I outlined the two mindsets I’ve used while making art. The first, monitor mode, involves working fairly small and focusing on how one’s work will appear in digital space. The second, wall mode, means working large from the start with the intention of eventually making a fine art print. Each mode has its own advantages and disadvantages. Wall mode slows everything down. Processing time is considerably lengthened. Increased computer firepower is a must. I now make probably one-fourth the amount of art I once did in the same time frame. True, I’m more discriminating about what I release than I once was, but, using wall mode, each image now takes four times longer to make. Computation time is not the only factor, though. I’m constantly scouring every nook and cranny of an image as I work on it. Because I’m thinking in wall mode, tiny details now matter greatly.

Wall mode, or prints anyway, has other disadvantages. Some digital coloring and lighting aspects can lose a little in translation. A knowledgeable printer can often work around these
deficiencies, but rich reds and deep blues occasionally wash out a bit, and certain backlit features radiant in digital art fade. But, surface texture is significantly enhanced when images move from the flat screen to a wall-mounted, top-grade Giclée. Those “artifacts,” as you call them, are just as real and foundational as anything else in the image, meaning that texture can be substantial in either monitor mode or wall mode. Take away Klee‘s brushstroking “by-products,” and, well, everything falls apart — whether viewing his paintings from near or far.

Of course, a close-up examination of the texture of paintings sometimes does look worse. Personally, I prefer to view art by the impressionists from way across the room. Standing nose-to-nose with an impressionistic painting ruins the magic trick. It’s like going to see your favorite band rehearse and watching the guitarist practice his leg splits and the singer rehearse his “spontaneous” yelps, struts, and hair flips. Once you see all the un-natural exuberance and practiced choreography, the thrill is somewhat gone.

But sometimes scrutinizing texture makes the viewing experience much more enriching, as I noted with Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. The intensity of his work seems incredibly vibrant to me when closely inspected. And I never appreciated Willem de Kooning much until I stood within a few inches of several canvases of some of his “women.” I remember being truly frightened.

My point, again, is that wall mode and monitor mode are just different ways of seeing — even if what you are looking at is the same thing. As you live for months with a now large Giclée print mounted on the wall of a room in your home, you come to see that particular image far differently than it appears on your monitor — not because the image itself has changed, but because the presentation of that image has undergone a dramatic, perceptual shift.

Obviously, my grounding aesthetics run to painting, as a few minutes poking around my web site will certainly demonstrate. But digital art (and, by association, fractal art) is probably more rooted in the aesthetics of photography where texture is less concerned with surface and more tied to patterns and lines — those “neat clean details unlike anything a human hand could make” (as you said so nicely in a recent comment). And that’s where I probably made my mistake.

Yes. I said it. I made a mistake.

My mistake was assuming that Parke and Monnier’s use of Zoomify was the first step to wall mode thinking. Since they both sell prints, I jumped to a presumption they were magnifying parts of larger images to give detailed views in order to provide a kind of print preview for potential buyers. If so, then I struggled to understand why more attention was not paid to revealing aspects of texture. But, then again, I was approaching this situation as a print promotion — and, yes, from my prevailing painting aesthetics.

But I could have been wrong. Their use of Zoomify may have had nothing to do with selling prints. Maybe it was a way of exploring “the bigger picture” from photographic aesthetics. If that is so, then they are taking steps to think outside the confines of a boxed-in screen. They are throwing a switch to light the viewing room very differently. They are tearing down the blinds and opening windows that reveal a detailed scenery in a way similar to exploring a parameter file — although I agree with you that it doesn’t go deep enough. Still, if this is the intent of Monnier and Parke, then they are to be commended for taking steps to help people see with new eyes, and I was wrong to chide them, and I apologize.

But, when I think about all this zooming around, deep parameter file exploration is probably not limited to software like Sterling-ware. I’d guess anyone using Ultra Fractal could pop in a parameter file and see what it produces at various magnifications. That would seem to be the main selling point of the UF List — to see and possibly tweak images as they can only be seen in UF. However, I’d argue I could also do something similar. I could take the master .psd file of a finished post-processed image of mine and make it public. Then, anyone possessing Photoshop could take a somewhat similar “parameter file” tour of that image.

I said somewhat similar. You and I both know it wouldn’t be quite the same.

You know what I wish? I wish our community would stop falling back so often on the this or that fallacy. Fractal art has to be made this way!! It should be displayed that way!! This is the best software!! No, that is better!! This has no post-processing — so there!! This is mostly post-processed — take that!! And on and on and on. Is this a dead end — or just the birth pangs of bringing forth the next evolutionary step?

Monnier says in his comment that

If one is looking for such a painted look, then the best thing to do is
use paint and not a computer. Using filters on a fractal image to
deliberately lose resolution doesn’t make any sense imho.

Sounds good, but it’s too restrictive. Not everyone can manipulate tools like brushes and paints properly — or deal with being exposed to the chemicals involved. Paint programs are just another kind of tool — like masking. Losing resolution is only a problem if you place the “fractal” completely over the “art” component in fractal art. Conversely, in some cases, I’d argue maybe it’s precisely the loss of resolution that makes a particular image successful.

Monnier says in another comment that

The ease with which it is possible to implement ideas into algorithms
and then works (especially with the new object oriented programming)
makes it [Ultra Fractal] for me without any doubt the best tool available for
algorithmic art.

