charges — just to repost someone else’s par files, minimally altered, as your own on a popular and highly trafficked Fractalbook site?  Did the alleged perpetrator think no one would notice — especially those artists she personally invited to download and run her supposedly UF-enhancing program?

And while puzzling out the motive for such an inherently epic fail scheme, check out one of the more engaging comments about this whole bizarre business:

laurengary says:

You know, reading everyone’s comments & answers & one word Kat, one word came instantly to mind….that this is/was a form of a …fractal rape. Kinda sorta. Sorry for sounding so melodramatic, *grimaces* but honestly, that’s the first thing I thought of.

No, actually, rape is like rape.  What this is like is hacking computers to commit art theft.  I understand there might be some sense of being violated here, but still what you are like doing is being hyperbolic.

And here’s another choice comment from the alleged thief’s nearly empty DA page:

ChaosApostle notes:

I wouldn’t be surprised if an e-mob were to be incited and show up at your door.

Really?  Where can Tim and I get some of those virtual torches and pitchforks?  We’re planning to do some score-settling travel this summer.

The insults really take flight in the alleged thief’s home page comments and range from the expected “pathetic” to the inflammatory “art whore.”  “Sad” also comes up repeatedly.  I do find this whole situation to be sad.

And unnecessary.  One thing you can say about UF users: Many are not shy about sharing their parameter files.  There are stockpiled databases of such files, and the Ultra Fractal Mailing List has near daily posts of them — often inviting tweaking by others.  Why steal?

If proven guilty, the person who committed this hoax and hacking should be condemned.  DeviantArt should ban her.  She should be reported to the proper authorities, and they should investigate and, if warranted, take all appropriate legal actions against her.

Nor do I blame people for being upset by her duplicity.  =Velvet–Glove summed up the sense of personal betrayal that many others also clearly felt:

I gave you personal help and advice… and you repaid my kindness by trying to hack into and invade my computer in order to steal my work and data? I’m outraged!

But our fractal art communities should do a little soul-searching, too.  I once compared Fractalbook to high school cliques, and never has the analogy seemed more true to me.  Are people becoming so desperate for the fishing-for-compliments rituals that pass for discourse about art on Fractalbook sites that they’re willing to go to such lengths for a few kind words?  There’s certainly individual neediness pushed to criminal lengths on display here.  But there’s also an unflattering picture of the hierarchical social structure of online environments — small pond star systems that are ostensibly about art but are actually soap operas revolving around who gets the status and privilege of sitting at the virtual cafeteria table with the cool kids.  What’s sad is to see how many earlier love-and-kisses comments (thanks for the watch/favorite/star!!) the alleged thief has on her deserted home page — many from the same people who now call her an “art whore” or speculate on whether the Mafia has obtained her virus program and “will be on a plane to your house in no time to kill you for such a thing.”

~/~

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractalmagic, scams and viruses, art scams, your par files are my precious, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Ups and Downs.  Design by Roller Coaster Tycoon.

The 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest results have been announced.  If you’re a regular OT reader, you already got this news.  We announced it on Thursday — apparently before the contest itself was ready to do so.  When, on the UF Mailing List, one of the judges noted on Saturday that he “had to find out from OT” about the announcement, the BMFAC director graciously showed up to explain:

No you didn’t miss the announcement. I had enough time on Thursday to post the winners and open up display of the entries, but didn’t have enough time to craft an appropriate announcement. And frankly I wasn’t ready to encourage a flood of visitors until I had enough time to respond in case there were server problems, so I thought I would make the announcement today. It seems OT’s obsession with something they hate has made such an announcement unnecessary.

Moral of the story: Do not make a web page live until you are like totally ready to have it be seen by the public.  This moral applies whether one is engaging in art competition pre-sorting judging or art competition post-sorting judging.

And let’s also note a conundrum.  It’s hard to deny the privileges Ultra Fractal enjoys in a certain fractal art contest — a contest that says it’s specifically dedicated to bringing the richness and diversity of fractal art to “a world that largely does not know it” — when the contest director’s official communiqués are delivered via the small-pond vehicle of — wait for it — the Ultra Fractal Mailing List.

