2766 by Jock Cooper
Create your own visual style…let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.
—Orson Welles
The premise of this post is quite straightforward. I assert that Jock Cooper’s "Mechanicals" series is the most skillful, satisfying, and stylistic fractal art series to date. And here’s why:
11010401aa by Jock Cooper
875 by Jock Cooper
It’s About Something
The series has ambitions beyond simply creating ornate decoration. "Mechanicals" is, in fact, highly conceptual. Although the images are unquestionably technically proficient, exquisitely composed, and aesthetically pleasing, they are something more — something that most fractal art is not. They are meaningful.
I seem to recall someone once arguing that fractal art that was merely beautiful "was not enough." Oh. Wait. That was me — two years ago on this blog:
There’s nothing wrong with continuing to create and value visually pleasant works — unless it matters to you that our discipline move out of the craft fairs and into the museums. The prevailing aesthetic in our community is beauty, and nearly all fractal images currently made do not transcend to much more than decoration and ornamentation. Fractal art will never become a widely accepted fine art until more of us start making works of artistic expression and stop pretending that aesthetically pleasing works, however well crafted, rise to the level of art.
[…]
The problem in our community is that most of us seem to feel that making visually pleasing work is still “heroic” [Guido Cavalcante‘s term] and get defensive when some people, like Orbit Trap, find such a state of affairs to be questionable — even destructive. One reason I am “obsessed” with the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest is that it is a mirror of the state of our discipline. It has a stated objective of presenting to the world the very best in contemporary fractal art, but it actually showcases highly crafted work that is visually striking but little else. With several exceptions that I noted in my initial review of the 2009 BMFAC, nearly none of the winning images suggest any meaning beyond themselves. They say nothing to me about my life — or about life in general. They provoke no thought. They raise no ideas. They stir no emotions. They put no dreams in my head or my heart.
But Cooper’s "Mechanicals" do provoke, do raise, and do stir. They are technological Rorschachs for the 21st century. They lay out overhead maps of our urban environments and display blueprints of the circuitry that powers our homes, our industries, our governments, and our very civilization. They, in fact, create powerful engrams — memories of the motherboard structures that are the beating hearts of the artistic tools that allow each of us to pump out our fractal visions.
They are also prescient. I recall, upon first seeing Cooper’s "Mechanicals," marveling at the complex arrangements of straight lines in logarithmic patterns, especially when one considers that the bulk of fractal imagery (at least when Cooper first began the project) utilizes curved lines. If you doubt my claim, than take another peek at BMFAC’s 2009 winners. Only one image, Yvonne Mous’ "Round the Block," employs straight rather than curved or rounded lines. Like any true artist, Cooper is ahead of his time and seems to have foreseen the advent of the straight line fractal imagery that would later come out of the 3D new wave — like MarkJayBee‘s "PowerBloc" (also seen in OT’s "Fractal Art Collection").
21261 by Jock Cooper
12352 by Jock Cooper
It’s Post-Processed
Cooper’s "Mechanicals" series is a concrete demonstration of Tim’s recent thesis that Pixel Art offers more creative opportunities and possibilities for individualized style than Parameter Art. Why did Cooper’s series seem so striking when it first appeared? Because it did not spring from the limited warehouse stock footage of homogenized parameter files. It was heavily post-processed — even to the point of significantly altering the original base image. Can you not now still hear the fractal guardians of purity shouting Oh, the humanity — or, at least bemoaning the sacrilege?
Contributor’s notes on Cooper seen on Fractalfilm.com note that his mechanical images are made by "blending fractal shapes with 3D modeling software." I don’t know how Cooper made the images, nor do I want to know. In fact, I wish more fractal artists like Cooper as well as the Fractalbook craftpersons masses would keep their secrets secret. Maybe then Fractalbook galleries would not be dumping grounds littered with countless variations on the same disposable parameters — nor would the "tweakers" on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List be so quick to find themselves crying Thief when the par files they so willingly posted to cyberspace are somehow "unfairly" altered.
The point is that Cooper could not have realized his particular vision without resorting to additional and I’d guess severe post-processing. The ornamental designs of the existing parameter variations were not expressive enough to produce the mechanically tinged imagery, replicate the series with continuing variety and style, and convey the broader technological themes suggested by fluctuations in composition.
In this particular case, at least, Cooper made a conscious decision to color outside the lines in order to see his vision realized. This bold move makes Cooper’s series more than a programming exercise or a technical accomplishment; "Mechanicals" is one of the best examples to date truly worthy of being called fractal art.
And you know what’s sad? None of these images would likely get out of the starting gate in the current BMFAC competition. For one thing, I wonder how many could be rendered in the supersized entry requirements — or, at least, without significant degradation of detail. For another, the "Mechanicals" are not the "style" BMFAC hopes to perpetuate and eventually codify. They’re distinctly anti-UF — no soft-layered swirlies, no sheets in the wind and rings of gold. The BMFAC rules page makes quite plain what they want: Work that is "uniquely fractal" (meaning don’t touch those post-processing knobs and dials*) and work that "has lots of good, interesting fractal detail" (or, as Tim calls it, "organized imagery").
Poor Jock. Some of his best work will likely never wind up in BMFAC’s traveling craft mall. And why? His work is, ironically, too chaotic. With apologies to Vietnam War paradoxes, Jock had to destroy the fractal…in order to save it…
….in order for it to evolve beyond decoration and embellishment…
…in order for it to be reborn as art.
2151 by Jock Cooper
02070502 by Jock Cooper
It’s Meta
Meta, especially in art, is a term used to describe something that is characteristically self-referential. Think of the play within a play in Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an example. With "Mechanicals," Cooper creates his technological visions using the very technology he depicts. And, of additional interest, especially in this context, meta has another definition in the field of computer science: "It defines things that embrace more than the usual. For example, a metafile contains all types of data. Meta-data describes other data." "Mechanicals" definitely goes beyond what fractal art conventionally embraces.
Meta-art grew out of a cultural frustration that artistic expressions had become stagnant, sentimental, hackneyed, and landlocked. Does this sound familiar? It should, for it’s a dead ringer for the current fractal art landscape that Tim described so well in his recent Rebooting Fractal Art series. To see the correlation more clearly, let’s turn to philosopher Edward Feser, who, in a post called "Art and Meta Art," notes:
As Roger Scruton has emphasized in An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture, aesthetic modernism was driven in large part by a desire to avoid kitsch, the banality and sentimentality that so often attends the mass-produced culture of modern, secularized consumerist society. Accordingly, Scruton tells us, “the first effect of modernism was to make high-culture difficult: to surround beauty with a wall of erudition” (p. 85). Old forms came to be seen as exhausted, no longer capable of expressing genuine feeling; new forms had to be created (so the argument went) so that truly high art could once again be possible.
If you want to see Scruton’s misanthropic conjectures about the impulses for modernism made flesh and rendered immediately visible, then open the Fractalbook fractal galleries at Renderosity or deviantART and drink in your fill of "the kitsch, the banality and sentimentality that so often attends mass-produced culture." But what can we do to rise above such stagnancy? Well, what did the modernists do? Feser continues:
The nature of art became itself a subject of art in a way it had not been before. Modernist works were as much statements about what art is and what it could be as they were statements about their purported subject matter – religion, everyday experience, and other traditional themes – and as experimentation with new forms progressed, the former theme started to crowd out the latter ones.
I understand that one might assert that a little meta goes a long way, and that, arguably, the postmodernist’s later obsession with frenzied self-referentiality could be taking the concept a bridge too far, as Feser eventually gets around to suggesting. But the touchstones of his observations nevertheless ring true and reflect our community’s current plight. Fractal imagery has come to an inescapable impasse. Presently, nearly all of it is crafty at best and kitschy at worst.
The modernists found a workable way out of their artistic morass: Make "new forms" so that "truly high art could once again be possible."
And isn’t that exactly what Tim is suggesting — and precisely what Jock Cooper has done so convincingly?
080604_1800rev by Jock Cooper
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*[over-caffeinated announcer voice]: Extreme graphic processing with Ultra Fractal is both highly recommended and of course considered perfectly uniquely fractal for BMFAC purposes other uniquely fractal suppositions include completing courses by BMFAC judges imitating the UF look of BMFAC past and present judging panelists wishing the UF author was still a judge making snide but oh certainly not sexist remarks in DA journals about the reasonable and understandable lack of a female judge not caring that the competition pushes the director’s self-serving aesthetic feeling fine about those Godzilla size entry requirements because you’re in good standing since a "friend" just sent you an invitation to join the UF Facebook page and prized above all public criticism of Orbit Trap like calling the bloggers retards and insinuating one is winkwink gay for using Barbie analogies all of which likely ups the odds of hanging around in BMFAC information hallways but has side effects like neural sluggishness discourse collapse viral fallacies critical thinking impairment irrational belief that Chris Oldfield possesses the wisdom of Diogenes and erectile dysfunction which of course is caused by everything.
Next time in the series: "I Know What I Like…or Do I?"
Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 5
The future of fractal art
Well, bluntly stated, there is no future in fractal art. At least not in the kind of fractal art that most artists are making today. That’s the stuff I called Parameter Art in my last posting, Part 4. What we’ve all seen is what we’re all going to see.
Of course there will still be a lot of activity and plenty of people making parameter art –it will still be as popular as it is; but that’s not what I’d call progress or development –a future. Progress is better art, innovative art –new things. All that popularity is simply people enjoying the interaction and exploration of fractals: fractalism. They’re the audience, not the artists.
I see an art form that reached it’s apex about the turn of the millennium when full color rendering had become common and fractal programs reached their current level of sophistication in rendering. It just wasn’t so obvious back then that fractal art had climbed as high as it could. In fact, I think most artists thought it was all just getting going. Even today, many people say fractal art is just beginning.
Great new software and techniques haven’t moved fractal art off the plateau it’s on either. What is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the Mandelbulb/Mandelbox event this past few years is how quickly it has become just another formula despite adding another physical dimension. I was really excited about the 3D fractal thing and thought here, after so long, was something categorically different.
But now I see it as just an extension of the 2D fractal art scene with the same problem: no style, no depth; just a technical development. There’s been a steady stream of technical developments and even new software produced, but it’s become more a thrill of exploring new parameters and formulas (interactive) whose output is only technically different.
It’s become like bird watching: you have to be taxonomically obsessed to enjoy it. It’s an insider’s art form, if in fact it is an art form at all and not just a programming game.
What’s wrong with the BMFAC is what’s wrong with fractal art
Today’s fractal art world is an inbred place because the fractal artists that stick around like that sort of cliquish environment where who you know is what it’s all about. Some defend their little enclave on the grounds that it’s their preference to make art with one eye closed and one hand tied behind their back. The sad thing is that some really do believe that Ultra Fractal is an art form all itself, the ultimate fractal tool and the ultimate fractal art; “ultra-fractal art.”
Today’s fractal artist hungers for attention and status from their friends. Contests are the apex of their art form. It’s not about the art, it’s about who’s looking at it and what they’re saying. I know, because the moment I criticize any winning piece from a BMFAC the author immediately rushes in to defend not their art work, but the validity of their little prize and the reputations of the people who gave it. No one seems to think a lack of good enteries is a problem for an art exhibit.
Fractal artists like the technical restraints of their genre because it creates the illusion that fractal art is hard to make and therefore a worthy accomplishment. (There’s actually courses offered in how to use Ultra Fractal.) Open it up to processing and all of a sudden their ten-hour renders have to stand beside my ten-second “clickies”. What if one of those filter things actually looks appealing?
Don’t worry, it will never happen if of course one demands “real” fractal art to be scalable, high-resolution works which only a parameter file can generate; then I’m left eating UF’s dust. And that’s exactly what the BMFAC’s organizer, Damien Jones has done. He concocted the rules to give the appearance of allowing anything to be entered but then cut everything out except for parameter works by requiring image sizes that no preexisting image or even digital photograph could meet. He did this to keep digital art from actually entering and competing with UF art. And the UF artists call it a quality requirement. Good art is big art, right? That’s how dumb things are in the fractal art world.
A recent commenter pointed this out by saying that even if a fractal sculpture was submitted as a photograph, the artist would have to use a 48 megapixel camera to meet the image size requirements. It sounds ridiculous but not when you realize how vulnerable today’s fractal art is to outside competition, that is, to competition with unrestricted processing. Restrictions like this aren’t meant to keep fractal artists in, they’re meant to keep unauthorized artists out. Everyone’s free to leave. The average fractal artist sees this as “defining” fractal art and maintaining its mathematical purity, as if any image with fifty layers in it has any possibility of being a pure anything and hasn’t already entered into the artificial realm of photoshop constructions.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the fractal art world doesn’t interest the innovative and creative type of person. It’s not an innovative or creative thing anymore. It’s all been done before. Compare any of the BMFAC “winners” with artwork that was made ten years ago. There’s no place to go anymore. Ironically, the BMFAC came along after fractal art had already peaked. But they could have started their own renaissance if they’d allowed creative fractal art to be entered. But like I said, they weren’t interested in enlarging the fractal art world; they wanted to draw the limits around fractal art in such a way that they would be left standing in the center of it. In economics this is called protectionism. It props up the weak and inflates their wealth. And maintains the status quo a little longer.
…do fractals really need a special category?
I never seriously considered this before, but since writing this series I’ve begun to question the relevance of separating fractals from other types of computer art. I’m not sure that fractal algorithms produce art work that is sufficiently more exotic than any other form of algorithm or computer generated graphics. This is really the big question facing fractal art today, and the responses you get to it, more than anything else, tell you where that person’s interests lie and from what perspective they view fractal art.
From a science perspective the category makes perfect sense which probably explains why fractal art is such a well fenced off area today because so many involved emphasize the science and not the art aspects. In fact Benoit Mandelbrot is often described as the father of fractal art although he has never been described by anyone (particularly himself) as an artist. He’s the father of fractal geometry and a real genius, too, but fractal artists seem to think he’s the founder of something he only dabbled in way back when. Of course, having expired credentials is no barrier to becoming a judge of fractal art. At the BMFAC it seems to be something sought after. How many of them have given up making fractal art? Doesn’t that say something when “the most prestigious fractal artists” aren’t interested in fractal art any more?
But really, what fractal programs produce is just another kind of photoshop filter anyhow. In fact, there are some fairly nice photoshop filters that create algorithmic imagery exclusively. Fractals belong in the larger category of computer art. It’s a natural thing in the photoshop world.
I don’t mean alongside digital photography and it’s derivatives. I mean along with other kinds of imagery that is generated exclusively with computer programs. (Am I getting restrictive and exclusive now too?) All computer art forms are close enough to each other in terms of what they produce regardless of how they work. Shouldn’t such “fractal cousins” be exhibited together instead of apart? But good luck trying to convince the fractal “experts” that their glorious art form ought to mix and mingle with the rest of the computer art village folk. It’s ironic since the trend in fractal art is to make imagery that doesn’t look fractal and utilizes the layering and masking techniques that used to be the hallmark of graphical processing and the antithesis of fractal (i.e. generated) art.
Graphical experimentation is the frontier for all computer art
I’ve dubbed it “Digital Expressionism” after the Abstract Expressionism of the hand made art world. Interestingly, interactive installations, like what I suggested fractals were best at, are a common type of digital or electronic art form. They like to play up and expose the strange, electronic nature of their art form. Only the fractal art world seems bent on moving backwards into the offline world of picture frames and canvases to produce an unplugged electronic art form.
Maybe what’s needed is just a whole new generation of artists who don’t have the old attitudes and baggage of today’s fractal artists, artists who seem to want the status and image of traditional artists and are attempting to get it by promoting fractal art as the Picassos of our time and them even as the pioneers of it.
People love fractals!
Fractals have a strong scientific allure but that wears off fast once you see how orderly and homogenized they are at a closer inspection. Many fractal folks have stated how enthusiastic the average guy at the flea market is when he sees fractal art for the first time. Or when students discover fractals in a multimedia classroom. They click immediately and the artistic connection is electric!
Fractals, like most algorithms produce patterns or what could be described as highly organized imagery. Like I said before, it’s the achilles heel of fractal art but it’s also what wows people when they (first) see it. Complex patterns are a gold mine of decorative and design type imagery but that repetitive, iterative process doesn’t do the Picasso thing very well. In fact, I believe that the popularity of UF’s layering and masking features are because fractal artists have felt frustrated with fractals creatively and need layering to shuffle the deck, so to speak.
Today’s fractal artist considers fractal art to be the greatest things that a fractal program can make. When instead they out to be pursuing the greatest things that can be made with fractals. This program-centric mentality is what keeps fractal art so boring. Imagine if music was only whatever could be played on a piano? Or even just a violin? What would those soloists say when they heard an orchestra? They’d probably say it sounds nice but it’s not music. Too many sounds competing with each other and confusing the music.
Which reminds me of an interesting story…
I had an opportunity to talk with a modern music composer back in 2005. Somehow fractals came up and he told me of his experience discussing fractal music with a few younger composers who were excited about the creative possibilities of fractal music. After giving him a rather long and involved explanation of the wonderful way these mathematical formulas could be used to write music, he responded with the blunt question, “Yes, but is it any good?”
Despite having a distinct fondness for criticism, the old guy was reminding the fractal music composers of a simple but practical observation that regardless of whatever method they use, their music will be judged by whether it sounds any good or not and not by the fascinating science story that from their perspective makes the music new and different.
If the old composer was a visual artist I think he’d respond to a similar introduction to making art with fractals by asking, “Yes, but is it any good?” In the final analysis that’s what fractal art, or any art form, is all about: making good art.
But, woe to anyone who offers an opinion on good or even “better” art. The mere fact you have an opinion in the fractal art world makes you suspect. Someone trying to ruin things. Etc…
In a nutshell
Fractal programs are a fun and interactive form of digital art made possible through the discovery of fractal geometry and realized by the processing power of computers. Much of what we see on the internet are the snapshot souvenirs and test renders of a group best described as “fractalists” or fractal enthusiasts. Those who deliberately pursue the aesthetic qualities of fractals will ultimately discover that fractals make good designs and amazingly decorative, ornamental kinds of works. Fine art however, like the stuff in art books, is just beyond the scope of fractals or any other kind of algorithmic art source. It’s like trying to reach the moon in an airplane; it looks pretty straightforward until you actually attempt it.
But if you want your fractal art to go beyond the ornamental (or just maximize the fun) then working with it in pixel-form in a graphics program will both greatly extend your creative reach and at the same time give your fractal art real style and individuality because processing options are so much more diverse and unpredictable. There’s no personal style in the kind of images that can be stored as a parameter file and modified entirely within a fractal program. Those kinds of images are more a product of the program and its programming because the users who make them are limited to just those options. It’s this that has resulted in artwork and an art form that is limited because it’s defined and composed of limits.
The future of your fractal art is up to you.
Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 4
Pixel Art vs. Parameter Art
In my preceding three parts I have dealt with what I see are the limitations of fractals for making artwork. To put it simply, the geometric imagery called “fractals” has a natural bent towards the decorative and design type of art work. Artists who attempt to create more serious kinds of artwork with fractals have an overly optimistic view of their artistic potential and a view that at this late stage in the development of the genre is no longer justified. Fractals are objects of sometimes intense graphical beauty, but frustrate even the greatest efforts at intellectual expression. They are a source of simple graphical imagery whose “message” is never anything more than a strange new beauty born of mathematics and computer science. Trying to present them as anything more refined and articulate is just pretentious.
At the core of all this is the way fractal art is made. Fractals are made from geometric formulas and other graphical algorithms that give them their visual appearance. These algorithmic origins are both the strength and the weakness of fractal art.
Strength: Fractal algorithms quickly generate wild and incredible panoramas whose size and scope is literally on a galactic scale.
Weakness: Algorithms are rigidly deterministic and we interact with them only in those aspects of which the parameters are adjustable.
What I want to talk about now is two different approaches to making fractal art. One is what I call Parameter Art and the other is what I call Pixel Art. Parameter Art is made entirely within a fractal program while Pixel Art only begins with the imagery a fractal program makes and extends the creative process by transforming it in a graphics program like Photoshop. The two methods of making fractal art have been around for quite some time although Parameter art is by far the most common type today, while Pixel art, referred to as “post-processed” art in the past, has almost disappeared from the fractal world.
Different File Types
Images made entirely from parameters are similar to vector images which can be drawn at any size because the “image files” are not really images at all, they’re the stored blueprints, the instructions for drawing the image. Common image file types like jpg, gif or png are bitmaps and simply store the pixel pattern that you see on your computer screen. They’re no different than a screenshot or photograph of a fractal and contain no fractal formula or any other kind of rendering information. A bitmap is derived from a fractal formula, it’s no longer connected to it –the end product.
Parameter files are used to generate fractal images in a fractal program while pixel files are just a bunch of colored dots (pixels) stored as a map just like a huge digital mosaic. There’s a fundamental difference between these two types of files when it comes to working with them. With parameter files you can alter the elements of the image and change it’s structure and other things. With parameter files you work with the underlying algorithms that draw the image but with pixel files all you can do is alter the little pixel tiles in that big digital mosaic called a bitmap. By way of illustration, pixel files become a group portrait of a crowd of people while parameter files contain the actual people.
Parameter files can be more complex and incorporate other algorithms. With the latest version of Ultra Fractal, one of the most popular programs, a great many more algorithmic things than ever before can be combined and tweaked like a graphical orchestra of algorithmic instruments. But jpgs and other pixel files are one time deals that can only be adjusted and worked on in pixel based graphics program like Photoshop and many others. You can only work on the pixels because that’s all that pixel files contain.