Well, maybe. But doesn’t he really mean for processed algorithmic art. The layers and masking tools found in UF are really the same processing functions done in graphics programs. And, as Tim and I have argued previously, once you import that photo into UF5, you’ve moved out of the realm of algorithmic art and into the area of mixed media. Moreover, those resolution-killing filters Monnier dislikes are also run by using algorithms.

But I’m no better and can be just as dogmatic. Remember this from last time?

Maybe it’s time to take the first baby-steps toward that equally important big big art thing.

Whoa, Terry. That’s really unfair. Stop looking at everything through your own bias to the aesthetics of painting. Go back above and read what you just wrote here in paragraphs 12 and 13. Now, stop being so judgmental and stay in that time out corner until you can finally behave yourself.

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

Terry

P.S. I really appreciate your willingness to have a these conversations. It’s this kind of creative give-and-take that allows complex issues to get fleshed out and discussed in depth. There’s no reason to assume that you and I (or any two people) would see eye to eye on everything. Nor should anyone assume that either of us are strict absolutists who see no exceptions to our own ideas and cannot understand well-articulated positions made from different perspectives. Debates are a way of understanding the dimensions of a concept (like fractal art) — not an inevitable slide into prickly antagonism between warring camps. In our community, everyone is much too quick to put up their force fields at the first sign of disagreement. I understand why, I guess, but only to an extent. Most people are content to build bridges and share common interests but show claws at the first sign of a critique. So, when we are critical on OT, many people immediately conclude we are being much too harsh. But I’d argue it is this very lack of honest discussion that has led to an impasse in our community’s ability to develop comprehensive, coherent fractal art theory and criticism. So, again, thanks for being willing to go out on a limb with me.

And, if you are upset about this post, well, I suppose you can always call me irrational, claim I’m a threat to this blog, and toss me off your server.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractal theory, digital art, monitor mode, wall mode, giclee prints, this or that, my what a big fractal you have, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Tim,

I really enjoyed your last post. I, too, have been thinking about the desire some fractal artists have to reveal more of their images in ever expansive detail. The methods fractal artists use for doing so seem to vary. Some prefer to draw the viewer into the act of making the image and employing interactivity by including parameter files (as you discuss). Others prefer a more static, sensory bombardment for viewers by allowing ever larger and more high rez versions of individual works to be studied in detail. My question is: What’s behind this impulse to go big?

What brings this whole matter to the forefront is that two well-known Ultra Fractal artists, Samuel Monnier and Janet Parke, have used a new tool called Zoomify to display zoom-and-pan windows that allow considerable detail to be seen in large images. Two by Monnier can be found here, and Parke’s can be found here and here. Why, exactly, are they doing this?

Is it because we know deep zooming is cool? We like checking out those YouTube vids of endlessly Zen lower depth dives into fractals exhibiting rivering recursion and self-similarity that stream out of the frame and immediately reappear. So, is Zoomify a deep zoom mechanism for still 2D images? Or is it just a digital magnifying glass?

Or are these two UF artists starting to look at their own works from the viewpoint of a big canvas? After all, both announce on their web sites that prints of their work are available for purchase. Could they be moving through the paradigm shift I call passing from monitor mode to wall mode? These are radically different mindsets. Once you begin to “see” all of your work as a poster-sized print on a wall rather than something the size of a sheet of typing paper on your monitor, everything — from perspective to aesthetics — changes.

Which brings me back to Jim Muth’s musing from my last post: Are there really some fundamental differences in the fractal community between people focused on math and people focused on art? And isn’t a fusion of both the final goal: fractal art?

Here’s my concern. When I peer through the Zoomified looking glass at these images, you know what I see? Bigger fractals. What I don’t see is more detailed art.

If you’re going to start acting like your fractal images are indeed similar to a large canvas, shouldn’t you start paying much more attention to the concept of texture? Even just a little bit? Isn’t texture a long established critical component for art?

And how much texture do these ultra-magnified Ultra Fractal images have? I’d argue absolutely none. Not a single, tactile peak or valley can be seen.

And isn’t that odd? Many UF images certainly look highly textured. Does Zoomify demonstrate that seeing is not believing? For all those piles and piles of layers and masks, are UF images really flat as a pancake?

Or, do I mean flat as an unprocessed photograph?

And am I looking at the details of fractal art — or merely the details of a picture of a fractal? It really does matter. It matters as much as what you see looking at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in a museum and what you see looking at a picture of Sunflowers in a book.

And that brings me back to prints. If you’ve blown off all concerns about texture to the point of having none at all, then why bother making anyone a Giclée fine art print to museum specifications using archival inks and papers? After all, there’s no surface grain to showcase or enhanced tactility to “bring out.” Save your money, collectors. Opt for that cheaper, flatter photographic print instead.

I think one’s fractal art should have as much art as it does fractal. Otherwise, I question whether one is truly a fractal artist. Perhaps, instead, one is a fractal maker.

And I have my doubts that these two designations are the same thing.

I’ve been working in wall mode since 2003, as the Binoculars Room on my web site should demonstrate, and texture has become an essential part of my self-expression. But, of course, I admit to heavy and deliberate post-processing to the point where I am satisfied that my (sometimes atom smashed) fractals have also turned the corner to become art. That’s the point of wall mode. To help viewers see the big big picture as you see it. Not in a book to wonder how you made the piece. But on the wall to more clearly see how you made it.