But I’m getting in a snit already, and I haven’t even started.  Let’s begin again…

~/~

As Tim announced on Thursday, the winners of the 2009 BMFAC are in.  I’m sure Tim and I will be writing more about this year’s iteration of the contest in the future.  We like writing about the contest, as some of you have probably noticed, although, truly, we long for the day when we will no longer have to.  Unfortunately, that day is not today, and, at least at this early stage, all I can tell you are my initial impressions.

~/~

What’s up:

The judges still do not have work officially entered into the exhibition.  Twenty-five winning images were selected, and none of them were by a currently serving BMFAC judge.  This significant change in contest procedure is to be commended; it unquestionably advances the credibility and professionalism of BMFAC.  I’d like to think OT had a hand in bringing about this change, although I’m sure BMFAC Central will claim such was the design all along.  Whatever the reason, it’s a positive change.

Naturally, OT will take a kind of Reagan-based “Trust but Verify” attitude in this matter, since we remember that falls off turnip trucks hurt.  We’ve seen October Surprise talk before of sponsors insisting and hedges against sufficient quality used as fresh clarion calls to hang up judges’ art.  The philanthropic graciousness of BMFAC Central has traditionally been bookended with dollops of self-publicity and grabs for personal or financial gain.  I wonder if the director and the selection panel will continue to be satisfied with consistently sitting out of the big show — with not being counted among “the most important fractal artists in the world.”  Will “prestigious” judging and pushing Ultra Fractal like Pepsi be satisfying enough for them?

~/~

Other ups:

One winner was a former BMFAC judge.  Several other former BMFAC judges did not win.  You know what that sounds like?  Fairness.  This round goes to the current judges.  Praise where praise is due.

Was it just me, or did there seem like better variety and a little more experimentation in this year’s winners?  It wasn’t quite as much of the usual UF parade of layered pancakes.  Some of the images were striking and inventive, especially those of Ramon Pasternak and Natalie Kelsey.

Every winner should be congratulated and deserves every accolade that comes their way because of their achievement.  OT has never had a problem with BMFAC’s winners — only with its administrators and sponsors.

The flash mob of 50+ alternates and honorable mentions that cropped up on the love fest that was the 2007 BMFAC winner’s page are gone and definitely not missed.  More good work — and thanks for that much needed purge.  I understand not wanting to hurt feelings and offer encouragement, but three-fourths of contest contestants do not need to have their egos stroked.  It cheapens the accomplishments of the exhibition winners.  Besides, we already have a near 100% delivery system for such an I’m OK You’re OK vibe.  It’s called Fractalbook.

~/~

What’s down:

More serious attention should be given to removing conflicts of interest from the competition.  It’s tawdry, not to mention highly unprofessional and ethically questionable, to include fractal software authors as judges.  The conflict of interest should be obvious: there is an increased opportunity for such persons to benefit financially or personally.  Whether the profit or publicity is a little or a lot does not matter; the principle should be sacrosanct.  As I noted in my earlier post about the nature of  conflicts of interest, even the mere perception of a conflict of interest should be a concern and could corrode trust in the legitimacy of a contest.  Garth Thornton, originally a judge for this year’s BMFAC, came to this understanding and resigned.  He is a honorable man, as well as a talented artist, and I respect him for his courageous stand.

I have little respect for the other two software authors who refused to resign, for I find them much less honorable.  Did they not see the same conflicts of interest Garth did, or were they looking the other direction at potential perks that might come from serving as judges?  Their decision to remain on the selection panel contaminates the integrity of the competition and should call the evenhandedness of the results into question.

BMFAC should establish a detailed conflict of interest policy and post it publicly on the contest’s rules page.  No software authors can serve as judges out of concern for their own commercial or professional gain.  Judges who teach fractal art classes must recuse themselves from judging their own students.  Other similar stuff.  Put it all in writing.  Examples of conflict of interest polices are all over The Google.  Everyone will be less suspicious if the contest administration at least shows awareness of such common, ethical practices.