Parameter files = algorithms = fractal programs
Pixel files = pixel dots = graphics program
Obi wan Kenobi and the Post-processing Jedi Knights
Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away… fractal artists used to argue about something called “post-processing”. That was the processing of fractal generated pixel files in graphics programs after (post) making them in a fractal program. It caused considerable controversy back then (c 2000), but today one hears little of this sort of thing in fractal circles.
The controversy was never resolved; what happened is that over the years fewer and fewer fractal artists post-processed their work (apart from minor enhancements like sharpening or anti-aliasing, which don’t really count) and so the post-processing debate just faded away. Today almost all fractal artists create fractal art by adjusting and transforming the parameters of algorithms in fractal programs and not by transforming the pixel patterns with graphical effects in a graphics program. Today’s fractal art is a parameter-based art form, not a pixel-based art form. The final image is produced by a parameter file in a fractal program and not by processing in a graphics program. The creative work is all done in a fractal program.
The great benefit of working entirely within a fractal program with parameters is that you can regenerate the exact same image at huge pixel sizes for printing out in high quality and you can rework those algorithm collections with new additions and collaborate with others in the ever popular, online “tweak-fests”. It’s an aspect of fractal art that makes it unique –a sophisticated, programmable drawing machine. This sort of technical power of high resolution rendering helps to give parameter art a more professional reputation among some.
But working solely with parameters is also an aspect of fractal art that limits it’s creativity and homogenizes its style. Parameter art is algorithmic art and algorithmic art is limited only to those aspects of the image for which options are available. No big deal, right? Think of all the different things that can be altered in a multi-layered, complex fractal formula made in Ultra Fractal. Plenty of room for creativity there, you’d probably say. And many will agree.
Yes, but what one fractal artist can do to change a parameter, almost (almost) any other fractal artist can also do. And the huge number of options available doesn’t mean much because unless one drastically changes the coloring and other rendering options, as opposed to simply the formula options, everything comes out looking like a variation on a theme because it’s all rendered in the same style. You can get 50 different fractal images but they’re all made of the same stuff and rendered the same way.
I once stumbled on an online gallery made by someone who used the same fractal program I did. They had a few images that looked very much like ones I had made and for which I had posted online along with the parameter files. At first I was certain they’d “tweaked” my parameters and produced a “new” image by zooming in on some other part of the image created by my parameters. But as I studied the image I began to see aspects of the coloring and general rendering that weren’t quite the same. Finally, despite the general appearance of the image I decided that it was quite possible that they’d stumbled on a very similar rendering mixture all on their own. They probably had never even seen my images or played with the parameters. Why not? Engineers often accidentally stumble on previously discovered and patented processes all on their own. It ought to happen even more in the world of fractal software.
Yeah, I know. “Think of all the variables involved and all the different ways layers can be merged or masked in Ultra Fractal.” If you think all those parameters are an infinite creative playground for fractal artists then why does so much fractal art –and I’m talking about the better examples of it–look so much the same? Or better yet: Why do fractal artists not have identifiable styles? I’ll tell you why: because fractal artists don’t work with the pixels. It’s because they don’t post-process their work and avail themselves of the thousands of weird and not so weird graphical effects and filters that transform images much differently than the standard ways fractal programs do.
Parameter art tends to converge on a few successful looking rendering combinations (like my online rival did) while pixel art tends to diverge from those few styles because graphics processing provides many more options and they can have such a radical effects on the image.
Essential differences
The essential difference between parameter and pixel art is the difference between making fractal art entirely within a fractal program and instead using the fractal program as the beginning of a process that ends in a graphics program. The output of a fractal program, although, strictly speaking, a pixel-based, bitmapped image, can be stored as a parameter file and that’s it’s defining quality: fractal program art–parameter file art. The output of a graphics program although it can also be a multi-layered file format, is essentially a pixel thing, a bitmap. In fractal programs one works with parameters and in graphics programs one works with pixels.
Despite the fact that both processes are “art with fractals” the characteristics of the two processes are quite different and diverge from each other in terms of final results. Parameter art is restrictive and standardized, while pixel art is almost unlimited and produces more individualized results. Pixel art therefore has greater creative potential and subsequently is the path that creative fractal artists ought to pursue. Parameter art, with it’s deterministic, predominantly rule based methods of generating imagery appeals to people who enjoy the technical challenge of working with formulas and algorithms more than making weird and novel kinds of imagery. Their perspective on fractal art I suspect is different from the post-processors.
A natural development for fractal art
Pixel art is a natural extension of fractal art for the graphically creative, while parameter art is satisfying only to those who are technically creative. They see the confines of algorithms as a creative challenge of its own kind in the same way that designing better machinery is a creative puzzle that requires one to work within the limitations of the materials, laws of physics, and functional goals of the desired machine. Or like the rules and boundaries of a sports game which one must master and respect if they want to play the game successfully. Parameter art is an engineer’s kind of art form.
It’s not like one is art and the other isn’t; or one is better and the other isn’t. It’s the results that one should evaluate and not the methods. But I’ve observed that parameter fractal artists consistently produce the kind of work that would be expected from such confined methods while the post-processors produce work that is more individualistic and varied –as would be expected from a more divergent and wide ranging set of graphical options.
The Sciences and the Arts are both valued aspects of civilization. Progress in the Sciences is measured in making discoveries, while in the Arts progress comes from creating new things. Both are highly challenging fields but one is the challenge of discovering what is there but not previously known while with the other the challenge is to make things that never existed before. I see connection between parameter art and scientific discovery and a different connection that joins graphical creativity to pixel art. Most of the people engaged in fractal art today are of the science group and they make the sort of artwork that impresses their colleagues. I’ve never been able to understand why more fractal folks don’t experiment with graphical filters. But now I do: To them that’s something completely different.
Formula in; Formula out
Fractal art is primarily parameter art today and that has given fractal art it’s distinctive look: formulaic and standardized. Working solely within a fractal program with parameters is not going to allow artists to distinguish themselves or produce stylish, individualized artwork. The parameter art method is homogenizing fractal art. But it’s a natural outcome for fractals and not the fault of the artists, unless of course one can blame them for working entirely within a single program “dedicated” to fractal art.
Dedicated, yes; but not to artistic creativity. A fractal program’s dedication is to generating fractal imagery. It only becomes a limitation when one choses to make it the limit to fractal art. It will greatly expand the creative horizon of fractal art to step beyond the boundaries of fractal algorithms and the simple in-house processing that fractal programs allow. Furthermore, it begs the question, “Why is processing a fractal image, even to the point of distorting its shape and degrading its details, considered to be a different kind of fractal art when the multi-layering and masking abilities of Ultra Fractal produce similarly altered images?”
The answer is that UF processing is done entirely within a fractal program (i.e. working with parameters). If you find that answer to be lacking in substance, then I think you’re beginning to see things more along my lines and are putting graphical creativity ahead of fractal algorith-mity (high five).
But in defense of the parameter artists, working entirely within a fractal program like UF (for example) allows you to produce artwork that can easily be rendered large enough for good sized, quality prints. Actually, for any sized quality prints. This in turn allows one to produce clean, smooth fractal structures in the same slick way that vector artwork looks sharp and crisp. Once you start working with pixels you’re restricted to the current image size in your graphics program. Unless you repeat everything over again starting with the same fractal image generated at a larger size. But that sort of thing is hard to reproduce. That’s why pixel art is so unique: often the artist can’t remember everything they did (or is it just me?).
But you can’t really say that Photoshop lacks the ability to produce large size, print quality images? I process almost everything I make from fractal programs and I work at a resolution that is, at the most, slightly smaller than my monitor’s screen resolution. But that’s just because it’s easier and I’m not interested in producing prints. My favorite size is 600×600 pixels and it looks just great on a computer screen. But that’s not where it’s at these days.
Pixel artists can produce big work, they just have to plan it out ahead of time. In fact, there are some processing “syndromes” I’ve discovered that actually look better when you scale up the final image. That goes against everything we’ve known about fractal art; scaling down (anti-aliasing) is what makes images look better. Perhaps this is an example of how the creative options can be much larger and more unpredictable in the pixel world.
Your fractal art is missing something
I’ve often exalted the creative powers of purely algorithmic, “machine-made” art. Algorithms create things that no human mind would ever make or conceive of. But I’ve come to realize that because processing had become second nature to me, I was unaware that I was always talking about processed algorithmic art. Fractal programs often produce neat looking things and they don’t need any help in doing it …but I’ve always gotten “better” neat looking things from adding the second machine, the graphics program. On a technical basis one can easily call this something different than fractal art, but from an artistic perspective the results are simply enhanced and perfected rather than distorted and degraded. Fractal artists I believe have for too long made the assumption that fractal art is art made with a fractal program. Such a belief is not only the creative castration of fractals as art, it’s a purely arbitrary convention.
Graphical, non-fractal, processing takes place in all fractal programs at the very beginning of image creation. There is no such thing as a pure fractal rendering as fractal formulas do not produce visible images (visibility is important in art). All they produce are big, very detailed sets of data points. Think of a gigantic bulletin board with pins stuck into it according to the direction of a formula. How you choose to decorate that thing is what is called “rendering”. Rendering options are the choice and provision of the program author and the selection of the user. For instance, there is no standard or “natural” image for the famous mandelbrot set. In almost every program the image you see is different in terms of colors and particularly in terms of the style in which it’s colored. It’s a purely arbitrary choice: compare various programs, there’s no such thing as a “natural” fractal rendering. (I’m a non-technical person and even I’ve figured this out.)
So you see, all fractal images are to some degree processed or arbitrarily enhanced. I say “degree” because the sort of rendering that goes on in fractal programs usually serves to expose and make visible the details of the fractal formula rather than to color over or do something transformative with it. Although layering (depending on how complex and heavy it is) is something quite different, that is, it’s results are not algorithmic unless merging the results of two fractal formulas can be seen as “mathematical” creation.
Fractals that aren’t fractal
What then does fractal art “lose” when someone transforms it in a graphics program? It can certainly lose some of it’s details and fractal structure, but doesn’t that happen when one layers and masks in UF (and layers ten or twenty times?) and produces the sorts of images I wrote about in a previous posting, Sheets in the Wind and Rings of Gold?
I guess it’s not fractal art if you can’t recognize any fractal structures in it? Like if you really process it into something unrelated to what you started with? But like I said about Sheets in the Wind and Rings of Gold, images like that are already by-products of fractal formulas, features contributed by the non-fractal rendering methods, and have diverged as far from fractal art as anything created purely in Photoshop. Whatever fractals can lose in being processed, images like those never possessed in the first place. Even a chopped-up or lens distorted fractal image is more fractal than they are. It appears that UF is fully capable of producing plain old digital art as well as fractal art. For reasons like that, we ought to have a looser, more inclusive definition for fractal art. In fact, a strict definition is not really possible if the varied rendering styles (and layering features) of fractal programs are considered. Processing has been programmed into fractal art from the beginning.
Pixel processing doesn’t follow the cow paths of fractal algorithms and gives stale old fractal imagery some fresh options. The label, “fractal art” might not even necessarily apply anymore. But then many of the layering and other fancy features of Ultra Fractal create imagery that defies a simple definition of fractal art. But Ultra Fractal is a very simple and scaled down post-processor, probably because it was designed to incorporate only the subtle, enhancing types of post processing. Much more powerful post-processing can be done in freeware graphics programs, especially those that utilize Photoshop compatible plugins and filters. Most fractal artists probably don’t see Ultra Fractal’s graphical features as post-processing because they’ve come to accept them as a natural part of making “fractal” art.
Real artists get itchy
So if the old, post-processing thing is such a quantum leap in creativity, then why don’t more artists do it? It’s simple, really: Because they’re not artists. Artists don’t conform to standards or keep working on the same old things like the old craftsmen in the fractal art world do. Artists crave novelty and are inherently drawn to create; and “to create” means to make new things, not polish the old stuff up or tweak to perfection imagery that lacked style in the first place and only possesses technical merit. Fractal programs are the comfy home of the technical “artist”.
(Like I said in my comparison of science and the arts: one pursues discovery while the other pursues creativity itself. Some fractal artists deny the label artists altogether and describe themselves entirely in technical terms like programmer, mathematician; and describe their innovative work as “test renders”. There are two different mindsets at work in fractal art and the results they end up with are categorically different.
I’ve given a number of reasons in my last posting, Part 3, why fractal artists don’t deserve to be called artists and how their belief in a “serious” fractal art form is nothing more than a collective fantasy perpetuated by their own isolation and the avoidance of criticism and external standards. But now I say that the biggest reason that fractal artists fail as artists and their art form fails to evolve into anything other than decoration or neat designs, is because they’re more comfortable doing what they see others do than doing what they don’t see others doing. They’re more comfortable doing what has been done rather than doing what hasn’t been done. They’re a small clique of imitators when they ought to be a more loosely knit group of experimenters and innovators; repelling as much as attracting each other. Artists are the classic iconoclasts, radicals, eccentrics and non-conformists in any society. But in the fractal art world, the artists are lapdogs and sheep. Maybe art was never part of their equation?
Fractal artists who stick to just fractal software are not really artists but rather just fractal buffs. They have, perhaps unintentionally, defined their domain so rigidly as to make it a closet with respect to creativity. Fractal programs alone do not have enough graphical options to satisfy creative people. Fractal software exclusivity is why the “fractal” art genre is advancing only on the technical front and producing new work only of technical merit, while artistically the genre stagnates. If fractal art is defined only as imagery made with fractal software then it will only be composed of work that has technical interest. It will continue to be a craft rather than an art form, possessing artistic potential but never realizing it.
Abstract/Realistic/Geometric
Fractal algorithms, that is parameter art, is a cul-de-sac; it’s a nice quiet place to settle down, but a dead end for anyone trying to go anywhere. Fractals have been called abstract art but that’s not really the best description. Abstract art, the hand made kind, is much more creative and open to a wide range of imagery. Fractals, and all algorithms, as I’ve been saying, aren’t like that. Although they aren’t realistic, obviously, they’re not abstract either, they’re better described as geometric. But this means they lack both the attributes of realistic as well as abstract imagery. Geometric imagery can be wonderfully ornate and, like all algorithmic art, easily made, but each new algorithm just forms another short cul-de-sac in a neighborhood of similar, pretty but dead-end streets. Fractals look like fractals: real mathematical constructions, which are neither realistic or abstract. That’s another reason why fractal art isn’t just another artistic medium but is instead something that requires more a careful consideration and a second look. Fractal art is something new and unique in the graphical realm.
I believe the reason why fractal art has failed to attract any serious artists or art talent is because any reasonably skilled artist can see how rigidly deterministic the process of creating fractal art is. Fractal programs are not the sort of thing that a serious artist looking to make innovate work and establish a distinctive graphical style would chose as a tool. Similarly fractal artists will only begin to break out of the creative cul-de-sac they’re in when they extend their tool set to include graphics programs and not just fractal programs. Even if that fractal program is the great Ultra Fractal, deluxe, feature rich and all that.
Venture beyond the walls
Fractal artists need to start looking at fractals as the start of the creative process and not the final result. What comes out of a fractal program is too raw and immature as far as computer art goes. At the very least one needs to experiment with color! Good color is the one ingredient that always makes me take a second look at a fractal image. Color is almost a language and art form all its own. But fractal programs just paint the algorithmic structures, they need to work on the whole pixel canvas. At any rate, experimentation is what is needed and what ultimately leads to more creative results. There’s more to color than just changing the palette.
Bad art is a self-limiting disease. If any of what I’m saying is true, then fractal art as it is today will not develop any sort of audience beyond it’s own practitioners and the occasional curious onlooker because it only indulges their own narrow interests and narrow set of rules. We might like fractal art because it’s fractals, but why should anyone else? We need to make artwork that engages an audience not just our friends. The fact that it was “made with fractals” might make it an interesting conversation piece, but it doesn’t mean much in a wider, artistic context if the images are boring. Fractal art will never be much more than synthetic nature photography without broader graphical experimentation. Fractal art needs to incorporate graphical as well as algorithmic experimentation.
And if the results aren’t truly fractal? and can’t quite be called “fractal” art? Well, I’d say worry about that later and first try to make more appealing artwork with more of a sense of style and individuality. Frankly, much of what has been exhibited at the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Exhibitions blurs the boundary of what is fractal art and what is just computer art. The fact that most of those images were made in Ultra Fractal doesn’t mean that what they’re displaying is the product of a fractal algorithm. And yet they all lack artistic style. They embrace the acceptable processing of UF but block the full featured processing of pixel art with arbitrary requirements for huge, scalable (i.e. parameter) images.
Joining the Digital Art world
There are more things you can do with pixels than with fractal algorithms. I remember reading a comment made online by Garth Thornton, the author of XenoDream when responding to a thread that was trying to come up with a definition of what fractal art is. His response was that fractal art ought to be trying to move into the larger realm of digital art as a whole and not trying to limit itself to some self-prescribed box. At the time I thought he was conveniently dodging that perennial, “what is fractal art?” question, but now I see the wisdom in what he was saying. Moving more into digital art means graphical –pixel– processing, not more refined algorithms and fractal parameters.
Pixel art is an easy and uncontrolled kind of graphical creativity. Combining and recombining a series of effects and developing new “syndromes”. It allows one to take apart the process and rebuild it by applying effects in different orders and with different starting points. Fractal algorithms easily produce a high quality raw material for such graphical processing especially as they can create non-compressed, cleam bmp format imagery. Applying graphical effects to heavily compressed jpgs often serves only to accentuate the compression gradients. (In fact, jpg compression is something of a graphical effect of its own.)
Well, I still have one more part in this series planned. It’s all about the road ahead, what’s next for fractal art. I intend to talk about what I think all this stuff I’ve said in these first four parts means for the future of fractal art. I think I’ve gotten a better grasp of what fractal art is, and isn’t, and the art form is more exciting now. I think it’s more exciting because the pretense and expectation of making fine art has been done away with. Fractals are free to just be the simple but strange things that have been since the beginning.
Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 3
What fractals fail to do…
You can’t make art with them. And we all need our heads examined for thinking we could in the first place.
I should be a bit more specific when I say, “art”. I mean the thinking man’s stuff. The kind of image that provokes your mind to complex, intense thought and feeling. I don’t mean “beauty” and that sort of nice to look at thing, but rather images that portray ideas and a fresh perspective on the world around us. One of the best examples I can think of to illustrate what art is (no pun intended) is a photograph by Ansel Adams. It’s particularly appropriate with respect to fractal art because fractal art, to some degree, is like photography in that we “capture” imagery rather than form it ourselves.
Moonrise over Hernandez, New Mexico by Ansel Adams (1941)
Art is like a new kind of food. The best way to describe it is to taste it. I can’t believe those clouds weren’t painted by Salvadore Dali. It’s just a photograph. But what a photograph. This is what I mean by art. You can’t make stuff like this with fractals. In this photo we see everything from the momentary (the little village) to the eternal (the moon). I think that’s how this image works in our minds but I’m guessing. There’s a story here, a poem, written in the oldest of visual languages: landscape.
Fractals don’t tell stories because they don’t speak any of the visual languages, that being: the human form and gesture, or; landscape. Fractals, as many have pointed out, are mostly abstract imagery or in some cases, as with 3D fractals like the Mandelbox, geometric or organic-looking objects and scenes. None of these are capable of containing real world symbolism because they’re neither real nor capable of being altered and transformed into realistic things. It’s hard enough to be expressive with abstract painting, it’s much more difficult when one is also limited to using just geometric/organic structures and elements.
Fractals are just too fractal. And with respect to art, they lie in the category of “decorative arts” or what is more currently called design and applied arts. But as decorative/design works, fractals work quite well because they often create interesting shapes with repeating elements that are easily rendered in multiple and selective ways. Fractals have an inherent tendency to create symmetrical, highly structured and in particular: organized imagery. It won’t ever compete with Picasso, but fractals do complement the fields of design and decorative arts. Fractal “art” is really just fractal “design” but these days the word “art” is applied in a broad way to any kind of visual imagery regardless of its status or merit.
To say that fractals are limited to creating design work rather than art -work is not as insulting as it may sound. Bauhaus, Art Nouveau and Art-Deco, to name just a few 20th century examples of design and decoration all share the same category and have considerable popularity and respect within the art world.
It wouldn’t be such a bad idea to compare the “fractal arts” with those of the famous design art movements of the 20th century. Bauhaus had a lot to do with beautiful kitchenware and innovative architectural styles, something that today’s high brow fractal artist may not want to be associated with, but that’s where I think “fractal design” fits. It’s an applied art form, a type of mathematical design: decorative, ornate and beautifying; but not really capable of depicting the kind of mentally stimulating content that has sometimes been created exclusively within the domain of the traditional art mediums (painting, drawing, sculpture..).
The Peacock Skirt by Aubrey Beardsley (1892)
Here’s another good example of what fractal art, ironically, can and can’t do. Can you imagine a fractal art image like this? Well, the shapes and designs in the image look very fractal like indeed, so in that respect I guess I’d have to say I’m wrong about all this. But the picture is all about the “skirt”. Fractals don’t make “skirts”, they make abstract/organic shapes. And the skirt forms an extension of the woman’s form contrasted with another woman’s form which together are depicting some very meaningful scene from Oscar Wilde’s play Salome (according to the Wikipedia where I got this).
Once again we bump into that persistent language rich in symbol and story, that being the human form. How can you create such an artwork in the abstract? And not just the abstract, although that’s hard enough, how about with fractal –exclusively geometric– imagery? You see what I mean? Fractal imagery just doesn’t do the sort of things that the traditional art mediums do. It can’t. But it can produce rich, in fact, even richer designs and ornate imagery than the human mind can.