It seems these two UF artists have that big big fractal thing down cold. Now, maybe it’s time to fully embrace wall mode and not just flirt with putting a magnifying glass to a flat, canvas-sized picture. Maybe it’s time to take the first baby-steps toward that equally important big big art thing.

I am troubled by these thoughts and their ramifications. I hope we can have a conversation about some of these reflections. I look forward to hearing what you think.

Terry

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractal artist, fractal maker, samuel monnier, janet parke, monitor mode, wall mode, my what a big fractal you have, zoomify, ultra fractal, the world is flat, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Snake Tree by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 4-12-97

I’ll try to post a different image every day, until I make my point that complicated formulas are not necessary for new and unusual fractals.

It appears that Jim Muth has yet to make his point, although, come April, he will have been posting his fractals and writing about them for twelve years. His encyclopedic Fractal of the Day (FOTD) site, graciously hosted by Paul N. Lee, is a treasure trove of not only fractal art, but also Muth’s thoughts on the passing parade of the fractal art scene since 1997.

In a way, Muth’s FOTD dispatches remind me a bit of Garrison Keillor‘s news from Lake Wobegon, but FOTD is spiced with more serious philosophy and contains much less Midwestern folksiness. The feels-like-home trappings are not unlike the world found at A Prairie Home Companion, for Muth updates regular readers with daily fractal weather reports and tales on how the fractal cats passed each day. But it’s the images, their parameter files, and Muth’s wide-ranging musings on art, philosophy, mathematics, politics, and fractal fads and fashion that endure and continue to reward with repeated readings.

If you’ve never tried blogging, you might easily underestimate Muth’s ongoing, monumental achievement. I feel fortunate if I can come up with something to say every week or two. But Muth’s been plugging away providing daily communiqués from Fractal Central since 1997 (over 4000 posts to date). Muth is unquestionably the original fractal blogger — blogging long before the term blog had even been coined. He is fractal art’s Boswell, our Scheherazade whose stories keep himself — and, by extension, us and our art form — alive. Truly, Muth’s accomplishment is nothing less than a continuing diorama that captures the zeitgeist of fractal art.

Let’s drop in here and there and see what’s up…

Pollock by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 9-28-97

Fractal visionaries:

Today’s prize-winner fractal is named in honor of that not quite so famous American abstract artist, J. Pollock. The resemblance to the paint drippings which made him famous is quite apparent.

I achieved such an effect by taking a nondescript Rectangular plane fractal and redoing it with the inside fill set to epsilon cross. I’m not sure how this option achieves its effects. I think it colors the image according to whether the points’ orbits come closest to the real or imag axis.

Until recently I had never used this option, considering such a fancy fill method artificial, but I have now had second thoughts about fractals. There is no such thing as a “natural” or “pure” fractal other than the bare formula. And since a natural fractal doesn’t exist, it makes no sense to try to maintain fractal purity. And since I no longer must try to keep my fractals pure, I will be able to use the entire range of Fractint‘s coloring options without compunction.

Muth is ahead of the curve on several fronts here. First, he recognized the connection between Pollock’s action paintings and fractal geometry before doing so was fashionable. Second, he put the old post-processing fracas to rest almost before it even started. Once any action is taken beyond the formula, including simple image generation, every fractal is already tainted. So color away and break out the filters. Photoshop, here we come. And, for UFers, feel free to pancake layers with wild abandon. Just be sure to leave off any self-congratulatory and hypocritical notations like 100 layers — No post-processing. Muth grasped early on that UF masking and layering were unnatural before UF users even started tweaking.

Diabolically Clever by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 5-18-99

Fractal enthusiasts:

I received an e-mail today from one of my readers, commenting that the FOTD is taking on a dark aspect. Well, I guess it is. But I rather enjoy darkness and daring to think the deep, dark thoughts that others try to keep submerged. And current events are doing nothing to push my darker thoughts aside, as today’s FOTD shows.

Today’s fractal plumbs the deepest depths of darkness — right down to the underworld itself. The picture exemplifies the darkness. I have named it “Diabolically Clever” for no reason other than its resemblance to the fiery pit. It was created with my MandNewt05 formula, using the <atanh> function to initialize Z and the bof60 inside fill to supply the colors, which were juiced up just a tiny bit in Photoshop 5.0.

The scene is one of utter chaos — one of the most disorganized fractals I have ever found. No two areas show the same character. The lower half, with its blacks and reds, seems to be reflecting the smoke and fires of the great pit below, while the greenish upper half gives only a hint of the celestial blue glories that lie in that direction. I suspect that if the picture extended a few inches lower, the very demons of Hades would be seen screaming and shrieking as they hot-footed over the coals.

Most of the left part is occupied by a strange, ghostly, almost-circular skeleton arc, with Mandel bud-like indentations. The two sides of this arc are of totally different character. A geometric spot of brighter color toward the upper right of the picture does little to relieve the gloominess of the rest of the scene. Actually, this spot of brightness and color hints at some vague familiar memory from long ago that I cannot quite recall.

[…]

The weather here today at Fractal Central was far more heavenly than the fractal. The sapphire blue sky, cottony clouds, and temperature of 72F 22C made it a perfect day to do anything under the sun. I chose fractaling, which I was not quite under the sun when I did it, but within sight of the sun.