Stop favoring Ultra Fractal at every turn.  Ultra Fractal’s author is a judge.  More than half the judging panel are commonly known as UF artists.  The contest director is an acknowledged UF zealot.  Worst of all, relax those absurd monumental image size restrictions.  Bigger is not necessarily better for an art exhibition.  Most photography shows are not comprised of picture window sized prints — and photographs surely have as much detail as fractal art.  Moreover, you’ll reap adding more diversity and variety to the competition — as well as come closer to the aim of showing a representative sampling of contemporary fractal art.  If you continue to so openly privilege UF, then just call the whole affair an Ultra Fractal contest and create a small category called “Other” for those few winners who slip through the UF sieve.

These recommendations do matter.  Failing to make these changes will allow doubts to remain and fester about the fairness and professionalism of the contest.  Here’s why.

I spent some time Googling each of this year’s BMFAC winners.  Most of them have web sites or community galleries.  In some cases, I found their winning images posted online to various web sites, blogs, or art communities.  Other winners had essays online where they discussed their art and mentioned the programs they use.  A few winners were blank slates; there was little or no information about them.

Using this data, I made a best guess estimate of the programs used by each winner to create his or her winning image.  I stress that I am guessing, but the guesses are reasonable and made after careful study.  Of course, BMFAC does not release such information, nor would it be in their best interests to do so.  They probably don’t want you dwelling on how many UF images there are per square inch of BMFAC’s exhibitions.  So, admitting my own scientific guesswork, here’s how the contest shook out for me*:

Ultra Fractal: 14
Apophysis: 5
Xenodream: 1
Fractal Domains: 1
Unknown: 4

Assuming my conjectures are fairish, and granting a margin of error (or further additions from unknowns to the UF or Apo stats), it becomes clearer why those conflicts of interests and restrictive file sizes are bones of contention.  Let’s go to the math.

76% of the winning images appear to be made with either UF or Apo.  And the authors of both of those programs served as contest judges.  What’s that smell in the air?  Could it be — the scent of undue influence?

56% of the winning images appear to be made with UF (or more, if any of the four unknowns are also UF based).  This is actually a bit lower than in previous BMFAC exhibitions (especially if one counts the “invited” work by judges).  Still, what’s the overriding impression?  The proclivities of half the selection panel, not to mention those UF friendly and easily scalable image size restrictions, are paying off for UF — still unofficially BMFAC’s product-placed and teacher’s pet software.

Let’s face it.  If you don’t use UF — or don’t have a machine powerful enough to render Apo at quilt sizes — your chances of winning a spot in a BMFAC exhibition are remote.  I’d say they are about the same as a non-spiral had gaining admission into the pages of the now defunct Fractal Universe Calendar.

If the competition is going to continue to so heavily privilege only one or two fractal programs, then the merchandising and publicity of BMFAC should come clean and reflect this fact.

~/~

Other bads:

Tim has already addressed the shake-your-head, cloying obsequiousness of an image openly paying homage to a BMFAC judge somehow ending up in the winner’s circle.  In the VU meter of unprofessionalism, this bit buries the needle as deeply into the red as it can go.  Here’s a tip for those wanting to do better next go around. Start now building a series of tribute images dedicated to possible judges for BMFAC 2011.

One individual, who has never been a judge, has hit the trifecta and now won a space in a BMFAC exhibition for the third straight time.  I guess we can safely conclude that he is either a) the most important fractal artist in the universe, or b) a devout water-carrier for all things BMFAC who is consistently being rewarded for his loyal service to the cause.  The scales of justice want to know which way to tilt on this either/or issue.

If you’re going to say in your selection criteria that you want work that is “uniquely fractal; artwork that uses fractal tools to produce less-fractal imagery is not as desirable,” then you should probably be diligent to select such work.  At least several of the winning images have little discernible fractal structure.  Other people have noticed this slip, too — like former BMFAC judge Samuel Monnier who makes a similar criticism on his blog.  Hopefully, he won’t now start receiving those why-don’t-you-just-shut-up and go-start-your-own-art-contest if you-think-you-know-everything comments OT routinely receives.

The BMFAC selection criteria also notes the following:

We would prefer you create new artwork for this contest. Existing works may also be submitted, but we are more likely to select artwork that is new and fresh.

However, a number of winning images were not created solely for the contest.