Art Nouveau doorway c 1905, Photo by Siren-Com (2009-Wikipedia)
Again, this Art Nouveau example is more like what fractal art looks like than the Mona Lisa or a Salvadore Dali painting. Fractals belong in the design arts category and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not second-rate art, it’s just a simpler, more basic form of graphical works. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter what I think, it’s the truth. Fractals are design works; decorative works. Pawning them off as a rich, expressive medium is just delusion. And when the practitioners of fractal design pawn themselves off as artists it’s self-delusion. Accept yourself as you are and just concentrate on creating good work; work worth looking at. The pompous “fractals as art” posture is just a distraction and presents fractals in a context in which they fail to impress. It’s pretentious.
An example from Tierazon, processed a little...
I made this as an example of the design potential and decorative characteristics of fractals. There is nothing terribly expressive or thought provoking about this image; it’s just a nice collection of shapes, textures and coloring and it was so quick and easy to make because it’s the kind of thing fractals are good at doing. It comes natural to fractals. This is what fractal art is and this is all fractal art is ever going to be because fractal imagery just doesn’t possess the realistic or symbolic elements that traditional art mediums can. Even competing with abstract art is a bit of a stretch for fractals. But when we present fractals as just plain fractals, they results are much more pleasing and natural..
There’s a few other aspects of fractal art that keep it out of the “serious art” category: such as they’re way too easy to make. This is much more insidious than you might think. After all, what’s wrong with an art form that isn’t hard? Wouldn’t it mean there’s much more of it and it will soon become a rich and thriving genre? But what it means for fractals is that any new innovation in rendering or formulas soon becomes common place and cheap –everybody’s making it.
The result is that there’s a thousand examples of everything. This has got to have some impression on outsiders who may at first marvel at the rich detail and slick forms in fractal art until they see how normal and simply average they are. In fractal art everything soon becomes cliche.
Unless of course one can get creative with it. But here again fractals have a limitation that traditional, hand-made mediums don’t: fractals are made by remote control; hands-off rather than hands-on. Of course, photography is like that too, but photography has the richly expressive world of real life to draw on and that makes all the difference. With fractals, it’s just fractals.
I really like the Indra Pearls series by Ultra Fractal artist Jos Leys. They have real style even though they appear to be rigidly mathematical and simply rendered. The simple rendering and bright colors enhance the appealing mathematical design and don’t distract from it; each complements the other. But I seriously wonder how much they’d be admired if they were as common as today’s mandelboxes, which were just as impressive when they first appeared. Jos’ work stands out because it stands alone.
Action Painting, is a type of abstract expressionism that was based on quick execution. It often met with a similar quick execution from its audience. One of the main reasons was because it was, apparently, so quickly and easily made. Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings met with similar criticism. But unlike fractals, these artworks were deliberate constructions and expressions of the artist’s mind and the Action Painter could render almost anything a regular painter could and wasn’t constrained to the shapes and forms drawn by a fractal algorithm.
Fractals are not products of the human mind and so they lack such human expression. It is, however, possible to manipulate (by hand) fractal imagery via layering or other graphical techniques; Ultra Fractal is well known for these kind of enhancing features. But you can’t draw with fractals, just enhance them. The creative scope gained from such features doesn’t make up for the limitations that fractal imagery already imposes. Confined to using a “palette of fractals” or “toolbox of fractals”, any artist is limited to producing works of design and decoration; the kind of imagery that is composed entirely from shapes, colors and patterns –fractal-like things.
Only an idiot would ever expect to make art of this magnitude with Ultra Fractal: The Fate of the Animals, by Franz Marc, 1913
A word about “abstract photography”: fractal art could be described as fractal photography, but photography captures realistic imagery which has greater symbolic expression and subsequently greater creative options when it comes to making thought provoking imagery, the kind of imagery which I’m saying fractal art can’t produce. Abstract photography (although there really is no such thing, strictly speaking) would theoretically be common ground between the fractal genre and those serious art categories like photography because capturing abstract imagery is what fractal art really is. I mention this because it appears to be such a great loop hole for the apotheosis of fractal art, it’s entrance to the higher worlds of Picasso, Dali, da Vinci, etc…
But it’s really just a type of regular photography where simple shapes and weird close-ups are the preferred subjects. It’s stuff that features the simple, almost geometric beauty of things like frost crystals and satellite photos.
Ice Patterns by Jessica Rosenkrantz, 2010
We can make some pretty wonderful things with fractals. A lot of the newer software like Ultra Fractal allows for greater complexity of fractal compositions beyond the simple, single-layer screen-saves. But none of that has done anything to change the perennial problem in fractal art which is that fractals have such limited expressive potential that they are unable to create works that rise any higher than that of the decorative art and graphical design categories. Using fractal software to create the more serious types of art work, the kind of works that have defined the apex of art –portraying challenging ideas and big time intellectual things like zeitgeist– is simply impossible and out of reach for fractal artists no matter how high they try to leap and jump. You just can’t make serious art with fractals.
(Next week’s episode: Part 4: Pixels vs. Parameters)
Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 2
What fractals are good for, or, the creative use of fractal algorithms.
Fractal art needs a reboot, a re-thinking of what it’s all about. The optimistic forecasts from the early days of fractal art, the coming fame and pubic recognition, needs to be corrected and downgraded in light of what has actually come about in the years since then –actual conditions. Today’s fractal artists believe fractals are just another artistic medium like paint, clay or photography and therefore possessing similar artistic potential . They would probably say that the creative potential of fractal art is limited only by the creative ability of fractal artists.
What I intend to do in this second part of my series is talk about what fractals do best and how that relates to using them creatively –artistically. The down side, what fractals fail at will come in the next part, Part 3. Fractal artists are defensive of their art form because in their minds they’ve elevated fractals to the level of fine art and subsequently made them into something that continually falls short of it’s goal. We need to accept fractals for the simple and fun things that they are and quit hyping them as some new art form with super powers –digital da Vincis.
Once upon a time…
I remember the old days. It was only about ten years ago, 2002. I’d been playing around for about two years with my graphics program, the GIMP, making seamless tiles for web pages. Take any kind of image, apply the “Make Seamless” filter and then load it into a test web page. It was a kind of graphical jackpot machine; you never what the result was going to look like. I did just about anything you could to an image and then, “Make Seamless”. Sometimes the most interesting results were just cutting out a little square and using it as a tile without making it seamless. There were so many creative options.
I did feel at first that this new background tile thing could be a new and exciting 21st century art form. I was a bit of an art fan and had studied art in high school and read a few books, so I was always expecting somewhere to arise a new “art form”and the start of a new “revolution in art”. But after a year or two I came to see it as a decorative, design sort of thing and lost interest when the styles in web pages turned from being heavily textured, 3D everything to today’s more simpler, subdued styles. Today those background tiles and “left borders” look pretty retro, along with flaming text, turning java-cubes, embedded MIDI files…
I got interested in fractals, somehow, and settled down to playing a similar graphical game with Sterlingware, a classic fractal program by Stephen Ferguson. Once again, the creative options seemed endless and, if I do say so myself, I think stretched the creative boundaries of Sterlingware as far as they could go. Also, like seamless tiles, making fractals was pure joy and something that was so engrossing you often had to tear yourself away from before doing anything else. There was always some new parameter adjustment to experiment with and who could say what strange new world would grow up from that.
I saved a lot of images back then. I deleted a lot too. Over the years I came to save less. I came to make the images larger and larger and fewer and fewer. I became more discerning and overcame my “beginner’s excitement”that made me think everything was a great discovery. The images became a bit repetitive as I reached the limits of my experimenting and I tried out other fractal programs. They’re all different in some way but they were all similar in some ways too. One of the ways they were all similar is that the images often looked more interesting when I was making them than they did later on. Especially when I would review an entire (large) folder of them. I used to think this was because I’d lost a bit of my objectivity when playing around in the fractal program and just thought everything looked good.
Now I think differently . I think it’s because fractals are a more interesting and more creative experience when you can interact with them. There’s a dynamic with fractals that is lost when they’re presented in “static” form as an image separated from the flowing world of parameter changes. Fractal programs themselves are an art form, a generative art form. Saved images can show you what you might see in the program, a sample, but they can’t capture the interactive world experience that makes fractal programs such an engrossing experience.
The number one creative use of fractal algorithms is the creation of interactive programming. That’s the creation of fractal programs to experiment with fractal algorithms and rendering methods. I’m sure an audience would rather play with your parameter file than look at the image you made with it. It’s the difference between seeing an exotic tropical fish swimming in an aquarium and looking at one preserved and mounted on a board. Live fish are a much deeper and more complex kind of object than dead ones. I think of static fractal art images now as “Dead Fish Fractals”. Souvenirs rather than the real thing.
The real beauty of Stephen Ferguson’s fractal programs, like Sterlingware, or Tierazon is in the using of them. Most people wouldn’t see that as a fractal art form, but I do. Fractals are best presented in interactive form –a fractal program. Personally, I think Sterlingware is the best example. I’ve never seen any program that rivaled its interactive art powers. You can do almost everything from a mouse click.
Unfortunately, today the most common use of fractals creatively is saved images. They never compare to the rich, interactive form and I think the reason so many people make them is because traditionally that’s the form “real art” comes in: a still, captured image that can be printed out and framed just like a portrait can be “painted-out” and framed.
It probably sounds ridiculous to say such things in the fractal world today, but to experience the highest and most creative form of fractal art one needs to go no further than a fractal program. Fractals are first and foremost an interactive medium, and not a source of wall art. But one wouldn’t expect that because traditionally art is a “wall and frame” thing. This is what I mean when I say that most fractal artists don’t really understand fractals and what their most creative application is. Fractal programs are the real fractal art and fractal programmers the real artists in all this. Sterlingware is such a thrill because Stephen Ferguson understood fractals and how to make them look good as well as how to make it easy and fun for someone to experiment with and explore them. It’s an interactive canvas and the program is the frame.
But we all know this don’t we? We’ve just overlooked our own experience and thought that what our viewers will want most to see are saved images and not have the fractal “art experience” for themselves. We’ve been showing the world our snapshots when we should have been showing them how to go and see the real thing for themselves. (Or maybe fractal art audiences have been doing just that; sneaking past the art exhibits and exploring the software instead. That might explain why the number of fractal artists is growing while the size of the audience never changes.)
One could say that there are actually no fractal artists at all because the art is interactive and the viewers are really the so-called artists themselves who operate the programs. We photograph statues and call ourselves sculptors. The real fractal art exhibits are in the programs not in the portfolios.
Terry Gintz, a contemporary and colleague of Stephen Ferguson made a program that even further shows how the real creativity in the programming and “live” presentation of fractal imagery. The program, (Fractal Vizion, I think) generated random parameters and served up the image for you. I don’t think you could even tell it what formula to use. One of the several types of random images it would make was a fractal “landscape”. It drew it for you and colored it too. Each one was a different landscape and it was fun just to watch the program perform. That’s the sort of thing that exploits the creativity of fractal algorithms.
Fractal Explorer has a Strange Attractor feature that creates one random strange attractor shape after another. They’re all a little different and none of them looks like anything you’d ever make with your own hands. I went nuts over this thing and saved hundreds of them. But again, as with fractals, I came to realize that the context they were created in was more creative than any static collection I could come up with myself.
Also by Stephen Ferguson is the “Plum08” java applet that uses the Gumowski-Mira formula. It runs all by itself, initiating when the web page loads, and draws before you an endless series of subtly colored algorithmic sand dollars, african shields and plankton. The artist is the applet. Or maybe Steve, the author, is the artist? (An interesting note is that the applet has no save feature or even a pause button so you can take a screenshot, the applet is entirely something to watch although it’s the most impressive implementation of the Gumowski-Mira formula I’ve seen.)
What fractal algorithms can do before your eyes is more impressive than the record of what they’ve done before someone else’s. And the saved images are in a sense, merely a recording of a live performance, and much less than the real experience of being there. The interest in these programs has waned over the years because fractal enthusiasts have focused their attention on making “fractal art” rather than playing with it. Fractals have become intellectualized and their mechanical programming origins downplayed because they trivialize the work of “artists” by showing how easy and fun the creative process is.
The Grand Canyon is greater than all our snapshots of it. But the nature photographers want you to look at their photos and buy them and talk about how great they are instead of looking at the canyon for yourself because then you’ll be the same as they are. Ultra Fractal artists even go so far as to copyright their parameter files because they think they actually own the fractal landscape themselves because “they made it” by they punching in numbers that no else had ever (thought) to do, and like Captain Kirk in Star Trek, boldly went where no man has gone before. Fractal artists love to deny their humble origins and claim for themselves what are really the results of publicly owned, mathematical formulas.
Anyhow, I’m getting ahead of myself. That sort of stuff is for Part 2, where I intend to talk about the things that fractals fail to do. It’s kinda dark and gloomy because this pretense of “art” has put a shadow over the happy land of fractals. But you can still visit that land just by sparking up almost any fractal program and playing around with those creative marvels called fractal formulas. See for yourself what the best part of fractal art is all about. You don’t need a guide and you don’t need to be an “artist”.
You may already be an artist!
Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 1
What is Fractal Art Missing?
I look at da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and I see something. I look at just about any piece of fractal art and I don’t see that thing. What’s fractal art missing? Why does it always seem to be missing something that other art forms seem to have?
Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (c 1503)
I use the Mona Lisa as an example because it’s well known. I’m not really a fan of it, in fact my favorite part of this famous painting isn’t the woman’s smile, it’s the landscape in the background; that curvy snake-like road. But even the background of the Mona Lisa has that “art” thing that fractal art seems to be missing. It holds the viewer’s eye and just seems to do –that something.
I know what art is: it’s the life of the image. It’s easy to tell the difference between living and non-living things. That’s why I’m confident in saying that fractal art is missing something that the Mona Lisa has.
And yet fractals are fun and exciting and I think that’s what keeps us connected to them. But I’ve been “connected” for almost ten years now and I think that’s long enough to ask: Why can’t fractal artists do what other artists can do? I mean, why can’t they make art?
I visited the Prado once. It’s a very large and famous art gallery in Madrid, Spain. If you like art, any kind of art, you’ll enjoy having a day or two just to wander around the Prado. I can’t imagine any piece of fractal art ever hanging in the Prado. It just doesn’t fit with those things. But why?
That’s the big question and I think I can answer it. That is, now that I’ve been looking at fractal art of every kind for a decade now. It’s the reflection that’s important, not the length of time. But reflection takes time and after ten years worth I’ve arrived at some conclusions.
I think most fractal artists are hopelessly deluded. But I’m jumping too far ahead. I’ve divided all this into a series of five blog postings; parts 1-5. This first one is to simply introduce what I think is the perennial question that pops into my mind whenever I start to wonder where fractal art is going or if it’s possible it will ever take any sort of place in the art world, meaning, will it ever be considered art by anyone other than those who make it and their devoted friends who cheer them on?
Why can’t fractal artists produce anything with the same artistic merit as artists in other mediums like painting, drawing, sculpting and photography? What is fractal art missing that those other mediums are able to provide?
Maybe some of you don’t think it’s missing anything and that artwork with a similar merit has already been made? Sure, I’d expect that. After all, I didn’t say fractal artists were hopelessly deluded for nothing. I know they are. I once shared those juvenile notions about fractals until I began to wonder why it all looks the same and there’s never anything significant ever made. I mean, anything worth hanging in an art gallery.
I don’t believe the hype anymore. Rather, I’ve burst fractal art’s bubble and now see it as it truly is and how, ironically, I saw it in the very beginning. Fractals are fun, exciting and sometimes marvelously mysterious and a special world of their own. But I firmly believe that no one has, or ever will, create a real piece of art just by using a fractal program. Fractal algorithms just don’t have what it takes to produce anything other than mere decoration or design. As good as that can be, it’s lifeless when compared to real art. Not dead; just missing something.
So close your gaping mouth and sit down. You’ll get over it. You can still call yourself an artist on Deviant Art. Nobody will care. (Or even know.)
Next: Part 2. What Fractals are Good For (upbeat, happy, rah-rah-rah kind of stuff)
BMFAC Announces Its Judging Panel
A symbolic representation of the BMFAC judging panel.
[Photograph seen here.]
The 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) finally got around to releasing the names of its judges. They are:
Honorary Presidents:
Michael Barnsley
Aliette Mandelbrot
Panel Members:
Don Archer
Javier Barrallo
Cory Ench
Damien Jones
David Makin
Kerry Mitchell
Samuel Monnier
Paul Nylander
Joseph Presley
Jonathan Wolfe
As usual with all doings of later iterations of BMFAC, the announcement should be met with mixed feelings by anyone who prefers our community’s only major fractal art competition be run fairly and professionally.
Waxing Stuff:
There are no (overt) fractal software authors on this year’s panel — like the two prominent judges-authors who refused to resign from the 2009 BMFAC panel. This change removes significant conflicts of interest from continuing to taint the competition. I applaud this major step to better ensure fairness.
There are more fractal artists on the panel and fewer strict mathematicians. This move is also commendable and displays hopeful cultural evolution.
The shake-up of the selection panel does have some discernable benefits and adds a little credence to BMFAC’s claim that some of the judges are "prestigious." Jonathan Wolfe, for example, is a welcome addition. Dr. Wolfe is an expert in visual neuroscience and an educator known for "teaching diverse audiences about the concepts of Chaos Theory and fractals." Wolfe is also the force behind the flying fractal art balloons seen at Sky Dyes. I mentioned Wolfe in an OT post two years ago about Phase Two fractal art. It is my hope that Wolfe’s presence will help nudge BMFAC into better integrating a broader view of fractal art — one that moves beyond digital creations and embraces all fine arts mediums as well.
Cory Ench is an accomplished artist. I especially like his fantasy art as exemplified by his science fiction book covers and posters like those for Burning Man. I find his fractal art fairly conventional, but at least he works with flame fractals rather than BMFAC’s prevailing Ultra Fractal layered aesthetic. Ench’s presence offers a bit more hope (idiotic huge file size requirements aside) for artists submitting entries made using Apophysis, although it should be said that Ench is no stranger to BMFAC’s winner’s circle.
Between Phases:
The addition of Don Archer is a mixed blessing. One the one hand, I have long respected Archer for his dedicated efforts to bring digital art into the fine arts fold through his stewardship of the Museum of Computer Art (MOCA). Archer is not only a highly skilled artist, but also an established museum curator — something long advocated on OT that BMFAC needed. On the other hand, Archer has some roots in BMFAC director Damien Jones’s (has he dropped the "M"?) early contest enterprises, and that might partially explain why MOCA’s juried fractal art selections (but not algorithmic art) often trended towards the BMFAC/UF camp and featured artists like former BMFAC judge Janet Parke and BMFAC-winner, multiple Donnie-winner Rick Spix. Then again, sad to say, MOCA isn’t as compelling as it used to be. With the advent of MOCA’s AutoGallery, literally anyone with a free membership and uploading skills can now display their very unjuried work. A museum that invites, accepts, and shows all artists without a process of critical appraisal should no longer call itself a museum. MOCA is now something else. It has become, in fact, just another wing of Fractalbook.
Joseph Presley is an innovative artist, and his expertise with Xenodream should insure that entries made with that program might get a fair hearing. Then again, Presley is no stranger to UF conclaves or to BMFAC. You might recall that his 2009 winning entry, Tribute to JP, was an homage to Janet Parke who was, at the time, serving as a BMFAC judge.
Waning Stuff:
The judging panel is, if anything, more UF-laden than ever. By my count, at least seven, possibly eight of BMFAC’s panel of ten have roots in the Ultra Fractal community and/or have a connection to Jones’s close-knit inner circle. One-third of the panel currently does or has done some authoring work for Ultra Fractal. Such continued clinging to UF oversaturation shows BMFAC needs more diversity of software choice. Who will be surprised given the UF-heavy jury, coupled with the UF-friendly entry size requirements, if Ultra Fractal entries once again win the majority of exhibition spots?
I suppose it was inevitable Dave Makin would become a BMFAC judge. He’s long been BMFAC’s de facto spokesperson and chief apologist. In fact, he’s been talking up and about BMFAC a blue streak lately (see his multiple comments in recent OT posts). I guess it’s not unethical for a judge to be so fulsome — probably just tacky. But Makin’s ego won’t be contained, and I now consider him to be the official PR organ and press secretary of BMFAC. As far as I’m concerned, Makin’s word is BMFAC law, unless Jones comes out of his undisclosed location and corrects any utterance of Makin’s public flaking. I suppose Makin’s judgeship is BMFAC’s nod to the 3D fractal new wave. Makin, of course, writes 3D formulas for UF, but I wonder how the 3D artists over on FractalForums feel about the implied suggestion being made that all new 3D work be filtered first through UF.
BMFAC still needs a public disclaimer on its Rules page that any judge who has taught fractal art courses will recuse himself or herself from in any way evaluating or making recommendations on their present or former students’ work. Without such a written statement, potential conflicts of interests could presumably arise. Two of the current BMFAC judges have taught or are teaching such courses at the Visual Arts Academy.
And there was one other thing about the judging panel I was going to mention. What was it? Oh. Now I remember:
What I actually said was: "Math class is tough." See, Ken, you can’t trust the accuracy of anything you find on the Internet these days.
[Image seen here.]
Even if one accepts the premise that fractal art can be a highly technical field, it’s quite a stretch to believe that Jones and his yet undisclosed sponsors could not field a single woman for a slot on the BMFAC selection panel. There are, really, plenty of talented and insightful female fractal artists to tap for the panel. A number of likely candidates can be seen in OT’s own Fractal Art Collection. Without representation from half the world’s gender, who’s going to forcefully argue in BMFAC’s shortlisting sessions for a massively cool potential entry like this:
Hear me, sisters. Math class rocks.
[Photograph by Ritwik Dey and seen here.]
Barbie quit advancing the women-are-bad-at-mathematics stereotype many years ago. BMFAC should definitely follow her lead.
Give it up for CO99A5!