Now the time to close down the fractal machine has come. But I’ll be here again tomorrow with another diabolically clever fractal and if I get myself out of the doldrums, a bit of philosophy. Until then, take care, and only my humility prevents me from admitting how great a fractal artist I am. That is if fractals are art.

This post really shows the dimensions of Muth’s talents. For one, it reveals how adept he is at understanding and breaking down his own work. This is seen both in his explanation on the fractal’s disorganization, and in his observations as to how the color gradations correspond to moods. For another, Muth’s courage to buck the prevailing fractals-as-eyecandy aesthetic is clearly stated and clarified. If fractals are indeed art, a notion that he jabs with mock humility at the post’s end, then they are capable of considerably more than just being pretty wallpapers. Art embodies all of our experiences and moods; it is not necessarily limited to “the better angels of our nature.” Muth is clearly jabbing us in the ribs as he concludes. His willingness to dare “to think the deep, dark thoughts” proves he believes that fractals are art.

Rising Discord by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 10-19-99

Fractal enthusiasts and visionaries:

Green and magenta just don’t blend harmoniously. They create a chromatic discord. But sometimes discords can add to the artistic value of a work of art, so I let today’s color palette stand in its discord. Combined with the writhing, twisting elements that surround the central midget, the picture fully deserves the name “Writhing Discord”.

The picture (as indeed are all my pictures) is in the spirit of a fractal of 10 years ago — a single-layer image that would have been awesome in the days when people were just discovering fractals. Sometimes when I sample the images posted to ABPF, I wonder why I bother calling myself a fractal artist at all. It’s clear to me that those creating the images I see there are doing something far more artistic than my humble and not very serious efforts.

Actually, I have never outgrown the awe I felt when I read that first article about the Mandelbrot set over 15 years ago. I am an explorer, a fractal photographer who tries to faithfully record the things he finds in the abstract world of fractals. If the things I find do occasionally make art, so much the better.

Unlike some fractal artists I’ve known, Muth is comfortable in his own skin. He neither tries to defend his approach, nor does he go out of his way to attack the artistic means and preferences of others. Muth was prescient to comprehend that our art form might split between those who lean to math and those who lean to art. These two camps have fundamentally different aims, contrasting mindsets, and dissimilar aesthetics. But Muth knows what he wants. The looming schism he sees on the fractal newsgroup does not threaten him but is merely a new way of using fractals for self-expression. Maybe he feels settled because he’s never lost the awe (have you?), and he’s still busy recording, still trying to get each fresh discovery right. I suspect that’s why he continues to blog, too. Each successive FOTD is another chance for novel discoveries. And, since he often does make art, “so much the better” — for us, his gentle readers and viewers.

And, by the way, you owe it to yourself to read the rest of this entry for Muth’s sublime philosophical discussion of life before birth and life after death.

Fractal of the Day for March 15th by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 3-15-00

Fractal enthusiasts and visionaries:

I see that the FracTint vs UltraFractal debate has heated up again. Of course, it’s no secret that I’m a Fractint user, and have been since version 2.1. I still have that early version stashed away in a remote directory of my old 8mhz 80286 machine. The executable file of that ancient version is named fract386.exe. The file size is a whopping 32,541 bytes, and the date is 10-23-88 — 9:06p. Things have come a long way since then.

Actually, I feel that the big debate is a bit overwrought. I see Fractint and UF as complementing each other rather than competing, with Fractint emphasizing the mathematical aspect of fractals, and UF with its multiple layers emphasizing the artistic aspect. My view is pretty near the middle in this debate, but if asked to choose a side, I would side with the Stone-Soupers, since I am more interested in the math than the art.

Today’s fractal comes from the formula 4Z^(-2)-5Z^(-1)+C. The area in which the scene lies consists of features that resemble elephants with heads on both ends. The parent fractal is rather interesting, with a train of Mandeloid fragments shrinking to infinity. This fractal definitely deserves the further investigation that I will give it tomorrow.

I was unable to think of a name for today’s picture, and finally settled on the technical description “FOTD for March 15” as the name. The image, which originally was a bit drab, was given post-processing in a graphics program to liven it.

Ah, yes. The never-ending generator wars. Mine’s bigger and brighter and faster than yours. The Fractint old schoolers vs.The Ultra Fractal cult vs. The XenoDream clan vs.The Apophysis conclave vs. The Chaos Pro and Fractal Explorer tribes vs. The Houses of Ferguson and Gintz vs.The lone wolf self-made programmers. Again, Muth is magnanimous and relatively non-judgmental here. He can see both sides but admits he falls more into the math camp. How ironic, though. I’d now consider UF to be more about the math (or, as Tim once noted, about the engineers) and a decision to export fractals to graphics programs to be a route that’s more about the art. And, here, in a moment of historical recursion, Muth admits livening up his image in Photoshop. What goes round…

A Midget by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 5-31-00

Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

The final FOTD for the month of May should feature a fractal worthy of the occasion. And indeed it does. Today’s midget, to which I have given the simple, non-assuming name “A Midget”, rates (IMO) a much-above-average 8 on my 1-to-10 scale of fractal worth.

Surprisingly enough, the image is another accident. When I entered the parameters, I had intended on combining Z^(-2) and Z^(-20), but for some reason I forgot the minus signs and inadvertently calculated -2(Z^2+Z^20)+(1/C). And this time I can’t blame the cats.