This image appeared on Renderosity in August of 2008.
This image appeared on DeviantArt in August of 2009.
This image appeared on DeviantArt in July of 2008 under a different title.
This image appeared on DeviantArt in October of 2009.
This image appeared on DeviantArt in June of  2009.
This image appeared on DeviantArt in March of 2009.
This image appeared on Renderosity in September of 2008.
This image appears on the artist’s website with a copyright date of 2008.

I quit surfing around at this point, since I had now found one-third of BMFAC’s winning entries were not newly created for the competition.  Again, why bother to insist upon this criterion if it’s going to be so loosely enforced.  Not that good role models were always provided.  Even when the judges were sneaking their work in the back door, did they follow their own suggested stipulations?  Not always.  The director’s “invited” selection for the 2006 BMFAC exhibition was made in 2001.

Finally, the director needs to build an announcements page for BMFAC.  That way breaking information about the competition can be quickly posted and easily checked.  A contest info page would be a convenient spot for stuff like photos and reviews of the exhibition — unless, like the 2007 exhibition, there’s going to be a total news blackout on the show instead.  Moreover, using the Ultra Fractal Mailing List as the official organ for disseminating BMFAC updates gives the appearance of favoring UF insiders over everyone else.  Worse, it makes those of us who don’t want our inboxes crammed with round robin UF tweaking games feel more than a little left out.

~/~

*This graph is only a guess.  Treating this graph like a fact will likely increase the risk of side effects like emotional outbursts, outraged emails, virtual gnashing of teeth, and erectile dysfunction — which, as everyone knows, is caused by everything.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractal contest, art contest ethics, benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, ups and downs of the 2009 benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, conflicts of interest, how to author software and be a judge for fun and profit, cruelanimal, orbit trap

“It was already dead, so I didn’t see any point in keeping it around.”

One of the few extant group blogs on fractal art got its plug pulled recently. This was no surprise since the wedream(ed)incolor blog, run by Keith Mackay, had been on life support for some time. In fact, Tim wrote an OT post about its terminal condition not long before Mackay decided to play Dr. Kevorkian with it. In an October 10th post on his personal blog, Mackay explains why he finally swung the axe. And, naturally, he goes out of his way to sketch out why his actions were far more preferable than the “unethical” steps taken by an unnamed blog that can only be Orbit Trap:

I deleted everything on wedreamincolor because I felt that it was the right thing to do. A few years ago I was part of a fractal based community blog that fell apart when the blog owners started to personally attack some of the other members. The owners cut off write and edit access to the 20 or so members but hung on to all of the images and entries that the members had made. I thought that it was terribly unfair and unethical for the blog owners to do that. With all of their contributions, the cut off members provided significant readership and momentum to that blog. It would be akin to a place like DeviantArt removing write and edit access to their members, but hanging on to all of their images and journal entries. That would piss off a lot of people. It certainly pissed me off when that blog did that to me, so I decided to not do that to the contributors of wedreamincolor.

Mackay, as usual, is not telling you the whole story. It has always been Orbit Trap’s policy to remove any post should a contributor request we do so. Mackay knows this to be true from first-hand experience. He wrote us to insist his OT posts be removed, and Tim and I promptly deleted them. To date, Mackay is the only former contributor to make such a request. I’ll say again, just so there is no misunderstanding: If you are a former Orbit Trap contributor, and you want any of your posts removed from this blog, email OT’s editors, and we will quickly see that your wish comes true. However, you should be aware of the following implications: 1) Deletion of posts cannot be undone. You want it gone? It’s gone for good. 2) Deletion of a post also deletes all comments for that post. I’m not sure how those good folks who took the time to comment on your writing will feel about wiping them out of existence. Still, OT feels it’s your post, and thus your call. 3) If your post is a response to other posts, then the context or reference point(s) your post provides will be kaput. You may be giving rhetorical ground and creating a vacuum in argumentation where your point of view once provided a counter balance to the views of others. And 4) Visitors peruse OT’s archives every day. If you don’t want ongoing attention to your images and writing, just let us know.