Single Spies by CO99A5 (FractalForums.com) Click to view large on FractalForums.com
I just think it’s great. It’s a strange, surreal place, nice composition, not oversaturated with detail and has nice, subdued but engaging color. Check out the artist’s little story about the image:
Description: This is a result of an intentional hybrid from the 3D navigator anomaly of combining two different works. At first I thought it hadn’t created anything but a bunch of close black lines. Then decided to follow the lines back to the source where a faint light emanated.
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=7990
A serendipitous find while experimenting with, I’m not sure what, in Jesse Dierks’ Mandelbulb 3D. An “anomaly”? What strange and wondrous things fractal programs can be. We are living in the legends of the future.
I have no idea who “CO99A5” is, but he or she has only been uploading images to FractalForums.com (the place to be) since July 7th of this year, a mere three weeks ago. No other website links.
The color palette is so good. Few 3D fractals have really nice, tasteful coloring. Maybe it’s just too hard to work with or the 3D folks don’t care to adjust things in a graphics program. Many of the 3D folks at Fractalforums.com are serious tech people and I get the feeling they’re doing all this for scientific research purposes.
Leafless trees, snow on the ground, dim sky –night is falling. Or perhaps it’s already night, a winter night, and the snow is bright and glowing because of a full moon. There’s a distinct shadow because the full moon is behind us, shining through a clear patch of sky while the distant sky is thick with clouds that reflect the light off the snow.
I’ve seen it before. But never in a fractal image like this. Good work, CO99A5 –whoever you are.
Does the BMFAC get enough entries to be taken seriously?
Dave Makin tacked the word, “International” onto the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011 in his announcement of this year’s contest at FractalForums.com. And while the contest could be said to span the globe, the word “International” suggests a status for the contest that is something of an exaggeration, even more of an exaggeration as the calling of the annual American baseball championship, the “World” Series. Sure, the World Series is the world’s biggest baseball championship and is probably world class in terms of athletic quality, but it presumes to take in the entire world and that (sorry fans) isn’t true. (Apparently, in some parts of the world baseball isn’t even played.)
Then there’s Miss “Universe”. Well, considering that the planet Earth has a monopoly on human life in the universe, I guess the name could possibly be considered accurate. But can any beauty pageant have “Universal” proportions?
Can a fractal art contest have “International” proportions –international status?
The BMFAC has grown somewhat from its first year in 2006, but the number of entries I think still makes it an art contest that is better labelled as City-Wide than anything else. Fractal art just hasn’t developed beyond the realm of the amateur and the the hobbyist to be taken seriously beyond that of a city or school art competition. There’s nothing world class yet to show people. At least they haven’t had any entries of that caliber yet.
In fact, the use of Benoit Mandelbrot’s name is itself rather presumptuous and something of an exaggeration when one considers the enormity of what Benoit Mandelbrot himself has achieved in the field of mathematics. Benoit Mandelbrot has made major contributions to science while fractal art, albeit derived from his discoveries, is practically unknown if not irrelevant in the world of art. Trying to suggest that fractal art belongs up on Benoit Mandelbrot’s level of expertise and importance requires a rather inflated view of one’s artwork.
It reminds me of an incident that occurred in my city. A local shopping mall, albeit the biggest, got together with a local newspaper (a free, weekly, advertising-rich “newspaper”) to commemorate celebrities by putting their names on shiny, gold floor tiles and calling it “The Walk of Fame”.
Controversy ensued when they –attempted– to honour a local guy who moved to the US and subsequently became a big Hollywood movie star. It seems he –wasn’t interested– in the shopping mall’s “Fame” or coming home to be lauded in a great ceremony and praised in the pages of a weekly ad-wrapper.
The little weekly advertiser covered the controversy (outrage!) for a few months and then moved back to their usual coverage of drug busts, car accidents and Real Estate Special Editions. When they finally announced their list of celebrities to be immortalized on the shopping mall’s floor, I had difficulty recognizing the names of almost all of their “famous” people who had, in contrast to the Hollywood movie star, eagerly agreed to attend the opening “gala” and be photographed with their personalized floor tile. They just couldn’t attract serious people to their shopping mall/ad-wrapper “Walk of Fame”.
Is the 2011 BMFAC Accepting Entries from All Artistic Mediums?
Was this object made with fractal hardware?
Y by Mark Wallinger. Photograph seen here.
Fractal art is a fractal look and doesn’t have to be something rendered from computing a fractal algorithm.
–Tim Hodkinson, Orbit Trap
Two remarks have caught my attention this week. The first was baffling but exhilarating. The second was risible and sadly without irony.
The first had its genesis in a phrase tucked away on the 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) Rules Page. Under Section 3.9 titled Content, the first sentence reads:
Artwork may be submitted that is created with any tools, software or hardware [emphasis mine].
This juicy tidbit led to the first of two remarks. Kali, over on FractalForums, shakes his head and wonders:
Any tools? software OR hardware? Does a hammer count as a hardware tool? can I build a menger sponge made of wood and then take a photo?
Yes, it certainly sounds like one can do such things and call them legitimate entries. Has BMFAC actually broadened its scope to include Phase Two fractal art? If so, this is unquestionably a major step in the right direction.
Regular OT readers will recall that we have been advocating that the prevailing definition of "fractal art" has too long been limited to works made by artists using computers and software. We have argued that fractal art can also be produced using non-fractal software and even conventional artistic tools — and have gone so far as to advocate that such art is a legitimate form of expression when considering what comprises fractal art.
Tim first defined Phase Two fractal art on OT back in early 2009. He notes:
Phase Two fractal art focuses on the image and not how it was made. Perhaps in Phase Two fractal art the word “fractal” is no longer relevant because the word fractal only has meaning if the artwork exhibits a fractal appearance. Images made from details of fractals or images processed with filters are really derivative works and whether one wants to call them fractal art is really a pointless matter and unresolvable argument. And Phase Two artists don’t care anyway how an image was made. Whether it has that parameter file pedigree or not isn’t as important as whether or not it’s…
Art. Yes, that’s where I see fractal art going. Taking an artistic approach and evaluating the image rather than the software that makes it, is an instinctive next step. It’s instinctive I think because that’s how art has always been viewed and evaluated. No serious critic ever categorized oil paintings by what kind of paint brushes they were made with or whether they were painted by men or women.
Tim then expands on this line of thinking again, in a prescient OT post entitled "Fractal Art without a Computer." He observes that
this could be the beginning in what could become the complete unraveling of fractal art as a genre. After this we will all see fractal art from a Visual Context instead of a Software Context. We will see that Fractal Art revolves around visual appearance and not around the software that made it. Fractal Art will be defined by visual criteria and not by its association (whether it’s noticeable or not) with fractal software.
In short, following such reasoning, fractal art becomes any art that somehow displays or utilizes fractal properties/characteristics. How that art was made is irrelevant and becomes more appropriate for a discussion of mediums. In other words, art made with computers is no more "fractal art" than art made with another more orthodox medium like, say, painting.
I followed up Tim’s hypothesis by demonstrating what Phase Two fractal exhibitions might look like (say, this and this and this). Moreover, in another post, I explicitly argue that traditional artistic mediums can and do create fractal art — and go on to contend that BMFAC, a competition showcasing such art, should broaden its content and accept entries other than those that are computer-generated. At the time, I said:
If fractal art is art that has fractal characteristics like recursion and self-similarity, then the traditional mediums of the fine arts can be used for our genre just as easily as software. In fact, one could build the case that a true exhibition of fractal art would showcase art made using a variety of self-expressive tools — including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphics design, and other recognized mediums. Software utilizing fractal algorithms to generate images would still be included, of course, but would merely be another component in the artistic arsenal, and such imagery might be broken into distinctions like algorithmic art or digital art, depending on the amount of graphic processing an individual artist used. But fractal art would be a category of art, like abstract expressionism or cubism, and not winnowed down to be only the primarily Ultra Fractal images that will win this year’s BMFAC.
However, if Kali and I are reading the 2011 rules correctly, this year’s BMFAC has radically changed the playing field. Over the years, I have been one of BMFAC’s harshest critics. But I will be the first to commend BMFAC’s organizers if they are indeed accepting submissions of fractal art from all artistic mediums. I applaud such a bold and provocative action, for it surely marks a substantive leap in the evolution of fractal art as a bona fide discipline. I would even argue that such a broadening of fractal art content represents a paradigm shift of staggering proportions. None of us may ever again be able to look at fractal art through the narrow lens and exclusive mindset of art that is limited to images created with algorithms and computer software.
~/~
The "Prestigious" BMFAC Judging Panel
[Photograph seen here.]
I said when I started this post that I stumbled upon two attention-getting remarks this week. The second came from the furiously-pounded keyboard of Esin Turkakin as she chided Tim and his last post for "smearing" the BMFAC jury, for "questioning its ability to judge 3D," and, worst of all it seems, for
attacking the jury in the process with no ground…
Oh. It is to laugh. To the point where my sides hurt. Because:
a) It’s appropriate for Tim to speculate on the make-up of BMFAC’s 2011 selection panel since the names of said jurors have inexplicably not yet been released. It’s unprecedented, not to mention bizarre and amateurish, for any (serious) fine arts contest to announce and promote itself without simultaneously revealing its judges and funding sources. What’s stopping someone from prematurely entering the competition and then later being tapped as a judge? Presumably, such an entry would be disallowed, but, given that we’re talking about BMFAC, don’t expect to see such a circumstance (or much of anything else constituting ethical weirdness) officially barred in writing on the Rules page.
b) It’s appropriate for Tim to worry whether 3D images coming out of fractal art’s new wave will get a fair shake from BMFAC. All three past panels have been top-heavy with mathematicians (and nothing screams art expert like a mathematician) and director Damien M. Jones’s Ultra Fractal-using cronies. What are the usual suspects’ (Jones, Mitchell, Townsend, Parke, et. al.) qualifications concerning and comprehension skills about the latest 3D phenomenon that allow them to be placed in a position to judge such entries? Or, better yet, since BMFAC appears to have now embraced Phase Two entries, how much do these same UF users/software makers and math geeks know about painting, sculpture, ceramics, or mixed-media installations created using fiber? This year, it seems more imperative than ever that at least some members of the panel be versed not only in the newer 3D variations, but also in the more conventional artistic mediums.
c) And past BMFAC panels have given all of us "no ground" to fret or even attack them? Seriously? You mean, the same folks who two out of three times finagled their own art into the "contest" exhibitions — the same fractal-software-making folks who last year blew off clear conflicts of interest — the same for-educational-purposes-only folks who taught fractal art/software courses and later saw former students turn up the winner’s circle? Those same folks? Please, spare us your righteous indignation. Past juries haven’t exactly been paragons of ethical purity and models of moral goodness.
But…thanks, Esin. I always appreciate a good belly laugh.
Will the Old-Timers at the BMFAC accept the new breed of 3D fractal artists?
Responses at Fractal Forums.com to the recent announcement of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011 suggest to me that a lot of things have changed in the fractal art world since the BMFAC was initiated back in… ¡Ay, caramba! –2006!
~ Click on images to go to original site ~
Comment from Fractalforums.com
Comment from Fractalforums.com
Comment on Fractalforums.com
Fractal Ken hit the nail on the head. Will the organizer’s, Damien Jones’s hand picked fractal art “experts” from the old days fully appreciate or even know much about the 3D fractal revolution? Fractalforums.com where these comments were posted is the place all those 3D discoveries and advancements were announced and discussed; it’s natural that folks there need some convincing that the BMFAC has any real relevance to what they see as the mainstream fractal art form today –3D fractals.
Here at Orbit Trap we’ve gained a reputation for criticizing the BMFAC primarily because of their choice of judges and how those judges (used to) give themselves winning positions in the contest by adding their work to the exhibition. But now, the sneaky way the judges have been chosen (and stayed on for years) raises a new question, “Are the judges even competent to judge today’s 3D fractals?”
One of the most stunning developments in the 3D revolution was the sudden appearance of high quality fractal programs devoted to the new 3D fractal artform. Ultra Fractal (whose author is a judge) isn’t the program of choice for the new breed of 3D fractal artists. What relevance do all those veteran UF artists and programmers have when it comes to being experts in judging artwork that wasn’t made with UF and which the judges themselves have no expertise in? What exactly are they “experts” of anymore? Old style (2D) fractal art made by people like themselves?
I suppose Damien could add a few folks like Jesse Dierks (Jesse) or Krzysztof (buddhi) Marczak the authors of Mandelbulb 3D and Mandelbulber. Or how about Christian Kleinhuis the owner and host of Fractalforums.com (3D fractal central)? He’s had his finger on the pulse of 3D fractals as long as anyone. There’s a bunch of others too, like Tom Lowe (recent “Nobel” prizewinner) and others who are all equally qualified to judge the quality and importance of 3D fractals because that’s their chosen area of expertise in fractal art.
Of course, that’s the typical BMFAC way of doing things. What would be even better is to approach some ART people who might be better qualified to judge ARTwork. But as Terry so eloquently said, “Mathematicians are the celebrities of fractal art”. And I guess Math Conferences are the Paris cafes of fractal art. Hey, maybe Jeremie Brunet? Aka “bib”. He’s from Paris, or close to it. One French artist is as good as 10 math Phds. Maybe 1000? He’s had his own public exhibitions (in Paris, too) and been on TV. (I wonder how he did that without any help from Benoit Mandelbrot’s name or any sponsors?) How many of the so-called “expert” judges of the BMFAC have done any of that?
Perhaps good fractal art doesn’t need a contest (or a celebrity name) to promote it?
BMFAC Slinks Back
Things More Pleasant Than Thinking About BMFAC Again
Dave Makin sent me a personal email to let me know the 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) has been announced. I guess he wanted to be sure I got the good news.
If you read this blog regularly, you already know how we feel about this so-called competition. If you aren’t an OT regular, then please search "BMFAC" and immerse yourself in the contest’s history of corruption, conflicted interests, unprofessionalism, hypocrisy, and insufferable self-promotion.
If you still support BMFAC after objectively examining all that we have painstakingly outlined, then nothing more I say will sway you. You are obviously comfortable putting your own potential self-interests over everything else — including professional ethics, private morality, a sense of fair play, and the best interests of our art form. In this regard, you will fit in nicely with the people who administer this contest. Like you, their chief concern is to feather their own nests and further their own self-serving agenda.
~/~
But since Makin took the trouble to reach out, I might as well take a few general questions from the gathered crowd:
Why have the sponsors and the "selection panel" not yet been announced?
I don’t know. The directors of BMFAC are known for being highly secretive. I guess they figure the less you know the better. I do know that any fine arts competition that won’t tell you up-front its funding sources or who is judging the entries should be regarded as suspicious. How can one best cater an entry while having no idea who will be reviewing it? If the sponsors have not been finalized and the judges are not yet selected, then the contest should never have been publicly announced. But BMFAC rarely operates under conventional or professional protocols.
Perhaps BMFAC director Damien M. Jones is just getting ahead of himself. Or maybe he wants to deliberately delay the announcement of the judges for his own purposes. Twice before he’s allowed BMFAC judges to show their work and gobble up half of the "contest" exhibition space. Last year, when only the contest winners were hung, might have been less than satisfying for Jones and his crowd who had to swallow a bitter pill and forego their usual self-promotion spotlight.
Will the judging panel again be riddled with blatant conflicts of interest?
That depends. Will Jones again allow software authors (like the creators of Ultra Fractal and Apophysis) to serve as judges thus setting up the potential for them to reap financial and/or personal benefits? Last year, one such judge of good conscience sensibly resigned. The remaining two who refused to leave in the face of such conflicts of interest are presumably more self-interested than sensible and cannot be shamed.
Will mathematicians again be used as judges?
Oh, no doubt. Mathematicians, not artists, are fractal art’s celebrities. Why bother with procuring the usual elitist snobs like museum curators or art historians? It clearly makes more sense to have art contests peer-reviewed by people who know little or nothing about art.
Will the exhibition be better publicized than it was last time?
Maybe — but only if the judges’ work is again allowed into the exhibition, thus making such promotional efforts more beneficial to those who run the contest rather than those who actually win it.
Why does the contest insist that winning entries will have to be submitted at such massive sizes?
They’ll tell you the huge sizes are necessary to ensure "lots of good, interesting fractal detail" or other such nonsense. It’s all bullshit. Exhibitions of digital photographs are seldom exhibited at picture-window size, and photographs are filled with "interesting detail." Last year’s "information hallway" BMFAC exhibit in India featured fairly small prints that could have been made at one-fourth the size BMFAC demands. The size requirements are there for one reason only: to privilege Ultra Fractal because it scales images easily. UF and its users have made up the majority of BMFAC’s winners — just as UF is the established program of choice for the directors and most of the artist-judges. Please understand that the contest is just an excuse to better perpetuate the careers of the administrators and to further implement and maintain their prevailing aesthetics of fractal art. It’s all a self-fulfilling cycle. Most BMFAC prize-winning entries are conveniently made with UF and selected by self-proclaimed "prestigious" artists-judges who also just happen to predominately use UF. Rinse. Repeat. A con is born.
What can I do to better insure my chances of winning a slot in the exhibition?
Don’t be an ethical worrywart. Have no moral scruples whatsoever. Think only of yourself. Use UF obviously and make the conventional layered monstrosities popularly associated with the program. Ask yourself: what would Janet Parke do (WWJPD) and consciously imitate her work. Better yet, have taken a UF course with her and submit images you created under her tutelage. Hopefully, she’ll again be a judge, recognize your work, and show you favor. Remember, BMFAC isn’t bound by those pesky rules most art contests have to follow — like having explicit clauses forcing judges to recuse themselves in compromising circumstances like the one I outlined above.
I’ll take one more question. Yes. You in the back.
Will Dave Makin win a fourth consecutive BMFAC exhibition slot thus pushing overt favoritism to even higher stratospheric levels?
Makin is the competition’s chief apologist and has previously been well rewarded for his services as a willing propagandist. There’s no reason to assume this year’s contest will be any different — on any level.
More Computer Art for the Old Folks…
Gero Wortmann, hailing from Munich, Germany may not be as old as me but some of the stuff he makes I really like.
~ Click images to view full size on original website ~
Group photo of Gero Wortmann's Form and Deconstruction set (Flickr)
They look fractal, but what does that really mean? His work really focuses on the basic shape and form of the image. Generated in POV-Ray somehow. Script? Too complicated for me.
Screenshot from Gero Wortmann's Flickr site
Fractal Origami is how I’d describe it. Here’s another lazy blogger screenshot of something very recent. It’s a red/blue 3D glasses image. If you’re old you’ll have a pair within reach like I do. Even without the glasses it’s still nice.
Gero Wortmann, Click to visit full size on his Flickr site...
“Fractalism” That’s a label Gero has for another (apparently identical) set of images…
From Gero Wortmann's Flickr site
I knew they had fractal origins. I’ve learned a few things over the years. I guess POV-Ray can generate this sort of fractal thing or else some other program can which can then import its results into POv-rAy for rendering. I made a donut once in poV-RAy. It’s easier writing blog postings. They called it a “torus”.
Time for some thoughtful commentary…
Although these “fractals” are simplified in their rendering, I find they have more style and aesthetic stuff to them. Often fractals have too much detail and coloring to them and the beauty of their shape and pattern is lost in a crowd of competing details.
Original Tron (1982) when wireframe was cool and looked advanced
Wireframe view has been utilized by graphics programs as a way to handle complex images but it’s another example of the primitive graphical style of stone age computing that I like. The movie Tron tries to capture that style which in some ways fits with the old, DOS computing age of text only, console mode computing. Tron jazzes it up a bit but the minimalistic style still remains.
Minimalism. That’s something worth experimenting with. It’s an old trick really. Sometimes less is more. Or at least it’s more effective.
bug from Wikipedia
This insect has strong design appeal because it balances shape and detail. Fractal rendering could benefit from that sort of thing. One way to do it is to render plain images and then fry them in photoshop filters –the ultimate bug machine.
bug
Computer Art for Old People
I’ve been trying to reconcile two conflicting things: Firstly, that there’s something exciting about fractal programs, and secondly, that there’s something quite disappointing about fractal art today.
I don’t need to explain why I’m enthused about fractal programs, I hope. But I probably do need to do a lot of explaining to convince people that today’s fractal art is disappointing. That’s because I don’t think most fractal art “enthusiasts” today are at all disappointed with the sort of thing that’s being posted online by the current crop of fractal artists.
But I am. And I think I’ve found the reason why. Although it might not really be a matter of age, just a matter of artistic preference, I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that my initial introduction to computer things was at a time when computers were largely primitive machines.
Today’s computer graphics are rich, full-color and very sophisticated. I don’t really think of that as being computer-ish, or my idea of computer-ish. In fact, I think of such kinds of imagery as being more natural and photographic.
Photo realism is the exact opposite of what I associate and enjoy about computer made graphics. That sort of thing lacks the mechanical qualities that I associate with computers. What I think of as the computer style is primitive, crude and inhuman.
It’s that non-human, machine-world look that I like and which I suspect few are trying to obtain or really care for these days in the fractal art realm. In keeping with that style is imagery that mimics the characteristics of (poorly) printed images and its associated mechanical style and roughness. Again, that’s an offshoot of old technology, specifically the (primitive) printing press.
The more natural, organic and (wince) life-like that fractal art gets, the more disinterested and apathetic I get about it. To me what makes computer art (digital art) interesting is its alien, other-world and unnatural style. The more it resembles what people can make with paint brushes or photographic equipment the more it just looks to me like painting and photography.