But, as today’s picture shows, the result was not bad. The formula draws a crooked fractal with a shrunken, crooked Mandelbrot set lurking near the upper left corner of the frame. The little M-set is fairly conventional, but it is surrounded by the fractal debris that breeds interesting midgets. When I saw this, I got out my mathematical microscope and went in search of these midgets.

[…]

The mathematical aspect of the midget is not exceptional; the coloring is what makes the scene. In fact I put so much effort into coloring this image that I actually feel I’m in danger of becoming a fractal artist. At this rate, you’ll soon be seeing me creating fractals with something like multiple layers.

Of course, I’m jesting. I would never desecrate a fractal by dropping it on top of another image. As for transforms — who knows. When I calculate 1/C instead of C, I’m already doing a transform. Maybe sometime in the future I will use more complex transforms, but for the foreseeable future it’s fractal purity.

(In the sixth grade, Sister Theresa caught me staring at one of the girls, and told me to keep my thoughts pure. And now at this late date I’m finally starting to do it.)

Butthead: I’d like to desecrate something.
Beavis: Huh. Uhh. Snort. You said…desecrate.

Joseph Trotsky once called my work fractal vandalism. And, here, Muth takes a less-than-subtle potshot at the UF pancake patrol for desecration. Oh, well. No one’s perfect. Because, after all, only one of them is wrong.

And I hate to say this, Jim, but Sister Theresa has already got the goods on you. You’ll soon have stinging hands and be shuffling off to the confessional. Remember, Catholic sins can be committed in thought, word, and deed. Those cunning nuns had all the angles covered. If you think it, it’s the same as doing it. Your thoughts while girl gawking were instantaneously impure — and now your thoughts, still not kept in check, have turned to…layering. That word does have a kind of smutty, lusty connotation, doesn’t it? Mask me, then layer me, baby. Ick. That sounds like something adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms. Bless me, father, for I have layered. If you know what I mean…

Pinkness by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 8-12-00

Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

For today’s average-quality fractal it’s back to the formula -1Z^(-11)-11Z^(-1.1)+(1/C), with a bailout radius of 200. As I stated in yesterday’s FOTD, this formula draws a most unusual fractal, which is too large to fit on the default screen, but is worth closer examination from one end to the other.

A prominent feature of this parent fractal is a large fan-shaped object. Today’s scene with its unusual midget lies buried deep at the edge of this fractal fan, where chaos begins.

[…]

The fractal weather today was rather pleasant, with mostly sunny skies and a temperature of 86F (30C). The fractal cats approved of the conditions, and showed their approval by spending most of the afternoon in the yard. In the evening, when the mosquitoes got too thick, they came indoors.

I did a bit of philosophical pondering this afternoon on the question of whether fractals are art, a topic that has been keeping the UltraFractal list so busy these past few days. Of course it’s a futile topic, since no definite answer is possible, but it never fails to bring a flood of comments.

Why, I wondered, does this one topic bring such activity every time it arises? Sometimes I feel that the UF list exists only as a forum for fractal artists to re-assure each other that they are indeed creating real art. I had assumed that fractals are art if that’s what the creator intends, and that they are mathematical curiosities if this aspect is emphasized. In my case, I consider my FOTD’s to lie in a grey area somewhere between art and math.

IMO, It is the attitude of the creator at the time of creation that determines whether an image is simply an illustration of a pre-existing object or a newly-created work of art. If we want our fractal images to be art, then they are art. We don’t need the rest of the world reassuring us that we have indeed created a work of art. If we want our fractals to be illustrations of the amazing things numbers can do, then they are such illustrations. If we want our pictures to be a bit of both, as I do, then they are a blend of art and mathematics.

On the other hand, I can understand why traditional artists denigrate fractals as art. By profession I am a graphic artist. At one time, the tools I worked with were things such as a light-table, rubber cement, x-acto knife, straight edge, t-square, ruling pen, air-brush, zip-a-tone, and so on. I spent years becoming skilled in the use of these things. Then computers came. Of course, a computer now does all this tedious work far better than I ever could by hand. I don’t resent computers, for they make my work far easier, but I miss the old days of 25 years ago, when it was not so easy to produce a clean and accurate camera-ready mechanical.

Having spoken my bit, I find it’s time to shut down the Fractal Central and call it a night. Until tomorrow, take care, believe that fractals are art, and they’ll be art.

If you believe this to be profound, it is profound.

I believe it is profound.

And this

Sometimes I feel that the UF list exists only as a forum for fractal artists to re-assure each other that they are indeed creating real art.

is a prophesy of the phenomenon that today OT calls Fractalbook.

With one adaptation: The re-assurance Muth mentions has now mutated into mutually assured, virally contagious back-slapping and ego-stroking. So, this prophetic FOTD gets my smells-like-a-masterpiece ***V***!!!

Challenging Midget by Jim Muth
Fractal of the Day: 1-13-01

Fractal visionaries and enthusiasts:

A few days ago I received an e-mail from a fractal fan, asking me to tell more about fractals. Since I had no idea of where ‘more’ started, I didn’t know quite what to tell. But once I sat at my keyboard this morning to reply to the e-mail, the philosophical muses came to life, and the words flowed almost of their own accord. The following four paragraphs are a slight revision of the letter I sent earlier today. Perhaps the philosophy is once again ready to arise.