So, given our policy, why does Mackay feel he is morally justified to criticize us about keeping posts online? Did he go out of his way to ask his blog’s contributors if they wanted their posts (and the effort that went into making them) taken down? Remember, too, such excision means all the post’s comments are expunged as well. Didn’t his contributors (and commenters) have the presumption when posting that their work would remain online? Why should Mackay’s contributors suffer because he goes into a melancholy funk and decides to scorch earth his blog? Really, though, this is typical, impulsive, slash and burn behavior from Mackay. How many times has he capriciously trashed then rebuilt his various Fractalbook galleries? I’ve lost count.

And he claims the happy family, kumbaya, group blog days is when OT had momentum? Somebody hasn’t been reviewing OT’s stats to properly keep score. Feed subscriptions and readership has increased at least tenfold since OT scrapped its initial group blog format. Mackay has everything backwards. OT did not succeed because we initially had so many “great” fractal artists on board; we succeeded in spite of that fact. The growth in OT’s readership took place after we junked what Tim likes to call the “community limbo” phase of OT. I suppose Mackay can be forgiven for assuming that gathering together a collection of so-called “prestigious” fractal artists would be the best way to get the community interested in our blog. Tim and I thought so, too — at first. It wasn’t until we changed the blog’s format that we discovered that OT’s readers wanted something else — something they weren’t getting from their Fractalbook forums and UF List threads. That is: honest, opinionated criticism. They didn’t want another venue where artists went on talking about themselves. They’d had enough of the mutual admiration society where every post elicits the compulsory “Another Masterpiece,” suck-up, bargaining chip, you-scratch-my-back remark that must be repaid in kind somewhere down the comment chain. Instead, readers want a direct, critical perspective — something the fractal community never engages in. Even if OT’s readers did not always agree with us, they at least appreciated our plainspoken bluntness. For example, if we feel a fractal contest is crooked, we say so — and we do our best to outline and illustrate the facts and behaviors that lead us to formulate such an opinion.

But Mackay would have you believe we have been unethical for not following his model example — an example that collapsed into epic fail mode. What Mackay doesn’t want to face is that his warm fuzzy group blog couldn’t generate much interest outside its own narcissistic, insular crowd. Like the small pond insiders on the UF List. Like the back-slapping shut-ins inhabiting Fractalbook arenas. Like the cowards who falsely flatter others to ingratiate themselves and worm their way into the good graces of any fractal artist presumably having status and power. Ironically, Mackay’s blog had some of the very same contributors who once cranked out a few-and-far-between post on OT during its salad days. So I have to ask. Why is he now chiding us for not following the very same framework that resulted in his blog’s slow death?

Then again, I’m not all that surprised that Mackay shredded every post from wedream(ed)in color. After all, that’s what’s done when you don’t want anyone to see the record of what you’ve actually done

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UPDATE: Keith Mackay has responded to this post here by reanimating a few limbs of his dead (now undead?) group blog apparently for the sole purpose of answering OT and notes that

which, paradoxically, does seem more than a little like answering to us for something.

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Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, keith mackay, keith mackay’s revisionist history, wedreamincolor, wedream(ed)incolor, orwell sez failure is success, cruelanimal, orbit trap

The Garbage Path by Guido Cavalcante

[Click on the image above to see a large-scale version.]

Editor’s Note: This is a guest posting by Guido Cavalcante. His image was made using Ultra Fractal. Excerpts in this post were taken from “Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic…Are We?” by Susan Casey. For more information about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, please see this post at RTSea blog. The current print edition of Rolling Stone also has an excellent article on the floating plastic mass: “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch” by Kitt Couchette. To illustrate the severity of plastic debris polluting the world’s oceans and waterways, Couchette notes: “On British coastlines in the North Sea, a study of fulmars found that 95 per cent of the seabirds had plastic in their stomachs, with an average of 44 pieces per bird. A proportional amount in a human being would weigh nearly five pounds.”

Orbit Trap welcomes guest posts on fractal art topics. Query the editors using the email link in the sidebar.

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The facts happened twelve years ago.

It was August 3, 1997. A sunny day with little wind, Captain Charles Moore and the crew of Alguita, his 50-foot aluminum-hulled catamaran, sliced through the sea.

Returning to Southern California from Hawaii after a sailing race, Moore had altered Alguita’s course through the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre. This was an odd stretch of ocean, a place most boats purposely avoided. So did the ocean’s top predators: the tuna, sharks, and other large fish that required livelier waters, flush with prey. The gyre was more like a desert — a slow, deep, clockwise-swirling vortex of air and water caused by a mountain of high-pressure air that lingered above it.