I’m all wrong about this, of course. That is, my idea of computer art is not where it’s at these days and maybe never will be. On the other hand I’ve never felt that the popular attitudes and tastes in fractal art have ever really reflected an artistic sensibility but rather merely an unthinking, reflexive response to imitate the slick commercial style most commonly seen in advertising –the cathedrals of our time. The fractal “art” world reflects an adoration of commercial art which has normally in art circles been the source material for satire, ridicule and hostility. To see an art form bowing the knee to crass commercialism (that is, without making any money at it) suggests to me that art is not what they’re after or what they’re about.
Most fractal artists do this, I believe, unwittingly. It’s the instinctive approach of a beginner to making art. It’s the fool’s gold of art: copying and imitation instead of the real thing which is found in creativity and scratching one’s unique artistic itch. Everyone starts off that way.
I remember well a comment (not exactly verbatim) from Roy Lichtenstein, the guy who made big paintings that looked like panels from comic books back in the 60s. He said he began experimenting with comic book “paintings” because everything else he saw being done at that time in the art world was boring.
I think that’s the most exciting aspect of the fractal art world today.
Name! That! Comment!
Welcome back, readers, to the home edition of the Fractalbook Network’s much loved game show: Name! That! Comment!
Now, finally, through the mystery of OT technology, you can continue honing your somewhat-fractal-related social networking skills and never miss a beat stroking your virtual artist-friends while sitting alone at home in a room by yourself. Just as you do daily in assorted art communities. Just as you might be doing right now.
Remember how we play? A quasi-artistic, fractal-type image is first shown and subjected to your critical scrutiny. Then, you are provided with four comments. Three are imposters. You must correctly select the one comment that was actually posted to the given art-type-object.
Round One features work and chat from Renderosity‘s fractal art sub-cave. That’s the Fractalbook conclave, you know, where the artists are supposedly more serious. Each correct answer is worth 200 points.
Mommy Can We Just Play? by cricke49
1.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Sorta seems like Mom’s dandruff is getting worse.
(b)_____ Rather appears your dying star has cancer.
(c)_____ Kinda looks like Mom has them wrapped up in concertina wire.
(d)_____ I don’t like this new playground, Mommy.
Donkey Butts by fantasticfractals
2.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ "Are my kids cute, or do they make people uncomfortable."
(b)_____ I do not care to see your pet’s colonoscopy.
(c)_____ That Circle Jerks’ song "World Up My Ass" suddenly makes sense.
(d)_____ There are no comments yet.
Peeking Outside by greyone
3.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Hiding under the mobile home with some creepy growth around.
(b)_____ Metallic Voice: "John Conner. I know you can hear me. You have thirty seconds to come out from under there."
(c)_____ Thanks for giving me the second season of Fringe DVD.
(d)_____ No wonder the road not taken was not taken.
Bad Worm by gateman 45
4.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ How do you know the worm is bad? Maybe he’s just misunderstood.
(b)_____ I’d love to feel the shapes.
(c)_____ Alright. Which one of you geeks deconstructed Snoopy?
(d)_____ I think I found the perfect bait to catch mechanical sharks.
Bottom Feeders by Lenord
5.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ "Why, oh why, didn’t I take the blue pill?"
(b)_____ So if I look very close inside a fish tank I’ll see these on the bottom?
(c)_____ I wanted a flashy yellow Autobot. What good is a desk lamp that transforms?
(d)_____ That’s the last time I ever order stir-fried squid.
Okay, players. Mark your ballots. And don’t touch that dial. We’ll be right back with Round Two after this word from our sponsor.
Advertisement
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Hi again, kids. David X. Machina here for Compliment-O — the software designed to make commenting on so-called art faster and easier — so you can get back to doing what’s really important — smoozing with your virtual friends.
Compliment-O uses cutting-edge algorithms to scan, mine, and extract random comments from various Fractalbook compliment repositories. Why resort to uncomfortable and time-consuming activities like critical thinking and aesthetical reflection when all that’s required is a simple (and, hopefully, joint) exchange of flattery?
And Compliment-O is so easy to use. Turn the on switch to the SUCK UP setting. Choose the appropriate level of laudation — ranging from LACKEY to BOOTKISSER to SYCOPHANT to TOADY — and you’re ready to get straight to the verbalized stroking. Think of the convenience. Why, before you know it, you’ll never have to face the unpleasantness of actually having to look at art in an online art community again.
Let’s take Compliment-O for a test drive, shall we? Here, for example, is an alleged art object that our crack scientists culled randomly from cyberspace without first asking permission because Fair Use ensures for the purposes of satire and reviews that we don’t have to so there:
Overwrought by Damien M. Jones
Yes, Compliment-O takes the thinking out of thinking about art. If you actually took the time to examine the image above, you might conclude it looks like a fibroid tumor or arterial blockage. But, of course, you can’t actually say what you think on Fractalbook without risking shunning — or, worse, unfriending. But, with the exertion required for one mere mouse click, Compliment-O appropriates and recycles several on-the-Internet-forever potential selections allowing you to quickly crib the perfect comment — like these:
Option 1: The coloring — austere, mournful, and at times apocalyptic — often produces an emotional response in the viewer of the art.
Option 2: Actually, I feel that the big debate is a bit overwrought.
Option 3: You’re speaking out of your ass on this one.
Option 4: Further evidence of your ugly and despicable personality.
Um. Well. I’m sure any remaining bugs in the program will be redressed in the next iteration. And, fortunately, our upgrade fees are perniciously modest.
One caution with using Compliment-O. Be careful not to accidentally switch Compliment-O from SUCK UP to EVIL mode. The latter setting uses a secret heuristic code designed to deep scan an image and immediately blurt out unfiltered emotional reactions. Of course, such direct and reliable comments have no place in everyday Fractalbook confabbing. Remember Fractalbook’s rhetorical campaign slogan: Friends don’t let other friends comment honestly.
But, just as a thought problem, and assuming you could find a work-around for the built-in quadruple super encryption, let’s examine an example of how the EVIL setting works. Again, our stellar research team set out the virtual drift nets and randomly snagged another arty thingie from the murky backwaters of the Web:
Rex’s Last Stand by Terry Wright
Compliment-O’s EVIL setting instantly produces four choice comment option samples for the image above:
Option 1: Rex needs a breath mint and should cut down on the jalapeno chips and picante sauce. Otherwise, he’ll be extinct before the big meteor arrives.
Option 2: Hey, I recognize that reptile from my visit to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It’s the same dinosaur Sarah Palin rode in the Bible about 6,000 years ago. See:
Option 3: How ironic. Rex’s skin has the same color and consistency as fossil fuels.
Option 4: Is this the most negative, repressed psychopath expressionism you have ever seen?…This Wright-psycho posts dark images with negative and often violent titles…and his fractal art, if it can be called that, looks like mud after someone vomits on it.
Obviously, using Compliment-O’s EVIL mode is recommended for use only in emergency circumstances — like wanting to get in the last word when you find yourself enmeshed in anonymous flame wars occurring in threaded discussions.
Compliment-O cannot be ordered online. For your personalized copy encoded onto an eventually shipped Betamax cassette, rush $99 99 99 95 in cash to:
Compliment-O
Royal Scam Productions
1313 Orbit Trap Circle
Terryville, Nigeria
Compliment-O*. For those times when your own thoughts are just not good enough.
*[Over-caffeinated announcer voice]: Side effects of Compliment-O include: irrational belief in artistic credibility, illogical suspicion of being thoughtful, acute obsequiousness, servility beyond belief, long periods of virtual prostration, occasional cowering, a lifetime spent engaging in intense supplication, and erectile dysfunction (which, of course, is caused by everything.)
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We’re back, readers, for Round Two of Name! That! Comment! Now, in this round, the Fractalbook turf shifts to the cleared-wooded-area cult-meeting-setting over at deviantART — where both the points and the egos are doubled. Each correct answer is worth 400 points.
Random Fractal Thing by notadolphinig
6.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ How’d I happen to wander into the Barbie aisle at Toys R Us?
(b)_____ Even that execrable donkey butts pic is better than this one.
(c)_____ It’s…pink. And it burns my eyes.
(d)_____ "I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink."
Medusa’s Garden by micronomicon
7.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ OMG! Rapunzel definitely needs a better detangler.
(b)_____ LOL! Will viewing this fractal soon turn all my homegrown vegetables to stone?
(c)_____ OMG! I like this sooo much!!! It reminds me of a TOOL music video minus the creepiness.
(d)_____ LOL! This reeeally makes me want to grind my bones to make my bread.
wee it’s a tree xD by ko-yu
8.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Wee wee. I’m a dog.
(b)_____ This is NOT fractal art…please put it in the proper category or it will be reported and removed.
(c)_____ "Trees and ferns are fractal in nature and can be modeled on a computer by using a recursive algorithm."
(d)_____ My kid could paint that. Hell, an invertebrate could probably paint that.
Reclining Nude Under Construction by fiery-fire
9.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(b)_____ ??????????????
(c)_____ wtfwtfwtfwtfwtf
(d)_____ Construction workers, in my experience, generally prefer nudity to be actual rather than implied.
Pantomime of Human Existance [sic] by DothackersDaichi
10.
The correct comment is:
(a)_____ Or, perhaps, Shadow Play of Symbolic Overreaching.
(b)_____ Irony works best when what you’re actually doing is actually ironic.
(c)_____ Such a heart touching masterpiece and a soul ripping piece of art. Those brown mini duckies just show us the karma of those unwanted relationships, where we beseech a state of nirvana and the utter happiness which comes by eating too much chocolate.
(d)_____ This looks familiar. Is this a still from a Lifetime movie about a woman who went missing? I seem to recall the missing woman’s family was trying to get custody of her baby, or something, and the husband’s family thought they were crazy for suggesting that he’d murdered her. But, of course, he did. He killed her with a dumbbell.
Thank you for playing the home edition of Name! That! Comment! Once you have marked your examination sheet, you can then self-check your scores and status using the grids below. Until next time…
Scoring Grid:
500 points: Obviously Truckle Challenged
1000 points: Better Hire an Ass-Kissing Tutor
1500 points: Passing from Fawning to Kowtowing
2000 points: Servile to an Extraordinary Extent
2500 points: Cringing with True Submissiveness
3000 points: Bubbly Babs Lifetime Achievement Award
Answer Grid:
1. here
2. here
3. here
4. here
5. here
6. here
7. here
8. here
9. here
10. here
NASA’s Earth Day Fractals
Susitna Glacier
Alaska’s Susitna Glacier revealed some of its long, grinding journey when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead on Aug. 27, 2009.
I’ll be back to posting more regularly on OT as summer nears and RL slows down.
For now, enjoy this natural fractal photoblog of selected shots NASA released this past Earth Day.
Any fractal enthusiast who regularly reads this blog knows that fractal shapes are found in many natural forms. I don’t think I’ve ever seen more stunning examples than these shots from space.
I’ve selected a sweet sixteen of the most fractally significant pics for your viewing, but the entire slideshow is well worth your time. You’ll find many other breathtaking images, as well as more detailed explanations of the photographs included here.
To get the fractal full monty and view-with-binoculars artistic whammy, click on any of the images in this post to see large, high resolution renditions. You won’t be sorry you took the trip back from space and poked around.
Greenland Canyons
On March 29, 2011, Operation IceBridge flew between deep canyons and over glaciers along the northwest coast of Greenland.
Sahara Desert
Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, a part of the Sahara Desert, has a bone-dry climate with scant rainfall, yet does not blend in with Saharan dunes.
Namibia’s Coast
Cloudless skies allowed a clear view of dust and hydrogen sulfide plumes along the coast of Namibia in early August 2010.
Ouachita Mountains
The Ouachita Mountains in southeastern Oklahoma are part of the only major mountain region between the Rockies and the Appalachians.
Cloud Over Africa
High above the African continent, tall, dense cumulonimbus clouds, meaning ‘column rain’ in Latin, are the result of atmospheric instability.
Lake in Tibet
This other worldly landscape is actually Dagze Co, one of many inland lakes in Tibet.
Dry Valleys in Antarctica
The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of valleys west of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, so named because of their extremely low humidity and lack of snow and ice cover.
Iceberg Collision
An oblong iceberg roughly as big as Rhode Island called B-09B (center right in this image) collided with the edge of the Mertz Glacier in eastern Antarctica this month breaking away a new iceberg (top left) that is nearly as large at B-09B.
Mayon Volcano
Tens of thousands of people living within the danger zone of Mayon Volcano in the Philippines were forced to evacuate to emergency shelters in mid-December 2009 as small earthquakes, incandescent lava at the summit and minor ash falls suggested a major eruption was on the way.
Sarychev Volcano
A fortuitous orbit of the International Space Station allowed the astronauts this striking view of Sarychev volcano (Russia’s Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009.
Rub’ al Khali
The Rub’ al Khali is one of the largest sand deserts in the world, encompassing most of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula. It includes parts of Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Great Wall
The Great Wall of China and Inner Mongolia are featured in this image photographed by Expedition 10 Commander Leroy Chiao on the International Space Station.
Arctic Eclipse
NASA’s Terra satellite was rounding the top of the globe, making its way from the eastern tip of Siberia and across the Arctic Ocean towards northern Norway and northwest Russia, when it captured this unique view of a total solar eclipse on Aug. 1, 2008.
Lake Nassar
Egypt’s Lake Nasser, as photographed in January 2005 from the International Space Station.
Morenci
Looking more like an alien landscape than an Earthly landscape, the Morenci open-pit copper mine in southeast Arizona is North America’s leading producer of copper.
Back soon with more thoughts on style in fractal art — plus some Fractalbook insider trading.
Still only 10 cents
Reality Changes Things
Something happens to fractals when they start to resemble real things. It’s sad, in a way, but I think fractal art is limited in its appeal to a wider audience simply because it’s “fractal.”
Fractals have shape, color and pattern, but often those purely abstract, non-representational qualities relegate fractal imagery to the domain of the decorative or just cryptic –because they don’t look like anything.
The great Salvador Dali produced something in the 1950s which today I would consider to be nothing more than a cheap digital effect:
~Click on images to view full-size on their original site~
Galatea of the Spheres by Salvador Dali (1952)
But Dali, like most painters, adds some touches here and there that cause the image to diverge from a what a glass ball photoshop filter would quickly produce. Dali adds realism to what would otherwise be a handmade attempt at geometric art and the image becomes much more engaging.
If Dali were alive today he’d be frustrated with fractals. He’d want to paint stuff on them. It’s the realistic connection that makes surrealist art interesting. If it were totally unreal and (like fractals) didn’t look like anything, it would be abstract art which inevitably, despite the best efforts of art critics and other educators, is received and labelled, “decorative/weird.”
Here’s some fractal art that is transformed by presenting the appearance of real things:
liThe Death of Id by BrutalToad
Nice and Dali-esque, too. BrutalToad says, “I don’t know why I gave it such a title. It was just the first thing that came to mind.”
I think it was just a stroke of brilliance. Mysterious and contemplative suits the image.
, Container World by redbeltboxer
It looks like the complicated inner architecture of a Persian/Indian medieval castle. Like from the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time video game. Video games are real, right?
The background is more abstract, undefined, but the 3D fractals seem to have it easier when it comes to taking on realistic allusions. 3D imagery is inherently more realistic or has more potential to be. Perhaps it’s just easier to relate to things that have the extra third dimension of depth?
Iterated Appliances by Madman
This one is too real and, like the title suggests so well, it’s a kitchen being endlessly extruded from some magical machine. I see ice dispensers and bandsaws in the same “appliances.” Melaminia: the world of endless smooth white cupboards and counters.
Starship Docking by Power 8
As you can see, the twilight zone of realistic fractal imagery is quite a broad one. There’s nothing here really that is realistic except when all the pieces are put together and then the effect is quite good. This reminds me of the Magritte painting where you’d see a simple natural background and then front and center something wildly imaginative. Nothing suggests “spaceship” except the presence of that mysterious shape in space overtop of what resembles a man made landscape of moon farms.
It has a “kubrick-ian” style to it suggesting a scene out of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Alright, now that we’ve taken a few steps away from reality, let’s take a look at some purely fractal, or at least, purely algorithmic art for which there is no possible realistic or “representational” allusions.
20110402-dssp20 by Samuel Monnier (click for deep zoom)
Sam’s been using a new algorithm that I don’t really understand, but the results look similar to fractal things. This one really shows how the simple graphical qualities of shape, pattern and color can work together to produce something appealing even when there’s no reality or realistic appeal involved or attempted.
20110401-dssp17 by Samuel Monnier
Where realistic allusion is not possible in fractal/algorithmic art, the colors, shapes and patterns become much more important and have to possess a greater degree of creativity in order to interest the viewer. It’s harder to make good fractal art that doesn’t look like anything other than “fractals.”
On the other hand, it’s possible to make such artwork and have it stand on its own two legs without some “fascinating” explanation for how it was made. I have no idea how Sam made these; I’m sure it was brilliant and unique, but if he’d simply made photographs from microscope slides, or cranked them out with a child’s drawing toy, they wouldn’t be any less interesting.
Lookin’ Sharp
Just when I was beginning to think the 3D fractal scene was plateauing and running out of interesting themes to explore… along comes something sharp.
~Click on any image to view full-size on original site~
The Center of It All by lenord, 2011 (on Fractalforums.com)
You have to look closely at the little doorways and windows in the rings near the bottom left and right corners. Sharp. Very sharp.
Here’s another one from Fractalforums.com, the hub of the 3D fractal universe:
Futurism by kr0mat1k (on Fractalforums.com)
A jet turbine of knife like blades. Note the smooth, clean details on each blade. Seriously sharp.
DBL by RCPage (Fractalforums.com)
That one is Uber-Sharp! And shiny too. Everything is high-res carved and meticulously engraved. I’m not sure why this very sharp, high-quality rendering impresses me so much. Maybe it’s really how well it displays the underlying mandelbox structure of the imagery. It looks like a new category of 3D imagery and that’s why I thought readers might not want to miss it.
Inception by kr0mat1k
This one by kr0mat1k perhaps explains what makes these ultra sharp images so interesting. If you look at the fullsize version you’ll see that the edges resemble hand drawn outlines. This rendering style is different than the usual mandelbox type and presents a traditional –hand made– appearance rather than the more common computer renderings I’m used to seeing. Inception could easily trick non fractal viewers into thinking the image was a pen and ink or pencil and watercolor image. Except, of course, for the fabulously intricate and wildly creative imagery that it contains. What artist has ever made up something like this themself? Not even Escher drew images this complex and organically composed.
My browser runneth over. Here’s another one:
Limbo City 1 by MarkJayBee (Fractalforums.com)
MarkJayBee takes this sharp, detailed style and manages to give it a dusty, realistic look while maintaining the “sharpness.” He’s got a whole series of these Limbo City images on his Deviant Art site.
I’ll bet printed versions of these images are even more impressive since the intense detail would be much more visible in the high-res world of prints. On the other hand, I suspect the rendering times for images like this might be higher than the other, less detailed mandelbox images.
Hangar 57 by lenord
This one’s a nice combination of iron girders and the more traditional organic fractal shapes that us old folks are used to seeing. Arranged like wall partitions sporting decorative artwork the series of slabs in the middle creates a nice futuristic (and yet also cave like) hotel lobby or ritzy parking garage (without floors).
Lenord comments that this image of his here is a tweak on RCPage’s GPS Required image:
GPS Required by RCPage
I’m sure you can “feel” the inspiration in this one too. This one is so sharp I want to put on gloves.
Just like kr0mat1k’s Inception, the rendering in this one goes beyond what I’m used to seeing in mandelboxes and enters into a whole new graphical style and that’s what I suspect is inspiring the other mandelboxers on Fractalforums.com.
Keep an eye out on this page on Fractalforums.com if you want to see where this sharp new style goes in the future: Last Pictures Uploaded. Wear some gloves, just in case.
Velocipede Rides Again
From time to time I revisit places and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Velocipede, a long time fractal artist, has reinvented herself and started an new blog with new enthusiasm entitled, “Oh no, not again.”
Nothing interests me more than seeing someone do something new and different with fractal art and Velocipede has put her letterpress printing skills to work and printed out some 21st century art with technology that Benjamin Franklin would have been comfortable with. And with style too, as usual.
~Click to view images full-size on original site~
Untitled print by Mr. Velocipede
A simple and straightforward fractal-ish image but rendered (by hand) in a whole new way. I’ve always liked the look of printed imagery like this. It’s got a rendering style all it’s own.
Untitled print by Mr. Velocipede
I like this one even more than the first which has more color in it, but lacks the rich variations in shading and “texture” that this julia shape has. Printing is special kind of paint brush and even though it was originally designed for mass production, or at least with smaller hand presses, for higher volume production, the imagery has a creative touch to it. It’s no wonder that print making hasn’t lost its appeal: nothing can duplicate it, no pun intended.
Note the "fractal" printing assemblies in the background. Photo by Mr. Velocipede.
As you can see it’s a hands-on art form and not the sort of pushing buttons and turning dials things that computer artists are used to. At the same time there’s a certain charm to these old-style methods and machines that computers have yet to catch up with.
The belly of the beast. Photo by Mr. Velocipede
Although its much heavier than a computer, I wonder if in fact it might be easier to operate than Ultra Fractal? Of course, the artistry is in the assembly of the type and the skill in putting all the media –type, ink, paper– together. And what exactly is she setting up to print?
Space Invaders letterpress print by Mr. Velocipede
Pretty cool eh? I think Mr. Velocipede is quite enjoying her printing press art form. A nice combination of computer “pixel art” and old-fashioned printing methods. And the result is not simply an image file displayed on a monitor but something you can actually touch with your hands. On the other hand you can’t send them by email.
I suppose with some careful tinkering one might be able to produce something similar with a bubble-jet or color laser printer and card stock, but I imagine you’d be “hard-pressed” to reproduce the embossed effect of the type, and the tone of the ink.