My interest in fractals is mathematical, artistic, and philosophical. Mathematically, fractals are simply graphs of iterated mathematical functions. Artistically, fractals offer a means of expressing one’s artistic aspirations, though I consider the importance of this aspect to be somewhat exaggerated. My main interest lies in the philosophical aspect of fractals.

Perhaps the question most often asked about fractals is, “what are they?” In addition, I often wonder, “are fractals real?” The answer can only be, “fractals are the things numbers do, and numbers are pure abstractions”. The Mandelbrot set does not exist in the sense that a tree does. No one will ever find a ‘real’ Mandelbrot set; they will find only pictures of it. The M-set exists only because human beings evolved with the sense of vision, and to better understand the workings of math functions, find it helpful to turn the functions into pictures. In essence, the Mandelbrot set exists only because we created it with our minds and sustain it with our computers.

Much is also made of the fractal nature of the real world. We hear about the fractal nature of trees, ferns, clouds, coastlines, etc. These things do indeed have a fractal surface appearance, but they are not true fractals in the mathematical sense. A true mathematical fractal continues unchanged to infinity regardless of how much it is magnified. The ‘real world’ fractal objects such as trees and clouds ultimately break down into individual cells and water droplets, and finally into atoms, which no one shall ever observe directly.

But according to quantum theory, atoms also are nothing more than convenient pictures, models created in human minds from mathematical functions. And I have heard it said that numbers themselves are creations of the human mind. So is the ‘real world’ the world’s greatest fractal? The answer to this challenging question is what I am currently seeking.

[…]

The fractal weather today here at Fractal Central was once again comfortable, though not nearly as mild as yesterday. The partly sunny skies and temperature of 42F (5.5C) lured the fractal cats onto the porch and into the yard, but once in the yard they quickly decided it was a bit too chilly, and soon returned to their radiators.

And this leaves me with nothing to do but shut down the fractal shoppe and call it a night. I’ll watch a junky old movie if I can stay awake. Until tomorrow, take care, and beware of the fractal witch.

Is the real world the world’s greatest fractal? I don’t know, Jim. It’s certainly filled with chaos, isn’t it? And we, as a species, seem to keep making the same self-similar mistakes over and over again. And the fractal (art?) images I create seem to come from something I’ve seen in my head — and these images seem to say something about the world as I see it. They do seem to be models of mental pictures that started with mathematics. And what is art if not the world according to its creator?

Goodnight, Jim. I’ll take first watch tonight to keep an eye out for that fractal witch. I hope the fractal weather stays nice and the fractal cats stay warm. And you take care, too, okay? Watch that bad movie, if you can ward off the Sandman, and sleep well. And, soon, I, and all of us, will see you again tomorrow…

Hat tip for this post to PNL.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractal cats, fractal of the day, jim muth, fotd, original fractal blogger, art vs math, desecration for art and profit, paul n lee, cruelanimal, orbit trap

And he’s not even joking.

i can’t believe this is still an issue.
–Michael Faber, comment on wedreamincolor

If if [sic] means anything to anybody, the contract between the Publisher and Editor will not be changed.
–Panny Brawley, FUC Editor, comment on Ken Childress’ blog, 3-16-08

I feel your pain, Michael. I, too, would enjoy writing on more exciting and expansive subjects than…calendars. But, come the New Year, as anyone can see, the Fractal Universe Calendar (FUC) will be engaging in business as usual. As long as this enterprise continues to hold its annual contest in the manner it currently does, then Orbit Trap will just have to continue pointing out FUC’s lack of professionalism and apparent preferential treatment.

And, really, am I the one talking about it? The one paragraph mention of FUC I made in my last post resulted in:
1) a short story length defense from 2009 FUC editor Keith Mackay.
2) a novel length repetitive screed from anti-OT blogger and Avalanche Publishing apparent spokesperson Ken Childress.
3) multiple comments from the individuals above and other FUC-loving parties.

There’s really no point in re-addressing recycled objections in detail. The fact that these folks have an agenda and a stake in preserving the status quo should be obvious to any reasonable person. Besides, a review of OT’s archive will illustrate that Tim and I have already returned every volley. No need to beat a dead (sea)horse.

Instead, here’s a nutshell capsule of how to redo the FUC and run it professionally. Try these iterations, and we’ll be happy to move on to other issues.

Stop All the Secrecy

Any contest worth its salt will be completely transparent in its operation. The FUC is shut tight. The editor (Brawley) and the publisher (Avalanche Publishing) have yet to answer a single question to any of the multiple inquiries Orbit Trap has made. Why should any of the following information remain under wraps? Who are the final judges? Don’t the contestants even have a right to know who is passing judgment on them? How many additional images can editors submit to the final cut? What are the names of all past editors? What percentage of works selected for all past calendars was art by either a current or past editor? How many selections from past calendars were directly solicited by Avalanche Publishing and were not chosen from the competition — and what are the names of those solicited? What safeguards are in place to prevent conflicts of interests — like editors screening in their friends, or current/former students, or even themselves? Why are signatures allowed on submitted images rather than using blind judging protocols? And why are you hiding from such questions?

Pay Your Editors Properly

You know. With money. Not by including their own work. This is bad form from the start. No one is arguing the editors don’t work hard or shouldn’t be paid. So fork over the cash, Avalanche Publishing — but keep your initial round judges out of the competition they are screening. Such a process raises inherent risks of conflict of interest. No one should have a free pass if you are running a legitimate contest — least of all someone doing the judging. The Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest also needs to learn this same lesson.