Map of the gyre. The blue square represents one study of the garbage patch.

[Click on the image above to see a large-scale version.]

The area’s reputation didn’t deter Moore. He had spent countless hours in the ocean, fascinated by its vast trove of secrets and terrors. But he had never seen anything nearly as chilling as what lay ahead of him in the gyre.

It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.

How did all the plastic end up here? As the Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the “Eastern Garbage Patch,” Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a week through bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the 21st-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body.

The memory excerpts above of the first encounter with the Garbage Patch remain one of the most terrible discoveries of the century. My image tries to represent the surprise of the horror. I think it is the first time the Patch has been graphically represented, except for photos. For those that want to read the six page description which leads me into the adventure of making an image tied with the reality, it is here:

–Guido Cavalcante

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Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, guido cavalcante, the garbage path, great pacific garbage patch, captain charles moore, sailing into the horror, orbit trap

“I’m the decider!”

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
–Lord Acton

The recent revelatory leak that a pre-sorted “winners page” was being built by the director of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest leads to an inescapable conclusion. The competition is indeed a one man show. The director, Damien M. Jones, appears to be playing the role of sole gatekeeper. It looks like Jones not only screens all entries, he also classifies them, thus sending tacit signals to the BMFAC judging panel as to exactly where various entries should be placed. The BMFAC judges are strawmen; they don’t select so much as shuffle, like an iPod, material that’s been pre-ordained for them by Jones. If your entry doesn’t get past his initial sorting, you’re out. Once that happens, Benoit Mandelbrot, the honorary chair of the contest, won’t get the chance to pass judgment on your work, nor, for that matter, will the rest of the selection panel. In fact, Mandelbrot, the esteemed mathematical theorist and fractal pioneer for whom the contest is named, is merely a figurehead, a kind of trophy wife who looks good fronting the contest but has little to do in the actual selection process. The contest should therefore be renamed for the individual who plays the god-like role of deciding which entries live or die. BMFAC should more appropriately be called The Damien M. Jones Fractal Art Contest. After all, that’s what it truly is.

It wasn’t enough to load the judging panel with Ultra Fractal enthusiasts, including coders, teachers, apologists, and even the UF author himself. It wasn’t enough to rig the rules by calling for massive file sizes that only a program like Ultra Fractal can easily handle. It wasn’t even enough to hand many of the judges a back door pass key enabling them to display their own work in a (supposedly) juried competition they themselves oversaw. No. These incredible conflicts of interest, examples of UF privileging, and self-serving publicity stunts, were all contrived to radically skew BMFAC to heavily showcase exactly the kind of work that Jones and his UF paisanos produce and to hold up their style as rigorously judged, if not the epitome of our art form.

Astoundingly, none of that elaborate wrangling was enough. Apparently, BMFAC’s director and judges and sponsors still needed an ace in the hole. So, Jones, devoted to the interests of Ultra Fractal deeply enough to write this article, took it upon himself to insure that only work he approved of would be pre-approved for the already UF-inclined panel. With this final step, the deck would be fully stacked.

How else is one to interpret what Tim stumbled into last week when the “winners page” opened as he linked to it while drafting an OT essay. We’ve already shown in our last few posts why the “test page” theory put forth on the UF List won’t fly. The winners page was based on a template from the 2007 contest. It worked fine then, and a test, if even necessary, could have been made by importing a single image. Why test with so many images from current 2009 entries meticulously titled, identified by artist, and, most significantly, classified into three categories? Furthermore, if the “winners page” was only a test, then why were two additional entries added after I posted the screen caps last Thursday? That’s not testing. That’s sorting.

Tim referred, probably with some sarcasm, in his last post to the “official response” to the leak. Of course, Jones won’t talk to Orbit Trap directly, but he did issue an explanation of sorts on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List, housed on Jones’ own server. It seems he’s only comfortable talking within the walls of his own fortress among friendlies who’ll provide a chorus of nods to his every proclamation. Since the UF List is a public forum, though, here is what he offered by way of an explanation for the “winners page” leak:

Indeed, no winners have been selected and any page purporting to have them is an error.