I think they’re quite tasteful and stylish especially considering that the age range of people who grew up with space invaders (mid-forties) are now entering that phase of life where they don’t think twice about paying for something unique and nostalgia-inducing. Perhaps something like this, especially the fractal themes, could have some commercial appeal?
Anyhow, there’s more on Velocipede’s new shiny blog, nice fractals too.
Wikipedia-ism by Mr. Velocipede
She’s got a real sense of humor, too.
Eta Carinae, Phoenix Double Nova image by Mr. Velocipede
A Phoenix Double Nova fractal, after the manner of Dan Wills, whose densely complex images I admire very much.
-from Velocipede’s blog
Click to visit Mr. Velocipede's blog and find out what she's done with her custom made Spirographs
Take a look for yourself or even subscribe. I’m sure there’s even better stuff to come in the days ahead. And you won’t find things like this anywhere else.
Are fractals better categorized as Generative Art?
Generative Art is simply a machine whose output has artistic qualities.
The Wikipedia page defines Generative Art as:
Generative art is a system oriented art practice where the common denominator is the use of systems as a production method. To meet the definition of generative art, an artwork must be self-contained and operate with some degree of autonomy. The workings of systems in generative art might resemble, or rely on, various scientific theories such as Complexity science and Information theory. The systems of generative artworks have many similarities with systems found in various areas of science. Such systems may exhibit order and/or disorder, as well as a varying degree of complexity, making behavioral prediction difficult.
It’s a contraption that makes neat-looking stuff, I’d say. The important characteristic is that the artwork is generated from the mechanical algorithm, or machine design, and untouched by human hands. The human component comes into play only in the design of the algorithm / choice of the algorithm / set-up of the machine / but the final result is displayed as-is, without alteration.
Graphically creative Java applets without any controls that initialize when the web page loads are the quintessential examples of Generative Art. You can’t get any more autonomous than that. Of course, a good Generative Art machine involves a huge amount of very clever design in order for it to achieve its intended purpose of producing far-out imagery. You could say that Generative Art is all about making beautiful clocks. A little winding and out comes a river of art, pouring forth in endless generations from a single, well-crafted piece of DNA.
The art is what the machine does. You could photograph Generative Art and then tweak it graphically and display it, but then it’s less generative; derived from a generative art process. Many Generative Artworks are dynamic and produce animated results. The art is the flow of imagery and not just the best looking, and constantly changing images. Generative art is like a sports game: what engages the audience is the play, the way the game changes, develops and ends. Photos from a sports game are really not the same thing, but again, –produced from; –derived.
What I’m suggesting then, is that fractal programs are just like a sports game and what we normally think of as the finished product of fractal art –the saved image– is a derivation of what is actually the most artistic aspect of fractals: exploring parameter combinations within the program itself.
To a considerable degree, much like nature photography itself, saved fractal images are like fishes out of water, removed from their natural environment where they literally (had) a life of their own.
I’ve often wondered why I see so many “dead fish fractals” all over the internet. The reason is they’re the trophies of great fishing expeditions; fractal hunts; odysseys of adventure; rocks from the top of Mt. Everest. What’s missing is the art, but that’s in the process which can’t be captured and displayed; the memories; the experience itself. And that’s the heart of what Generative Art is: a beautiful process.
Naturally, one can also “make” fractal art and process and layer it, but what I’m suggesting is that that sort of thing is the lesser of two fractal art forms.
It’s the more common one, isn’t it? Or is it? How many more fractal “artists” are there out there who mostly play with the programs and spend hours sometimes just surfing the fractal waves of some nice set of parameters they’ve discovered. That sort of Generative Art lives in the machine and requires the machine to experience it. The saved and displayed images may just be the tip of the fractal art iceberg, whose greater bulk is submerged and unseen.
Generative Fractal Art (I just invented the term) requires special programming. The ideal program requires minimal user input and quickly renders graphically interesting imagery. In this context, Steven Ferguson’s programs are the best. I don’t know if Steve intended them to be used this way, but their design makes them very Generative Art friendly. You can make some pretty nice still images with them too, but starting up one of Steve’s fractal programs is like sailing off on a sunny day with no goal but to see what’s over the horizon. If you sail far enough you’ll find the more exotic fish, but even just keeping to the harbor where the sailing students take their lessons is a glorious experience. And I’d add it’s an artistic experience.
Tiera-zon, Sterling-ware, Inkblot Kaos, each one is like an old pirates treasure map or the 8th, 9th and 10th voyage of Sindbad.
Fractal Explorer, like the name suggests, is another good Generative Art fractal program. You don’t have to go to a naval academy to sail this one.
Ultra Fractal? Well, Dan Wills has used it quite a bit and brought back some impressive still images. I called Dan “Fractal Columbus” because I thought he was enjoying the generative qualities of fractals with UF, exploring vast landscapes and saving cool snapshots. But I think you’ll need a little training to get going with UF, unlike Steve’s programs which are much better suited for Generative Fractal Art purposes relying on a program’s operational autonomy and built-in creative design.
Terry Gintz has some good Generative Fractal Art programs too. His fractal landscape renderer is practically a Generative Art genre all it’s own. It’s found in Fractal ViZion and several other programs of his. Gintz’s programs also feature the ultimate Generative item: random parameters. Come to think of it, maybe Gintz’s programs are actually simpler to use than Ferguson’s. But Steve’s are my favorites because experimentation is quick and easy and good coloring is not hard to achieve .
In conclusion then, I think Fractal Art’s greatest artistic strength is realized when it’s seen as a type of Generative Art –a picture machine. I also think there’s many more people enjoying fractal art in this way but that they’ve just been thinking of it as playing around with fractals. It’s more than that, fractal programs are really complex Generative Artworks; some programs more than others. Used simply as tools with which to create still images, the results are often, but not exclusively, the kind of “dead fish fractals” we see having been taken out of the Generative Art context from which they came. In general, I think fractals are best categorized and appreciated firstly as Generative Art and only secondly as still images. The depth of the impression fractals make is greatly reduced when separated from the rich electronic environment that generated them.
BMFAC: “We Are All Winners Now”
This does not look like an art exhibition.
Two photographs of the exhibition of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest in Hyderabad, India, 2010.
Photographs released by Esin Turkakin.
Photographs of the showcase exhibition of the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) have been released by one of the contest winners. Only the winners received any information about the exhibition. It has taken six months for any photographs to surface on the Internet. The main BMFAC site has not been updated since the winners were announced last year. There has been no publicity about the India exhibition on the main site, nor have any of the previous three shows (two in Spain and one in Argentina) been mentioned at all.
The two released photographs are fairly long shots of the show. I’m sure this was deliberately done, for I doubt the organizers want anyone to have a clear view.
There is no discernible reason why photographs of the exhibition had to be limited to the winners. Why was no one else in the fractal community allowed to see them? Information is power, I suppose — or, perhaps, the lack of information maintains power. With the release of the photographs, we are all "winners" now. We can make up our own minds about the show based upon what we can actually see.
Two things are immediately evident in the photographs. The first is that the size of the prints is considerably smaller than a reasonable person would have inferred from reading the contest page’s exhibition description. Moreover, the prints in India are indisputably more minuscule than the prints displayed in the earlier exhibitions in Spain. Here is a look at the BMFAC show last May in San Sebastián:
This does look like an art exhibition.
An exhibition of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest in San Sebastián, Spain, 2010.
Photograph by Javier Barrallo. Seen on C82.
The contrasts between the two shows are striking. The large prints featured in Spain are obviously made using canvas. Doing otherwise would have made them far too heavy to display. The prints hung in India are noticeably smaller. They are paper prints that have been matted and placed under very not-glare-free glass.
Here’s the problem. The payoff for winning contestants was to have their work exhibited in India at the International Congress of Mathematicians. No reference to any other exhibition was made (and still hasn’t been mentioned). To be eligible to enter, participants had to have the capability of submitting images at unusually large sizes. According to the BMFAC rules page:
Size: Artwork that is selected must then be provided in high-resolution format, sized so that the largest dimension is 8000 pixels. If a high-resolution version of the artwork cannot be produced, it should not be entered. Some images may be selected for printing at even larger size (12000 pixels in the largest dimension) so entrants would do well to be aware of the size requirements. This is particularly important for certain types of fractals (e.g. flames) which are difficult to render at large sizes.
The only logical reason to insist upon such gargantuan image sizes is that the organizers planned to display very large prints — much like those shown at the unmentioned San Sebastián show. But the small prints used in India could have easily been made from image sizes 1/10th of what was required for entry.
What went wrong? It seems to me there are only two possibilities. One could be chalked up to a failure of planning. The other would be deliberate deception to achieve an ulterior motive.
BMFAC defenders are probably assuming the venue changed unexpectedly. The conference altered its plans at the last moment, and the exhibition had to relocate to a more limited space. But none of this is likely. Any attentive exhibition organizer will pre-plan and be familiar with the exact dimensions of every exhibition space. In other words, the organizer would know far in advance (and, in this case, BMFAC directors had over a year to get ready) whether the show(s) would be placed in a hall or in a hallway. The conference facility in India has an exhibition hall; BMFAC was not booked into it. And a sudden switcheroo couldn’t have been all that last minute. Realistically, it would take a fair amount of time to have all exhibition images re-printed, mounted, matted, and framed. In the end, the most reasonable assumption here is those running BMFAC knew all along exactly what space would be available and what size prints would fit that space.
As I have systematically argued, the likely explanation for insisting on such huge file sizes was to privilege Ultra Fractal. It is the software of choice for the two co-directors and for every BMFAC artist-judge. One co-director writes openly of his UF preference. Most tellingly, the author of Ultra Fractal, which is commercial software, openly served as a BMFAC judge — which is a conflict of interest so ethically staggering that it brings into question the validity of the entire enterprise.
Ultra Fractal, of course, is the only scalable fractal software that can easily handle BMFAC’s specifications — and everyone involved with the contest knows this to be a fact. And that’s why they did it — because they wanted UF to look good by weeding out artists using other programs. Tim clarified in his last post why the selection field was already inherently narrow:
[BMFAC is] limited in what it shows: 25 works chosen not from all that the fractal art world has to offer but from what those who cared to enter the contest thought would impress the eclectic (dream team) of judges. Right off the bat the exhibition is behind the eight ball because, by design, they must passively attend to only what the contestants give them.
Then comes the pièce de résistance. Hatch a scheme to limit what can be submitted by throttling any fractal artist not using UF. And, sure enough, as we documented last year, the overwhelming majority of winning images were made with UF. That was not a coincidence. It was a foregone conclusion. No, even worse, it was a deliberate strategy to give the general impression that most of the "best fractal artists in the world" use Ultra Fractal — just like their mentors — the "esteemed" (and self-appointed) BMFAC contest artist-judges.
And now we get the ironic kicker. Any fractal program could easily have made images large enough to make prints of the size used in the India exhibition. As it turns out, there was no need for insisting upon such absurdly vast size requirements. How many more artists could and should have been allowed to enter the competition? And how much more representative should and would the pool have been to show the true diversity of our art form and a wider variety of artists?
Apophysis’ users should be especially furious because that particular program does not scale images well — as the BMFAC rules page even indirectly notes. The size restriction ploy pretty much killed off any fractal artist who post-processes, too — unless he or she has a powerful computer at their disposal.
When all is said and done, this whole cynical business was about business. BMFAC was never about "choosing art that represents our art form to a world that largely does not know it." It was about selling product and promoting personal interests. It was, as Orbit Trap has consistently pointed out, a publicity scheme to promote the careers of those staging a competition in which they twice placed their own work.
They should be ashamed of themselves for furthering their careers on the backs of other artists.
But they are not, and they’ll be back again soon to re-run the whole phony contest intrigue again — if they think they can get away with it.
The question for our community is: Can they?
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I almost forgot. I said the released BMFAC photos reveal two things.
The second is that what’s presented in the photos from India is not what I imagine an "international art exhibition" should look like. Does the "information hallway," as Tim describes it, match the picture in your head of a prestigious art exhibit?
I’ll say it because no one else will. What the photos show looks like something you’d see in a shoddy cafeteria — or in the waiting room of a dentist’s office.
presenting… The Information Hallway!
Still so sure it’s a better place to introduce people to fractal art than the (now old-fashioned) information highway –the internet?
The recently released photos of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Exhibition really underline what I’ve been saying for years: no offline anything can compare with the internet for introducing people to fractal art and showcasing the best examples.
BMFAC exhibition, Hyderabad, India, 2010, (photo published by Esin Turkakin)
And the photos also emphasise something I’ve been saying: offline exhibitions are always tied to the personal agendas of the organizers and sponsors and the artwork (and the audience) suffers for it. At least they suffer until they go home and start searching the information highway.
The Information Hallway, on the other hand, as expensive and complicated as it is to bring about , is so ineffective in every way. It’s limited in what it shows: 25 works chosen not from all that the fractal art world has to offer but from what those who cared to enter the contest thought would impress the eclectic (dream team) of judges. Right off the bat the exhibition is behind the eight ball because, by design, they must passively attend to only what the contestants give them.
And who’s walking down The Information Hallway anyhow? Math professors and other greats of this highly esteemed and highly un-artistic group of professionals. And as I mentioned once before, these people don’t have internet access or haven’t seen any fractal graphics before? They’re hardly the type of people an advertising campaign would target to promote fractal art, or any other art genre. Benoit Mandelbrot might have had a (passing) interest in the artistic application of fractal geometry, but that was years ago when fractals were fresh and revolutionary. The world of mathematics professionals is not the place to sow the seeds of fractal art –the art world is! Should that surprise you?
Jeremie Brunet (aka “bib”) recently had a (somewhat low-key) exhibition of his fractal artwork in a gallery in Paris and I think his approach was categorically better and about as effective as any offline fractal art event could be.
Jeremie displayed:
- a whole bunch of his own work
- to an artsy crowd
- in an artsy venue
- without distraction
- got on television
- shared photos and video online
- and didn’t present himself as the best and the greatest (or wear a beret and speak with a French accent)
Compared the the great BMFAC with all it’s pomp, ceremony, famous selection committee and big sponsors, Jeremie Brunet’s low profile, one-man exhibition was a much smaller stone to drop in the ocean and yet it produced an much larger splash than the near-secret BMFAC did. Why? Because he presented artwork to an artwork loving crowd. Mathematicians are boneheads when it comes to art. That’s why they aren’t in an arsty profession, they’re mathematicians –academics and theorists.
A small television crew even came to interview Jeremie in the gallery with his work and he posted it on Fractalforums.com for all to see. The BMFAC? We had to beg the winners to show us some photos just to verify the exhibition actually happened (six months after).
Anyhow, the way other people are going to discover fractal art is probably the same way almost every fractal artist discovered it: on the internet. Go ahead and have offline exhibitions if the idea excites you. But just remember that while you’re planning (and spending your money) for that offline event, more people are stumbling across fractal art for the first time on the internet than will ever attend your offline exhibition even if it was held for a year and advertised on billboards.
The Information Hallway, as we’ve seen from all the publicity surrounding the BMFAC 2010 exhibition (that’s sarcasm) is a good place to hide fractal art and an excellent choice of an audience if what you want is exuberant secrecy. Meanwhile, the good old information highway keeps on rolling, 24/7, 365 days of the year. Fractal artists ought to think about that venue.
The Roots of BMFAC
It wasn’t the sleep of reason that gave birth to a monster.
Some of Orbit Trap’s critics have taken issue with our claim that the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) is nothing more than a publicity stunt to feather the nests of its organizers and judges. These critics argue the competition is being unfairly maligned and is altruistic at its core. It’s not about self-promotion, claim our detractors. Rather, the contest’s organizers have selflessly volunteered their time and energy for the betterment of our discipline.
If you’re still sitting on the fence about this issue, or you believe our BMFAC critiques have been unfairly exaggerated, please consider the following.
The partial screencap above is taken from a page describing a fractal art exhibition that made some rounds in 2000. It was called "The Frontier Between Science and Art." Nearly one-half of the participants later went on to serve as BMFAC judges. Like BMFAC, the exhibition had a heavy touring rotation in Spain. Like BMFAC, it was produced by the same two co-directors.
In other words, this non-juried, by invitation only, vanity project eventually evolved into BMFAC.
Why? Because, like self-publishing, self-produced art exhibitions of yourself and your friends tend to be less respected and even frowned upon in most professional circles. After all, it’s not an objective peer review guiding the content of the exhibition; it’s subjective self-financing. You pay and you pick — and thus you can become both artist and curator simultaneously.
What suffers in such arrangements, though, is that artistic standards become irrelevant. Who among us really believes that the best artists are inherently those who are the most willing to pay to promote themselves?
But there was one way to bring instant respectability to this pay-for-view venture. Concoct a scheme to turn it into an "international fractal art contest." Set up yourself and your friends as the panel of judges. Rig the submission requirements to favor a particular scalable fractal software program favorable to your work and that of your friends. And, best of all, include the work of "panel members" (that’s you and yours, of course) in the "contest" exhibition in a manner that makes your self-selected, unjuried work indistinguishable from the work of the competition’s winners.
Presto. Suddenly your vanity project has instant professional integrity.
Except, of course, that it does not. The cheap theatrics should fool no one. It did not fool us. We called out BMFAC for what it was. A craven, self-evident, publicity stunt.
Recently, we’ve written several posts trying to figure out why there was virtually no publicity for BMFAC’s showcase exhibition in India last summer. Earlier BMFAC exhibitions featured press reports and photo layouts. I remember one picture in particular featuring a co-director and his grandfathered-in panel-selected art situated in a smiling photo with the late Benoit Mandelbrot. So, what was different this last go around?
I can only think of one thing. The directors and their judges elected not to include their own work in the last exhibition.
Do you see the connection to the lack of publicity now? As long as the exhibition furthered their own reputations and pushed their own careers, open the curtain and turn on the lights. But once the self-promoters exit the stage, close the curtain and fade to black.
And, so, only the BMFAC contest winners (supposedly) received PR packets about the India exhibition. I hope the competition’s winners, both past and present, feel the prestige of being recognized by BMFAC offsets that lingering, nagging back pain…
…the back pain from being forced to give the contest’s organizers and judges all those piggyback rides.
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Speaking of the BMFAC India exhibition, I’ll remind our readers once again that the whole enterprise still falls under the definition of an alleged art show. To date, nothing concrete has surfaced on the Internet to demonstrate the show actually occurred.
Yes, several winners came forth and chided us for being so absurd to insist on what Othello once called "the ocular proof." One winner even admitted having photographs that he’d be willing to share — assuming we signed some kind of pre-nuptial agreement or something. Of course, he could have just as easily posted them to any one of his multiple web sites — but, to date, has not done so.
Why one would almost think revealing the photos would lead to some kind of shocking revelation. It’s safer, then, to dole them out in hush-hush tones to the winners only and blame the whole PR vacuum on a "press blackout" by Indian authorities.
What new wrinkle can’t be revealed to the rest of us? There were plenty of photos from the ICM conference. And those fractal prints were BIG, remember. They had to be printed huge to reveal plenty of "fractal detail." Yet, each print remains hidden from cyberspace. The show turns up nowhere on any search of the ICM site. It wasn’t in the main exhibition hall. Was it tucked away somewhere in a dark back hallway? Was space at a premium, so the whole exhibition had to be reprinted at a much smaller size? That would lend truth to the claim that the size restrictions were indeed designed solely for the expressed purpose of promoting Ultra Fractal…as if having the software’s author as a judge wasn’t enough of an unfair advantage already.
I guess we’ll never know the answers to these and other questions until one of the inner circle of winners decides to make photos of the exhibition public. After all, apparently, the winners are the only people on earth who’ve been given such materials.
I suppose the contest director and maybe a few judges have some photos, too. But I don’t think we can count on them for any shared publicity — especially now that there’s nothing in such a gesture for them. As far as they’re concerned, the show closed the moment the whole production stopped centering on their stealing every scene.
2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fractal Art Blogging
I’m sorry, but I can’t give out too many details about the actual recipient because the prize winning journalist has been keeping a very low profile in order to avoid “the haters” of the fractal art world which he’s observed over the years to have plagued and besieged Orbit Trap, the blog that inspires him. I think he’d prefer we not link to him or use his name. We’d sure like to so he could reach a bigger audience and inspire others out in the same way he says he’s been inspired by Orbit Trap. Naturally, if he’d like formal recognition, we’d be happy to give it to him.
The award was an easy decision to make because there’s really only two fractal art blogs on the internet and we couldn’t give ourselves an award; it’s not like we’re a fractal art calendar or contest.
Here’s a few choice excerpts from the prize winning journalist’s recent work in the area of fractal art criticism and editorial commentary that caught Orbit Trap’s eye and earned him the very first Pulitzer Prize for Fractal Art Blogging.
On the Fractal Universe Calendar
I hope this post doesn’t bring any negativity or haters. I’ve seen this happen when the subject was so delicate (to some people) like this. But here we go.
I had read in another blog – which I won’t mention here which one it is just because of these fights and haters, but it has been mentioned here a couple times and I do share many of their thoughts about how and where the fractal art is going – about how the Fractal Calendar was becoming sort of a… how to put it lightly… commercial product supposedly open to the fractal artists community to participate, but a project where just a few people had the chance to participate.
Today, when I was going to the Fractal Forums website to get the latest Mandelbulb version for my other computer, I typed a wrong address that took me apparently to the official site for the Fractal Calendar. And they had 3 galleries for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions with the images. And now I could see with my own eyes that this was very much true, the images are indeed boring and repetitive. They aren’t ugly, though. But 12 images of common spirals and Doodads? I can do that too. Sometimes better. Many others can do that as well.