Pick a Format and Stick to It

Are you running a contest or not? You seem to be. You ask for open submissions, screen out applicants, create a pool of finalists, and pick the winning selections from among the finalists using a panel. That sounds like a contest. Oh. But wait. You also reserve the right to ask for submissions directly from artists. That sounds more like an invitational process of direct solicitation. If I was a contestant, I’d be annoyed that all artists are not created equal here. Apparently, there’s an elite, royal class than can bypass the competition by being given a key to the back door. Why are you doing this? Is it to make the FUC contest/invitational appear to be completely juried (and thus more prestigious) when it actually isn’t? This is a trick the BMFAC picked up and led to its exhibition becoming half comprised of its own judges. Knock it off. Please. Pick one or the other. Either run a professional contest using standard protocols. Or solicit all submissions directly from fractal artists.

The Numbers Add Up to Preferential Treatment

Stop insulting our intelligence. By OT’s calculations, just over 40% of the images appearing in the Fractal Universe Calendar from 2004-2008 were the work of just four people — all former or current editors. That’s quite a coincidence for an unbiased selection process. Something’s wrong. Fix it. Stop letting the editors in. Or stop soliciting from the same people (like Linda Allison) year after year. Or, preferably, both.

And that’s it. No more having your cake and eating it, too. Do these simple, conventional things, and I will stop worrying and gladly move on to other kinder, gentler topics. And, most importantly, Michael’s belief system will be fully restored.

~/~

Hey, kids. Did you know that Orbit Trap posts are now available in high-definition on Blu-Ray? Order* yours today and see what you’ve been missing. Deleted scenes. Making of Orbit Trap documentaries. Fuzzy webcam bootlegs of Tim and me planning a fractal apocalypse while laughing maniacally. Blooper reel (gems like “Welcome back to Obituary Trip and — oh shi — can we take that again?). All this and so much more with OT HD. In fact, here’s an exclusive sneak peek at the deleted scenes from today’s post that had to be cut due to time constraints. Roll it:

The Crush That Crushes

Wedreamincolor contributor and phone book image advocate, Dzeni, made the following remarks on both Childress’ and Mackay’s blog:

As for OT, they are like a bad train smash. Can’t look at it, can’t look away either. They have flamed me often enough that I suspect Terry has a crush on me and has not yet worked through it. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it :)

Happily married. Sorry. Not that my first requirement for a soul mate wouldn’t be obsessive-compulsive vote-spamming.

Break Out the OT Black Ops

Somebody finally makes some cogent comments over at Childress’ blog like

Maybe it is your obvious hatred for that blog [Orbit Trap] that causes you to argue more emotionally than logically.

and former heckler WelshWench immediately senses a rat and says in her best Secret Agent voice:

I smell a sock puppet.

Yes, of course. It couldn’t possibly be that a person would thoughtfully disagree with someone of Childress’ rhetorical skills. It has to be a conspiracy theory. For the sake of deflating the espionage, I suggest Childress simply check his stats. I’m sure he knows when either of us at OT drop in. And, besides, why would I bother to bury a comment there when I can put it in a post here (like I’m doing now) and reach twenty times the audience?

I Smell a Guest Post in Our Future

Here’s Childress warming up to my style found in a passage I penned last post:

I guess it must take a professional writer to come up with such a nauseating sentence of the magnitude of that last one. My young daughters can write better than that.

I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing I, too, would prefer their writing to his.

Remedial Math for Idiots

Here’s Mackay schooling me:

Speaking of idiots, the equation 400+200=600 is too complicated for Terry Wright.

[…]

I have two images in the 2009 calendar. One is on the cover. The publisher pays an extra $200 for cover images, so that is $200 for one image plus $200 for the other one plus $200 for one of those images to be on the cover. That’s 200+200+200=600, or (200+200)+200=600, or 400+200=600. I’m not sure that Wright has the brain power to comprehend this complex math so if he has access to a first grader he might ask him for help.

Maybe Childress’ daughters could tutor me? And, actually, the equation I’d like you, as the 2009 editor, to solve and then explain is why 40% of the FUC images from 2004-2008 were culled from just four past or present editors. Get back to me when you’ve worked out a satisfactory answer to that particular problem.

Speaking of the Either/Or Fallacy

Hi. Keith Mackay’s phone here. Keith can’t answer because he has zero bars on this blog. That means he never got the call to think twice about making this statement:

The publisher always has the final say. A conflict of interest cannot and does not happen. By agreement between the editor and publisher, the publisher is required to include one image from the editor in the final cut. That’s how the editor is paid. The editors do not decide which of their own images are to be included in the final cut. Terry Wright is full of crap on this one and anyone who buys into his conflict of interest/self jury theory is an idiot.

Being an idiot, let me spell it out slowly for Keith. Paying. An. Editor. In. This. Manner. Creates. A. Conflict. Of. Interest. Screeners or editors here are indeed judges. They are judging the first round and determining what the final judges (whoever they are) will see and choose. A judge’s work should not be mixed with contestants’ entries that he or she has judged. And, in the case of FUC, judges have a state of affairs where multiple images of theirs (like Mackay in 2009) can somehow be included. The judges are obviously still in the pool even after their compensation has been factored. How does such a double bonus occur unless additional, uncompensated work by the judges is included among the finalists?