I did indeed duplicate the 2007 site in prepping the 2009 site, and neglected to include a check on the winners.php page to see if the winners had actually been selected. Since that winners.php page isn’t actually linked from the main page of the site and the contest site configuration is still set to accept submissions, for the page to even appear is a bug (now fixed), and for anyone to find it they had to go looking for it–essentially, low-grade hacking. Digging for dirt, as it were. It’s embarrassing for me to have missed this check, but it should be equally embarrassing for any would-be critic to try to manufacture issues where there are none.

The contest is still open until the 10th and the winning entries have not been determined.

Note that Jones admits building the page. The “bug” was merely that the page was “live” and visible. Think for a moment. What kind of a check would have been in place “to see if the winners had actually been selected”? Isn’t Jones aware of the material he’s consciously placing on his own page? The page isn’t self-aware; Jones is the one positioning those entries into the various slots that serve as signposts for where he feels the second rounders should be situated. And he has done all of this with no input whatsoever from BMFAC’s other judges. Kerry Mitchell, a judge, made clear on the UF List last Thursday that the panel had not yet convened. Even if the winners have yet to be finalized, Jones’ hunting and gathering of entries is laying out his own picks for the judges’ commendations. The only thing being “manufactured” here is Jones’ evasion.

And this, you understand, is the best case scenario for what’s going on. For all we know, Jones could be making all of the final selections in advance, and the BMFAC judging panel merely rubber stamps the director’s choices. Maybe you fall in line or Jones doesn’t ask you back for the honor of “judging” the next contest. Given BMFAC’s history of secrecy, how can anyone be certain what’s what?

This entire process, mirrored, as Tim pointed out last post, by the recently deceased Fractal Universe Calendar, is completely backward. In a conventional literary contest, screening is done by a panel who sends a pool of finalists to one judge. However, let’s be clear: These finalists are never categorized with pre-assigned preferences. BMFAC puts the sorting in the hands of one enormously powerful person and allows him to recommend final placement. A better comparison could be made to the art contests run by the Museum of Computer Art. MOCA makes all entries instantly available for public view. Anyone, including the judges, can visit the online museum anytime during a competition to review the entries. Once the deadline passes, then the judges convene, discuss, cast votes, and select a modest field of artists who placed or received honorable mentions. This seems fair and well handled to me. BMFAC, on the other hand, operates in buttoned-down stealth mode with the director having a heavy hand over who makes the grade.

I mean, seriously, what else could Jones have possibly been doing but weeding out and pre-slotting entries? He has yet to explain exactly what kind of “prepping” he was undertaking. He’d rather transfer blame to OT for accidentally uncovering his chicanery. We were “hacking,” you see, so that obviously excuses whatever sieving of entries Jones was tackling. However, I’m a little unclear as to how one can hack a page that is viewable to anyone who surfs to it. Tim stumbled onto the page while writing a draft for a post about tired fractal art. He thought it might be funny to link to the 2009 winners page that would have a similar URL to the previous contests. He expected to see nothing, or maybe one of Jones’ chiding bandwidth theft messages once popular on Fractalus. To Tim’s amazement, the “winners page” materialized. This is hacking? We put up a link to the page on OT, a link that was active for almost 24 hours. I imagine many of our readers visited that link, now down and appearing as a “security error.” Did any of you who used it have to hack in to see it? The link was so public, in fact, Google actually indexed it. The hacking charge is absurd, or, worse, a lie. Even if it were true, Jones has yet to convincingly explain why current entries were being sorted into categories before the judging panel had yet to convene.

The question for fractal artists everywhere is whether you are comfortable having the public perception of our art form so powerfully entrenched in the hands of one person — a person who, by his decisions and actions, has shown a repeated pattern of bias and preferential treatment that continually benefits himself, his friends, his loyalists, and his software of choice. Fractal art, and all that it is and can be, is not his personal property. It belongs to all of us — absolutely…

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Update: My bad. I corrected a cut and paste typo leading to a garbled sentence at the end of the second paragraph.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, the damien m jones fractal art contest, damien m jones, the decider, it’s good to be the king, cruelanimal, orbit trap