I think that the last time I had checked for the images in that calendar was around 2003, when I even submitted some images (silly me…). The same group of people seemed to dominate the choices of approved images back then, but the images were much more better and diverse. Now, they’re just as I’ve said, common spirals and Doodads. Sad, really.
…the images are far from being fresh, creative and daunting or even “updated”, they are just something that seem to have been done to fit a certain commitment, “we must do the calendar, you are the chosen artists, just send me anything in time and that’s fine”.
…it’s sad to see that they have chosen just common spirals done in Ultra Fractal. No Apophysis, no old-school Fractint images, no new styles like the Mandelbulbs. And just spirals. While the time in the calendar goes on for all of us, the quality of its images seem to be going back in time. Or the clock seems to have stopped in 2002 for the people that are responsible to choose the images.
…and this wasn’t a personal attack on anyone (before any of these haters that like to keep starting flame wars in the aforementioned blog find an excuse in this post to start some more of these wars), this was just my personal opinion on the Fractal Calendar (to which you are entitled to disagree) and my comments are mostly made about the way it’s made and conceived and how its images are chosen, not about the talent or the quality of any of these fractal artists involved.
On Orbit Trap’s Influence
Many thanks to the guys at Orbit Trap to have quoted my opinions, to slightly discuss them and more, to understood them perfectly. I’m more than anything learning to be honest with my own feelings (artistically and in everything else) so whatever I’ve said here about my disappointments with fractal stuff in general that was repercuted by Orbit Trap is absolutely true. Whenever I say I am hating Apophysis for example, I really do. But I’m hating the Deviant kind of Apophysis – the mass-produced, randomized thing.
And I think I could only understand what was going on when I read these posts at Orbit trap pointing me to some obvious things that most people (comfortably) refuse to see, better still have your comment box filled with friends pats on the back than making something you’re enjoying.
On the Random Batch Apophysis Gallery
Pretty isn’t it? But guess what was my involvement in all this? A few clicks. To be precise, just 3. One to open Apophysis, other in the menu to select “Scripts”, and the last one to select a script. (OK, there was another one, to run the script, it’s 4 clicks actually, sorry!). There were a few more clicks required to render the images, but these aren’t related to the actual creation of the images. And these images look quite similar not only to each other but to most of these so-popular “amazing-whatever” batches of fractal “art” spread all over the internet. So sad.
I decided to do this after reading so many of these “this is my fractal wallpaper for today” posts (and all these links to “amazing” galleries with 100 images as well) and being disappointed with most of the images I see there…
[…]
When you say “for today” I think it implies you’re doing one of these images every day. After some time, even if you used to have any involvement and care while publishing one single image a day (you always did, didn’t you?), it gets lost eventually, because even if you don’t have any motivation to make a good image that day for whatever reason, you must publish one, to keep the commitment to have the “fractal of the day” posted in time. Then or you’ll make something sub-par to keep it going…
[…]…My problem is with these other, sub-par, common images, that are still labeled as “amazing” and that are being delivered daily like rabbits or mice. Images that have a lot of self-similarity – within themselves and with every other low-quality fractal art available, the 3-click batches. A very good example of self-similarity (a basic characteristic of a fractal), but in an opposite way.
[…]…Instead it’s mostly people just running some batch script just to not be forgotten, if they don’t post their “fractal of the day” at that specific hour they will be ignored and people will start paying attention to other “artists”.
I could have kept my site going and with daily updates like that forever, and probably by now I would have around 10,000 images… If you don’t have anything meaningful to say, shut up, it’s simple as that. If it’s not working and you can’t make images that YOU think are worth showing to anyone, don’t do it. For today.
PS. I hope nobody thinks that this “special” gallery was really meant to be called “amazing”. It was done just to illustrate the content of this post. The only amazing thing there was the amount of time spent to render them. If you can’t understand irony and/or sarcasm, I’m really sorry.
Irony, social commentary and inspirational sources; that’s Pulitzer Prize winning material. And now we’ve got our own Pulitzer Prize winner in the area of Fractal Art Blogging. Well, maybe not your Pulitzer Prize winner, but, to quote the recent 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fractal Art Blogging, “If you can’t understand irony and/or sarcasm, I’m really sorry.”
On Style 2
Send Out the Probes by Linda Allison
No one to date has had a more profound effect on fractal art style than Linda Allison. Her fractals became the template de rigor for the Fractal Universe Calendar (FUC) — the long-running staple of fractal art mass marketing. Her work made with early iterations of Ultra Fractal established a touchstone in the public mind for what a fractal was supposed to be — swirly and decorative ornamentation filled with light. Subsequently, the production of fractal art took on guild qualities, as Tim laid out earlier in a series of posts on Orbit Trap, and imitators swelled Fractalbook to churn out self-similar kudzu while social networking.
I’ve been hard on the FUC and its rigid notions of fractal imagery, so some readers might think I am being snarky here. I am not. To have had such a profound effect on any artistic discipline is a considerable achievement.
Not that Allison necessarily ripped her style from whole cloth. More likely, it was indirectly appropriated. Early on, Ultra Fractal built its commercial software to take advantage of Fractint’s open source graciousness. By annexing Fractint formulae, Allison was able to build on established pattern recognition and use the additional graphic firepower of UF to launch her own vogue.
Sp035 by O
The image above by prodigious Fractint artist O shows the foundation for what would become the early-UF Allison-influenced style. The spiral image is crisp and clear; its composition unfolds in dark tones with hard, defined lines. Although O’s gender is unknown (to me, anyway), and stereotypes aside, a differentiation between masculine and feminine styles might be in order here. From A Little Design:
Typically in design the stereotype for “masculine” follows with angularity, straight lines, phallic forms, squares, roughness, etc. And for the “feminine” the standard is: curvy, rounded, smooth, organic, soft, floral, flourishes, motherly, nurturing… etc. But one doesn’t have to look far in our modern world to find nurturing men, who care for their children and aggressive women who climb mountains.
Allison took Fractint forms and ran them through her own UF filter — more curves, more saturation, more light. Softer, natural shapes replaced harder-edged geometric forms and angles.
Morning Magic by Linda Allison
Her images are elegant flourishes of light — highly decorative. At their best, they transcend a beauty-is-all aesthetics and reach to be about something — to express ideas or suggest connections to the natural world.
The Avalanche by Linda Allison
Over time, Allison’s style, coupled with the popularity of UF, became the dictionary photograph for the word fractal. Before long, the compliment engines of Fractalbook were mass-producing such images on a scale dwarfing greeting cards. This "UF Look" became the status quo — became the gateway style to "success" in the Fractal Universe Calendar and settled into the prevailing (but not exclusive) aesthetic of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC).
Ironically, such imagery somehow enjoyed a kind of anointed status as being more purely fractal — even though such works were significantly processed within UF and eventually became precursors for the masked and layered pictorials generated by artists using more recent versions of the software.
Garden Clippers by Linda Allison
But any artistic movement — especially one awash in decoration — once safely boxed into the foundation of the status quo will be stifling to some — some who envision a new wave. In short, Allison’s style gave the fractal underground something to rebel against, to "kick against the pricks" in the medieval sense. More than a few fractal artists actively worked against the grain of the prevailing aesthetic for years, and, more recently, Guido Cavalcante sounded a clarion call on Orbit Trap:
I believe that algorithmic art must now engage in activities that have been "not appropriate" for the medium until now, during those times when it was still trying to find its own aesthetic. But now algorithmic art is finally ready to serve "non-artistic" purposes. It’s not a problem, of course, if some prefer to continue on creating purely aesthetic and visually intriguing objects. There is nothing wrong in doing that, although doing so does not constitute the same "heroic" accomplishment that it once did when algorithmic artists were struggling to break away, and give birth to a new medium. That was the challenge of the last 20 years. But now those early steps belong to history.
For those of us who prefer our fractal art with more cultural-social-political bite, it’s tempting to think the cosmetics of the fractal craft guild are historical memories buried neck-deep in nostalgia. But old habits hang on and on. Just two weeks ago, look who made the cut on Renderosity’s Fractal Windows Weekly:
Banana…Bush??? by Linda Allison
Don’t topple those weathered statues yet. The status quo is indeed the revolution that’s not only televised but still mass produced online in Fractabook. Over on deviantART, a Fractalbook realm pigged out with imitators, open the fractal splash page at any given moment, and you’ll find an assortment of today’s daily deviation of Allison wannabes. And are you one who thinks the next wave of 3D fractal renders will wipe away the old, stale aesthetics? Not if practitioners using programs like Mandelbulb3D continue to simulate the Allison style and believe ornamentation best fulfills fractal art expression:
Getting Loopy by Dsynegrafix
I guess the status quo style can still eat its young — even some of those armed with new tools. The lengthy threads of gushing Fractalbook virtual hugs and kisses under the last two images above show how much the Allison style aims to (still) please. I guess an open slot (or grave?) remains in calendars and contests for 3D fractal renders that are properly tweaked with acceptable embellishment. I guess, too, the first clue of establishment leanings was when, completely without irony, Dsynegrafix thanked an artist for use of his parameters. That artist calls himself McImages.
~/~
Next in the series: A look at Jock Cooper’s "Mechanicals." One sentence revised for clarity.
The Art of the Strange Place
~ Click on any image to view full-size on original site ~
Spiny Newton Julia Disc by Erisian
Although it’s probably been a perennial theme in fractal art from the beginning, the recent 3D fractal explosion has greatly increased the number of images whose main impression is that of The Strange Place. Because of this, I think it’s only appropriate to examine more closely this reinvigorated sub-genre of fractal art.
Fractal art? Actually, Strange Places often feature what could be called foreign objects and elements, producing what in traditional art circles is vaguely referred to as Mixed Media. Erisian’s image above, which the author says was made with Bryce and Tiera-Zon is a good example of this.
Bryce is a well established 3D graphics program that gave birth to the computer graphics “artform” of fairy tale landscapes encased in shiny glass balls, floating on beautiful oceans at sunset. Erisian’s parched landscape and departure from “glass-ball-ism” is a refreshing thing to see associated with Bryce. The use of Tiera-Zon, a classic 2D fractal program by Stephen Ferguson, on the other hand, was a genuine surprise to me. I thought it had to be something made in one of the Mandelbox programs. But no, Tierazon has entered the 3D universe (via Bryce, I assume).
MandelForest 1 by MarkJayBee
This one here by MarkJayBee (on Fractalforums.com) is pretty old by mandelbox standards, dated at May 4, 2010 (seems like a decade ago). Mark specializes in sci-fi mandelbox panoramas so it’s not surprising he’s captured what I would call a Strange Place. What could be a better use of Strange Places than sci-fi environments? It looks just like a scene out of the movie, Avatar, with its floating pinacles and dangling vines. What makes for a Strange Place is such an alien panorama as this: realistic, and yet unreal. You feel like you’ve been someplace. A Strange Place.
Sierpinsk Temple detail by MakinMagic (Dave Makin)
Did I say MarkJayBee’s mandelbox was old? This Sierpinski Temple by Dave Makin actually predates the 3D Mandelbulb/Mandelbox arrival. Of course, you can see that in Dave’s conveniently located watermark in the bottom left corner. Someday, perhaps, the only digital artists that will ever be remembered are those who wrote their names on their work.
This is a real sci-fi city Dave has created. Richly detailed, majestically lit, it’s a city of Empire State buildings, each one half statue and half office building. Actually, they’re nicer than the Empire State building. And here we are, perched like eagles, looking into these crowded canyons of sacred architecture. That counts as a Strange Place.
Museum Secret Passageway by janetino
Janetino (Deviant Art ID) creates some of the most vivid mandelbox renderings I’ve ever seen. If this was a high resolution, professionally taken photograph of the real thing it wouldn’t look as good as this. Most of the time perfect renderings like this look plastic-y and lifeless but not here. These are heavily ornamented metal doors leading to some of the greatest rooms in the king’s palace. Or are they the lavishly crafted doors of the king’s treasure vault? This is as close as we’ll get, but we’ve been there. We’ve been to this Strange Place.
Grotto by The Rev (Fractalforums.com)
Here’s a slightly different one but nonetheless characterized by the quality of an alien view, The Strange Place. The Rev really shows some style here in this one: nice composition, coloring and that special something that you just can’t describe but can see so well –style. This looks very mandelbulbish; I see those round fuzzy things on the walls. It’s always a minor triumph to make something this appealing from that old pollen spore, the mandelbulb.
We’re crouched in a cave and looking out onto the golden rockwalls of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt or maybe one of the many niches and cavities surrounding Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Ancient and alive forever looking into the Sun. Or is that just me? I’m a million words rolled up on papyrus and a I don’t ever want to be found. The world is not worthy of my secrets. This is a fine Strange Place if there ever was one. I’m going to hang out here for a while; you can head off to YouTube if you like.
The Lair of Ananta-Boga by Lenord (2011)
Are they hoops, tunnels, giant wicker honeycombs? There’s a Victorian, Steampunk look to it; wrought iron or Eiffel Tower-esque? And I keep thinking what a cool racecourse this would be for the video game, MX Unleashed or Off-Road Fury because there’s something in this that says roadway. How’s that for a Strange Place? Driving is believing.
Lenord likes symmetry and I’d say this is his best symmetrical work, yet. Strong design and rich depth and detail to the imagery. Dream-like and surreal. Made with the Mandelbulb 3D. Hey, he’s included the parameter file along with it on the gallery page at Fractalforums…
Strange Place is type of artwork that expresses wonder and mystery via a language of physical environment –scenery. You could say it’s the computer version of landscape art, but that’s putting it mildly. There’s commonly a surreal tone to Strange Places because computer algorithms, like fractal formulas, don’t create wall calendar nature scenes, they make freaky stuff. In fact, the parameters that render a Strange Place image might just as easily render something entirely different with a few minor adjustments. That’s the magic of fractal algorithms: you don’t know what’s around the corner until you go there.
Strange Places are vacation snapshots of digital places. They’re as real as any other place you can take of photograph of, and now with the current 3D fractal developments including actual stereo video rendering (3D glasses), they’re almost as real as it gets without actually being in the picture. Rathinagiri’s cross-eyed stereograms that I posted about before, show how vivid the digital world can be. The digital world is the Strange Place I’m talking about, I guess.
fractal20110127 by Rathinagiri
3D stereo fractal imagery just might be the ultimate level to the art of the Strange Place. When I look at Rathinagiri’s image in cross-eyed mode, it’s like these swirly clay shapes are right in front of me and I could reach out and touch them. I’m practically in the picture, the illusion is so strong. Rathinagiri hasn’t just given us an image of something to look at, he’s given us the real object itself. You just can’t touch it; no different than being in real world museum or art gallery. I’ll bet it’s that intense reality that motivates him to keep creating stereograms.
Anyhow, that’s the art of the Strange Place and I think it’s a sub-genre that will only grow and develop the way things seem to be going in fractal art these days. So if you find there’s something powerful and compelling about a fractal image but you just can’t fit it into the regular categories of visual art or find the words to explain what’s so good about it, it’s probably this Strange Place thing I’ve been talking about here. A fresh wind of surrealism. For the true eye-ball enthusiast.
Parameter File Sharing For Dummies
Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
The most recent “discussion” about parameter file sharing on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List has reminded me how deep the wheel ruts are when it comes to fractal artists talking about copyright and ownership. Most fractal artists subscribe to notions about copyright that are the law only in their own private, mental kingdoms. Answers to almost all their questions about copyright are available –from official government sources– on the internet, but oddly, very few fractal artists seem to be interested in actually resolving these questions. Why consult the US Copyright Office when you know more about their copyright legislation than they do?
Copyright is neither a moral or ethical issue: it’s a legal one. Consult the law, not your personal feelings or that of your online buddies.
Putting copyright issues aside, for the moment, what is the best way to share fractal parameter files?
Firstly, do you really want to help others build on your fractal discoveries? or do you just want to fish for applause with your parameter file? Unless you really want to pool your knowledge with other fractalists, you shouldn’t be giving out your parameter files to start with. You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment because you can’t take back what you’ve given out on the internet. It works that way with posting embarrassing party photos, and so it does with anything else uploaded to the… World Wide Web.
The best solution I can think of for most artists that will enable artistic collaboration and minimize feelings of regret, is to:
- share parameters only with other artists who approach you personally.
Posting parameters to the Ultra Fractal Mailing List is effectively giving them out to a huge, anonymous crowd. You have no rapport with an anonymous crowd and they have none with you; any restrictions you place on the use of your parameters are about as meaningless as your name that goes with them. It doesn’t matter what your legal rights are, you won’t even be able to enforce copyright restrictions over something which is only the source code of a fractal image unless those “infringers” help you out by posting their parameter file for you to compare. (Or unless they only minimally alter your parameters and post an image which is almost identical to yours.)
Think about it: sharing parameters only on a personal level is a good policy because it also allows the recipients to give back to you and builds up professional connections that could easily become a source for mentoring or other kinds of professional development.
Furthermore, fractal art is such a small genre that once you exclude everyone except the dedicated enthusiasts, you could share your parameters for the latest hybrid mandelbox with five other artists like yourself and have reached 80% of everyone who’s making regular, meaningful contributions to that area of fractal art.
Besides, there’s an enormous amount of imitation in fractal art today; widespread parameter file sharing probably makes that worse. When artists should be experimenting with new things and discovering new types of imagery having other artists (good artists) give them a short cut probably doesn’t help them much in the long run. The only good use of parameter file sharing is to spur further innovation, not easy imitation. Share your innovations with other innovators.
Most people love to share their skills and knowledge with others who share their interests. Not all; some artists are different, competitive and that sort of thing, but I believe most will find these professional exchanges quite inspiring as well as equally satisfying.
Throwing their pearls before swine, on the other hand, has been a regretful thing for artists, intellectuals and just about everyone else, ever since biblical times.
Ultra Poetry
Westdale Coffee Shops / Thursday Night - My Dog Joe (photo by Kenneth Moyle)
Well, the Ultra Fractal Mailing List is at it again. Last time it was opera, but this time it’s bongos, coffee houses and poetry readings.
I’ve reformatted the original excerpts to give them that “je ne sais quoi” (bongo roll!) of true poetry lingo. A little extra push to bring this baby out into the world of sunshine and stanza-i-zation (another bongo roll!). Well, I guess it’s satire, too, but I just dig this cat’s passion and choice of words. Hey man, I just thought it needed a little Robert De-Frost-ing and a few turns on the old charcoal language grill to make this the perfect Allen Gins-burger of our time.
Zooreka, speak thy words, daddy-o!
[ultrafractal] ENOUGH IS ENOUGH—
Thats the final straw..
ANYONE here who is currently
a friend of mine
on Facebook
is invited to view
the entire problem…
if that is you
are unable
or unwilling
to read!
I will not consort
with
or share anything
with
a den of Art thieves
or those of you
who obviously support them
What part of the following statement have you all got a problem with,
eh?
Full copyright for this piece
Made available for educative purrposes
and Examination
only,
exclusively to
February 2011
It’s plain and simple,,,
Nowhere
were tweaks
invited
or even suggested!
Not only did
aka Art Thief…
go
against my express wishes
but also took it
off-list
and published my work
under his
(or her)
name.
What is wrong with you people?
Wait til it happens
to you
and I’m sure
you’ll all know about it!
HOW DARE people
for example
attack me for defending
my work…
maybe you see
art
as a joke
and its okay
to steal!
Anyone here
as previously mentioned…
on my friends list
at
FaceBook,
Redbubble,
DeviantArt
etc
that shares the point
of view of anyone supporting
this is asked
to immediately remove themselves as such.
I have nothing
to say to
vermin
and believe me
it will get
ugly.
I am thankful that this is only one piece….
and I will not obviously
be pursuing the matter
legally
due to costs…
but believe me
if I had the money I
wouldn’t think
twice about it…
as a matter of principle.
Who’s talking war here?
No different to the themes
of the last week
as far as I can see…
Lots of posts
about stolen parameters
attributed to
who some of you
yet again
suggested wrongly
that she might be the art thief.
Then publishing work
without express
permission.
There is absolutely No freaking difference here!
Only takes one facebook
friend
here to stop by my
account confirm the findings
and post
back here!
The misuse of parameters
is plainly evident
from yesterdays list!
Choose to ignore
it if you wish but I
will not tolerate
either the
theft of my work
or
the insults that followed….
I have refrained from replying
in kind thus far!
It is rare at all
I post here anymore
and when I do
it is often
to be helpful to others,
examine technique
and sometimes tweak…
Thats how it has always been
since I joined here.
Instead I find rubbish
and often off-topic
stuff
posted
here,,,,
Like.. another fine day, isn’t it?
I find announcements of uploaded
work to other sites,,,
Lol
I’m sure
I could clog
the list
with that
one…
Padding
and of little substance
or relevance to the list.
Thats the plain and simple
truth of it!
Hardly surprises me at all anymore
that a lot of faces
and some of the better
artists
I got to
know
learning this program
have vanished totally from the list,,,
I believe I can now see
why!
*
[ultrafractal] correction to my last post enough is enough
…
Fractal Computing
Back in 2006, Juan Luis Martinez (Fractovia.org) wrote a post explaining why despite the growing popularity (and growing hip-ness) of the Macintosh computing platform we shouldn’t expect a similar proliferation of fractal programs to follow the way they have on the Windows platform. He doesn’t speculate as to why it isn’t going to happen or what it is that’s all messed up with fractals on the Mac platform, he simply asked the question (I’m paraphrasing) “Why is a graphic design-rich environment like the Mac so fractal program poor?”
Of course it’s not quite so bad now as it was back in 2006; Duncan Champney has produced a fine fractal program, Fractal Works, whose style has created it’s own niche in the fractal art world and not simply played catch-up with Windows programming. I think if Juan Luis was writing today he’d concede that Macs now have a respectable fractal program in Fractal Works.
I know nothing about Macs, and Apple in general, except that they make very elegant computing devices and they run the entire user/developer environment like a minimum security prison. Ironically, the computing company that has the hippest public image is also the one with the most repressive and authoritarian practices. (Totally un-cool.) Bill Gates, the former head of Microsoft might have been a hard playing businessman who used his company’s monopoly to run competing software developers off the road, but Steve Jobs of Apple is running both software and hardware competitors off the road.
I got a new computer this past week. My previous one was a used, off-lease desktop made in 2002. It ran Ubuntu Linux and drove down its own road, far away from the commercialism of the worlds of Microsoft and Apple.
My new computer came with a disk for Xp and a disk for Windows 7 but instead I dropped a disk for Ubuntu 10.10 into the optical drive and installed this popular version of Linux in about 20 minutes. Everything worked on my HP Elitebook 8440p including wireless card and special touch sensitive volume buttons. In fact, the installation of this Free Open Source Software (FOSS) operating system was actually easier than Windows 7. Ubuntu downloaded and installed the drivers, flash plugin, document viewers, multi-media codecs and a full suite of applications in one, simple step.
But I decided to go with Windows 7 instead.
Why? Linux is the land of the free, isn’t it? No more Evil Bill or Sinister Steve? Don’t do it man! Stay in Shangri-la!
The answer to why is right from Juan Luis’s posting from way back in 2006: the world of the Windows operating system has more creative options for its users. Ironically, those creative applications were built by and for its users and have nothing to do with the square-headed corporate creators who make and administer (and license) the operating system. Windows might not be a perfect world, and Linux has much less restrictions and a groovy, futuristic vision, but Windows is more a world of its users’ making than it is of the heartless corporation that created it. Weird, but it’s grown into more of a creative place than Linux has despite lacking the strong un-restrictive, wide-open everything foundation that the Linux world is securely rooted in, and was carefully designed to forever be.
But… I could never find very many programs that would knock me out of my gourd in Shangri-la. I just couldn’t dig that, man.
On Style 1
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
—Walt Whitman
Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.
—Willem de Kooning
Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.
—Wallace Stevens
I’ve wanted to try tackling the subject of style in fractal art since Orbit Trap began. But style is such a slippery topic — like attempting to capture a jellyfish with a spoon. Still, I’m going to forge ahead — even while admitting up front that I’ll likely leave more questions than answers in my wake. I’m feeling my way through the dark here in the hope that knocking a few holes in the walls will let in light.
There’s the chicken-or-egg question that needs to be addressed right off. Who or what is responsible for the production of style in fractal and digital art: the program(mer) or the artist? I feel a migraine coming on just wandering into this hall of mirrors.
But that is the Ur-question of style in our discipline (and all of digital art). Work produced in one fractal program definitely has a distinct and recognizable look than work produced in another. So, does the software, or perhaps its author(s), determine fractal art style, and do Phase One fractal artists, limited by the boundaries of a program’s capabilities, merely pump out variations on a pre-determined look. In other words, does the tool itself have panache — or is stylistic elegance sourced in how individual artists use a given tool?
I bet I know what most of us would like to answer. But let’s a take a little pop quiz first.
Match the fractal software with the images from the artists below. Do not immediately click on the images (to see larger versions on the artists’ sites) before guessing for that constitutes cheating. In a case where you "know" the artist and are familiar with her/his software preferences, you must, in all fairness, recuse yourself. Begin:
SOFTWARE:
1. Xenodream _____
2. Ultra Fractal _____
3. Apophysis_____
4. Quasz_____
5. Sterling-ware_____
6. Fractal Explorer_____
7. Chaos Pro_____
8. FractalWorks_____
9. Incendia_____
10. Mandelbulber3D_____
IMAGES:
a.
Big Bang by Kerry Mitchell
b.
Box (005) by Stefan Vitanov
c.
Quaternion 1 by Thomas Scheiblauer
d.
A Tree You Wouldn’t Climb by Joseph Presley
e.
Incendia University by AureliusCat
[Note: If you miss this one, you’re just not giving this quiz a good college try.]
f.
Arcane Encystement by Peter Ludwig Wegener
g.
Seraphina by Lilyas
h.
Watery Grave by dlr4553
i.
Golden Mandelbrot Landscape by Duncan C
j.
Cream in My Coffee by Karmen
Was this a snap or a head-scratcher? Were the images I included a fair representation? Some might argue that — thanks to hacks and public coloring algorithms — programs like Apophysis and Ultra Fractal are capable of a wider diversity of "styles" than most other fractal-rendering software. Had I included a UF image made utilizing Dave Makin’s (fairly) new 3D formula, would that have been more challenging? And didn’t one of the images include photo-manipulation? Was that "cheating"? These are all legitimate qualifiers.
Of course, the same general line of inquiry could be leveled at digital art in general. No two graphics programs "look" exactly alike either. The filters in Photoshop and those in Photo-Paint are quite different. I imagine the same visual distinctions would hold true for 3D graphic renderers — like Cinema 4D or 3DSmax. It does not necessarily follow, though, that each program inherently leaves an indelible stamp on style.
Or, at least, I’m guessing most of us would like to hope not. After all, Van Gogh‘s "style" was shaped more by his talent and vision than by his choice of thick brushes. Wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
~/~
In future posts in this series, I’ll look at the styles of select fractal artists.
Oh. I almost forgot. Do you need an answer grid to the quiz? Or was the exam easy — and, if so, what does that suggest?
An Internet Fractal Gallery
The Mona Lisa is the most popular artwork in the Louvre, the most famous art collection in the world. It measures 77 x 53 cm (30 x 21 in). That’s the size of a high-end computer monitor, today.
The world has the Louvre, and the the Louvre has the Mona Lisa, but Orbit Trap has something better than all that. It’s called the internet.
Here at Orbit Trap we’ve created the world’s first art gallery with absolutely no artwork in it. And it’s huge!
Well, enough of the hype. It’s a list of hyperlinks to fractal art that’s currently posted at various places on the internet. For each artwork, we’ve posted a thumbnail sized image along with the title and the name of the artist. Click the thumbnail, and see the artwork full-size on the artist’s own website. We just supply the navigation; how to get there.
That’s the beauty of the internet: we’re all part of one big computer. It’s all here, already. Everything’s as close as your monitor, if you can just find it. On the internet, a good art gallery need only to be a page of links. The artwork stays in the hands of the artists and they control it.
You’re probably wondering how we chose the artwork? Is it the Best Fractal Art Ever Made? Is this Orbit Trap’s pale imitation of the great Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Exhibiton? A new center to the Fractal Universe?
We asked two questions:
- What is fractal art?
- What can fractal art be?
The Fractal Art Collection is the answer to these two questions –a visual answer– in pictures, not words. It’s not a permanent exhibit. Links go dead and we also intend to change them as new examples come along and in order to keep it fresh and engaging.
The fractal art world is big; mammoth in fact, and we wanted to help any curious people out there checking out fractal art on the internet a simple way to get started. A Google image search just doesn’t work for that sort of thing.
It’s not an art contest with winners (and losers) or an Olympic event with gold, silver and bronze medals. It’s good examples of fractal art; some common and some not so common. It’s informative, not competitive. It’s art.
It’s also a work in progress. We’re not really sure where this will go or what shape it may take a year, or even a few months from now. We do think, however, that it will be of great benefit to the curious, first time visitor who just wants a summary view of fractal art.
The link is at the top of the page under the Orbit Trap title.
Behold! Haltenny is here…
~ Click on any image to view full-size on the original site ~
Point Of Origin by haltenny (Fractalforums.com ID)
High Voltage by haltenny (Fractalforums.com ID)
He has a Deviant Art Gallery too with more examples of “steampunk” mandelboxes. On DA he goes by Hal Tenny which sounds like a real name.
He shares, he cares, he posts parameter files!
Screenshot of Hal Tenny's recent DA journal entry
What a wonderful fractal artist and human being he is. Let’s hope fractal fame doesn’t perturb him or divide him by zero.
I take it he uses Jesse Dierks’ Mandelbulb 3D, a freeware Windows 3D fractal program available for download here on Fractalforums.com. He thanks the well known 3D fractal artist lenord for sharing the parameters from his recent image Spudsville posted on Fractalforums.com.
Spudsville by lenord (Fractalforums.com ID)
You can see the similarities; the shapes, patterns, patina of metallic corrosion on the big, central “tuber.” But you can also see that lenord’s image is different than haltenny’s in the rendering of it and the some of the parts of the shapes and choice of imagery. Also, if you follow lenord’s regular uploads to Fractalforums.com like I do, you’ll notice that haltenny’s image doesn’t share lenord’s characteristic style of symmetery; something that I find gives a strong design aspect to most of lenord’s work.
What this all leads to is the observation I’m sure we’re all making here that there’s a great deal of creative potential to these 3D mandelbox programs that comes from each individual artist’s choice and experimentation with whatever can be experimented with and that sharing parameter settings can lead to even more discoveries and not just soulless imitation. I’ve not seen anything quite like haltenny’s steampunk mandelboxes and they’re a real example of how powerfully creative these 3D fractal algorithms can be when it comes to making graphically complex and photo-realistic works. It’s almost like a graphical version of a piano on which almost any type of tune can be played with seemingly never ending possibilities for song writers.
I wonder if there’s any other haltenny’s out there amongst the great, looming shadows of Deviant Art? It’s easy to get lost in the shadows.
More Phase Two Sightings
sbioelements (from Undersea) by Tatiana Plokhova
I figured it might be time to return again to examining work that falls into the category of Phase Two fractal art. Tim laid down the foundation for Phase Two thinking in an earlier OT post where he notes that
Phase Two fractal art focuses on the image and not how it was made. Perhaps in Phase Two fractal art the word “fractal” is no longer relevant because the word fractal only has meaning if the artwork exhibits a fractal appearance.
I followed up with several OT posts — including here and here — showing examples of Phase Two fractal-influenced art. These works were not made using software but rather inhabited the nooks and corners of the more conventional art world.
Today’s cases are not as far removed from computer processing as examples mentioned before in sculpture and woodworking but nonetheless were not created using fractal-rendering programs.
The digital art of Russian artist Tatiana Plokhova often displays fractal traits and is indeed digitally designed. However, it appears to be a made-by-hand crazy quilt comprised of multiple techniques — including illustration, drawing, photography, graphic design, and digital imaging. The fish in the image above likely began their swim in a digital photo.
white (from Floral Concepts) by Tatiana Plokhova
An image like "white" looks like it could have originated in Ultra Fractal or Fractal Explorer. But it did not, as the editors of Sublimotion point out:
[Plokhova’s] style resembles fractal art, but, amazingly enough, hers is a hundred percent handmade creation. One instinctively feels that the complexity of her lines and dots does not lead to a dead end, but to an inner universe aligning with our consciousness. Tatiana subdues what’s mechanical in favour of the manual, what’s scientific remakes into organic, what’s alien and distant she represents personally.
Is the implication here that conventional fractal art is the aforementioned "dead end"? Perhaps. In an interview on the same site, Plokhova outlines her process:
My technique is quite simple, it’s just lines and dots. All the images are “handmade” vectors, it’s not a result of processing or fractals. I like mathematical art, but when it’s made by a machine, it almost never looks alive.
That last remark may be a gut punch to some of OT’s readers. It would be interesting to better understand what Plokhova means by "alive." Her work, like fractal art in general, is heavily non-representational, although she does incorporate biological designs, microscopic structures, floral patterns, and even cartography. Perhaps the reference is to a claim of a prevailing coldness embodied in algorithmic art, as the editors suggest here in a conversation with the artist:
At first sight, your artwork indeed brings fractal art to mind, but immediately one can feel that there is much more to it. It is extremely complex, yet living, organic.
Do you agree?
Northern Circle 12 (from Chaos and Structures) by Tatiana Plokhova
For images some find "organic" by arguing they were created by hand rather than mouse-clicked by math, I find Plokhova’s work filled (ironically) with absence. She might even agree:
I think that the way of making pictures with lines and dots somehow reflects philosophical ideas of emptiness.
Somehow, I think the "cold equations," in Tom Godwin’s phrase, are just as capable of revealing what is not there.
By the way, Plokhova has also compiled some striking videos of her work. Case in point:
~/~
Can spatters reveal the visible remains of chaotic systems? Claims have been made that Jackson Pollock’s action paintings reveal fractal structures. Perhaps blood spatters jog beyond ballistics and "run cold" into the neighborhood of recursion. Even the "ornithological dejecta" that occasionally splays on your windshield might congeal into shapes similar to strange attractors. If so, I submit this photograph by Kate Peters for your Phase Two consideration:
Fire by Kate Peters
Have we been barking up the wrong aesthetic? It appears there’s no longer any need to ask mathematicians or artists to explain the infinite intricacies of fractal art. Just put in a call in to your local CSI criminologists for a definitive take on the subject:
Dexter and his "fractal art" series entitled Dark Passengers. "My work always follows the code."
[Photograph seen on This and That and More of the Same.]
"Graphic" cable television suddenly makes perfect sense to me.
BMFAC: Sorry, you’re looking for something that isn’t here
Here’s a riddle: when is the host of an art exhibition not the host of an art exhibition?
Search results for "fractal art" from the official ICM website
Interesting search results for “fractal art”. Maybe they don’t call it “art?” Well, alright. Some people might not see fractals as real art but how about just “fractals”? That’s got to come up with something about the exhibit. As they say on Google, “I feel lucky!”
Search results for "fractal" from the ICM 2010 official website
No way! Stop me if I’m wrong, but isn’t fractal geometry something that even high school math students study? And yet there doesn’t even seem to be anything about fractal math at the ICM 2010. I thought at least some of these folks were fractal math gurus and something, somewhere fractal related would come up. But apparently this ICM has no connection with fractal math much less fractal art.
Search results from ICM 2010 site
Okay, maybe I’ve got to look at this ICM conference not from my own perspective but from the point of view of a ICM attendee, an esteemed mathematician, university scholar who’s traveled thousands of miles just to be part of the International Congress of Mathematicians:
Search results from ICM 2010 site
But seriously, I’m getting the idea that the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest exhibition was a one-time thing. The very first year, 2006, it was sponsored by the ICM because that year they were giving a special award to Benoit Mandelbrot, whom as we all know is considered the father of fractal geometry. They had a fractal art exhibition to complement the special award being given out at that time. The ICMs are held every four years and the next one wouldn’t have been until 2010. The 2007 BMFAC naturally was not associated with the ICM because there wasn’t one that year. It was sponsored by Vodafone but held in the same city, Madrid, Spain, as the first (ICM sponsored) exhibition.
There was no BMFAC in 2008 (no reason given) but they did hold a contest in 2009 which was intended to form the exhibition at the next ICM exhibition, that being 2010 in Hyderabad, India. The contest seemed to be held much farther in advance of the ICM than the contest for the last ICM in 2006 was; the contest judging was over and the results announced in late 2009, almost a year ahead of the ICM.
But then it was discovered (yes, no mention of this by the BMFAC organizers) that there were three “extra” public exhibitions held before the ICM exhibition in Aug. 2010, suggesting that the early contest date had been planned well in advance, that is, intentionally, to accommodate these three —unannounced– exhibitions.
All of these things characterized the organizers of the BMFACs as a very closed and secretive group:
- no mention of what was going on in 2008;
- 2009 held almost a year in advance of the exhibition;
- the Hyderabad exhibition starts appearing on the other side of the world in Argentina as well as in Spain without any explanation as to why or how;
- there is no mention of the Hyderabad exhibit on the hosts’ own official website before, during or after the (alleged) exhibit took place;
- also, there was another “phantom” exhibit in Spain back in 2007/08 also “discovered” not announced which puzzled even the winners at that time
The organizers know all these questions are out there, but they choose to say nothing about it. Why? Why all the silence among people who say they’re trying to publicize and promote fractal art? Is it just their little project and what happens is nobody else’s business?
My theory is that the organizers of the ICM 2010 in Hyderabad never wanted a fractal art exhibition and refused to include it with the other cultural events that they’d planned for the congress. That’s why you won’t find any mention of it on the official website: “Sorry, you’re looking for something –we don’t want here.”
Screenshot of the ICM 2010 home page, Jan 2011, still no fractal art exhibit...
I doubt we’re ever going to know what went wrong with the BMFAC 2010 exhibition because I know from past years that the organizers feel they’re above reproach and can do whatever they like. They’ve always been that way. From the very beginning this contest was all about the organizers and the judges and not about “presenting fractal art to a world that largely doesn’t know it”. That was a facade to hide the promotion of their own works and reputations. They needed the fractal art community’s participation to make it look like a legitimate art contest to the sponsors and anyone else with a critical eye. Then they stuck their own artwork into the exhibition, bypassing all of the selection committee and presented it alongside the contest winners as if it had the same juried and “chosen” status. They did it for the first two exhibitions. They didn’t do it for this one.
Is that why they weren’t so concerned about promoting “fractal art” this time?
The BMFAC 2010: An Audience of Winners!
A small revelation took place in the comments section of Terry’s recent posting, Diaries 2. Terry had suggested, reasonably enough I think, that since there appeared to be no information or reaction anywhere on the internet about the recent Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest’s exhibition in Hyderabad, India held this past August, 2010, that perhaps the exhibition didn’t actually take place at all. Previous exhibitions had been reported and commented on extensively. What happened to this one?
Two winners, whose artwork was in the BMFAC’s exhibition came forward and posted to the comment section that they were well aware that the exhibition had taken place and wondered why we didn’t contact the organizers if we wanted to find out for ourselves (i.e. if the rumors were true). The winners received a “catalog” of the exhibition and one even received some photos taken by an admiring conference attendee.
I think their idea was to once and for all clear up the mystery surrounding the exhibition which grew from the absence of any mention of it anywhere on the internet. Not even the official website of the International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 (ICM) who were hosting the event (allegedly) had any mention of it. The two winners who rapidly left comments (one of whom commented before I’d even read the blog posting) probably thought they were rescuing the BMFAC from Orbit Trap’s yellow journalistic clutches –once again.
Unfortunately for the BMFAC they merely showed how far this contest has fallen from being the biggest event in the fractal art world to becoming the biggest secret in the fractal art world.
A secret of course, but only on the internet. But if you can’t find out about something on the internet, then what does that say about it’s success in trying to be promotional? Ironically, the contest’s rules declare: “We are choosing art that represents our art form to a world that largely does not know it…”
That the world still doesn’t know it!
Except for the winners, of course. They know all about their own fractal art exhibition now. The BMFAC’s audience this time was it’s own winners.
Perhaps that’s been a good thing since a former BMFAC judge commented that some of the winning entries this time weren’t actual “fractal” art at all. Perhaps some of the winners needed to be exposed to fractal art? (Some of the judges too?)
But what about the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) that met in Hyderabad, India from August 19-27, 2010. Were they a winning audience too? Do you suppose any of them have no idea what fractals are? or have never seen fractal art? Do they form part of that “world that largely does not know it”?
The previous BMFAC exhibits were publicly accessible and not restricted events like this last one which was limited to just the ICM attendees –serious math folks. This I think makes the entire exhibition something of a waste of time as far as promoting awareness of fractal art goes. But I guess from the perspective of the winners it wasn’t. They got a chance to put their work in front of the world’s most elite mathematicians (the proverbial “big break”). Is there any group in this world more capable of recognizing artistic merit and spreading the word better than mathematicians? For sure, they’re the ones you want on board to spearhead a fractal art publicity campaign.
Not those ordinary members of the public (certainly not bloggers, either). They’re nowhere near as close to the center of the universe. Just to think that one of those great mathematicians has looked at your work and you have entered into the orbit of their life for just a little while is like having your whole being and very existence confirmed, exalted and glorified for ever and ever.
Seriously. Just read this:
The fact that my art was seen by some of the most prominent mathematicians in the world, seems to pale in comparison to a secondary link being posted on a web. You’d be the first person I have come across to feel that wasn’t enough for people.
[…]
I actually meant that given what I was, it would be rude to demand more. I am happy with what I have received. You wouldn’t be, and that is sad.
If you want to be privy to the events at the congress, earn it. Get a math degree and earn it. Don’t sit her whining because you aren’t privy to the information. Until then, you are, as you put it, one of the “common people”.
I don’t expect to be invited to these without earning it. You shouldn’t either. That’s life.
But that’s just Chris Oldfield, one of the winners speaking. Perhaps the rest weren’t so thrilled with being part of what might be seen as second-rate exposure for their work compared to the exhibitions of previous years.
If the central point of the initial post was that David Makin was wrong and that organizers aren’t doing a great job getting fractal art out to the public, I agree, he’s wrong, the works did not reach too wide an audience to merit such phrase, even though it did reach a wider audience than it would if it stayed on the web.
-from here
“…on the web.” Yes, the web is no place to publicize anything these days. On the other hand, if any of those fractal art works in the exhibition should pique the curiosity of one of those math monarchs, where are they going to go to see more? Maybe the internet? For some people, that’s the first place they go; conferences come after.
Esin Turkakin also includes the comment, “I’m merely voicing my opinion just like you are, and am in no way affiliated with whatever high court you’re imagining.” What I think she’s getting at is just because she was a winner in the contest that doesn’t mean she can’t comment objectively on the BMFAC’s exhibition. That’s true of course and Chris Oldfield as well makes a number of comments about the BMFAC that probably reflect the thoughts of fractal artists who weren’t part the contest.
It may not say much but I think it says something that the only comments made to the recent posting about the contest came from artists whose work was in the exhibit, i.e. “winners.” And why was that? Maybe it’s because the self-imposed radio silence by the contest organizers has reduced the audience of the Hyderabad exhibition to just the winners?
Is that the only “world” anyone would have thought the ICM exhibition was going to be presenting fractal art to?