Want to avoid such conflicts of interest? Pay your judges but keep them out of the winner’s circle.

Run That Sucker Like a Business

Childress, again, apparently acting, again, as spokesperson for Avalanche Publishing:

But, if you are striving to make a living, then you have to appeal to your market. That may be altering what you really want to do. But, that is what any business that wants to succeed must do.

The context here is considering one’s audience, but the subtext cuts both ways. Childress has argued before that Avalanche Publishing (or any business) has the right to do whatever they want to succeed. And if what they do looks and smells wrong, then we’ve argued OT and others have every right to ask questions and expect answers. Childress forgets OT has an audience, too. And it’s more interested in fair fractal contests than numbers of calendars shipped.

It seems the publishers have also not considered OT’s audience. Here’s a little run-it-like-a-business brainstorming for Avalanche Publishing. Google yourself. Go ahead. Try it. We did. Here’s what we saw. Let’s make a list and check it twice (as of this post):
1. Avalanche Publishing home page.
2. Amazon site featuring Avalanche Publishing products.
3. MSN Shopping site for Avalanche Publishing.
4. Orbit Trap.

Your heuristic results may vary. Or maybe OT will jump up a slot or two once Christmas passes. Here’s the point, Avalanche Publishing. Orbit Trap gets multiple hits daily from Google searches of your company. And what’s one of the first things those potential artists and customers read as they formulate opinions about your company and all of your products? The answer is: Orbit Trap’s accounts of your ongoing handling of the Fractal Universe Calendar. And it looks like OT’s writers will have to compose more blog posts and letters and forum comments and the like again in 2009. I don’t need an MBA to see how this situation looks on a balance sheet when you run the potential consequences through your bottom line.

*OT in HD not currently available to our Earth-dwelling readers. To extra-terrestrial subscribers: Write us for details using the envelope icon to your right.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractal contest, fractal calendar, digital art, fractal universe calendar, avalanche publishing, panny brawley, keith mackay, ken childress, welshwench, benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, love among the *V*s, you’re crazy and you write bad too, cruelanimal, orbit trap

How much further or at least self-similar?

[Image seen on a-line skirt.]

Hi kids. Time to pile into the OT station wagon and take that holiday trip out on the fractal art information highway. Let’s see who’s in mood for giving or receiving this year.

Forget that blurred Autobahn scenery. We taking our time lounging on the sleepy two-lanes and checking out Fractalbooker small towns.

wedreamincolor:

Just two contributors on the face page. Dzeni is definitely in the mood to receive — especially eager for your votes to push her up the snowy slopes. Your call-to-action clicking will place her higher in phone book cover contests. And, in return, presumably, she re-gifts you with her vote the next time you enter a contest sponsored by a utility company.

Keith, though, has been having a blue Christmas for going on a month. A fractal apocalypse is upon us, and there’s no rapture bail-out forthcoming. He says his interest in fractal art “is all but gone” and observes that most web haunts are “quiet,” “falling apart,” and “it seems like everyone has stopped talking about fractal art.” He then says:

I wonder if we are in a fractal art recession — that maybe the fractal bubble has burst. Maybe fractal art is fading out. Or maybe it’s just me.

I know. You want snark. You expect me to say something like: Right. Don’t delete your Fractal 401K galleries from Fractalbooking sites just yet. Sorry, Keith, it’s just you. But…

…but, well, maybe it isn’t. I admit feeling glum sometimes when driving through most Fractalbook truck stops. There’s a certain sameness of expression and artistic interior design. It’s pervasive — like a chain restaurant. Is it because the most popular programs produce stepped-on variations of a set number of programmed patterns? Has the old superstition of clinging to fractal program containment for tool-testing purity ended up in a cul-de-sac? How much fractal art is produced with the wall in mind rather than the monitor (or, worse, for a “friend’s” compliment hug)?

Like Keith, I sometimes wonder whether we are now living in an empire in decline. The excitement that once seemed electric, and that (illusion of?) joy of sharing new discoveries with others — no, with artists who could peel back and understand our steps of individual craft — seems lost in a white out. If we’d only tied a rope from our house to the Usenet barn, maybe we could find our way back. If we had a time machine. If there was no Fractabook where everyone’s a double genius halving their brains into left and right pieces of cantaloupe: half artist, half critic.

But, in spite of no sunrises for months in many of the colder regions of Fractalbook, go far enough south and the ice melts to reveal treasure. I still see fractal art I like — but it’s getting diffused and blurring into the boundaries of digital expression. I understand the challenge of limiting one’s tools, but the reverse option is just as enticing. Why not have a boatload of tools at your disposal? That boat is a graphics program like Photoshop. Is the result of post-processing really a polluted fractal art — especially when UF can now mask and layer and import photos? No, in truth, most contemporary fractal art is now polluted, but in a good way. It’s undergoing hybridization. It’s breaking free of its self-limiting craft corner. It’s blending into the overall strip mall of digital art. Perhaps, finally, it can now be just another school — instead of being put out in the snow banks and being forced to watch the real art madrigal feast from outside a frosted window.

But you have to look hard to find true artists who have more on their minds than stroking their egos and socializing in a mega-corporate safe house. And, as recent posts have tried to show, sometimes processing outside the generator box helps.

Ken Childress’ blog:

Holidays, notwithstanding, Ken is generally always in a grumpy mood — ready at any moment to snap at invisible commenters to get off his virtual lawn. Lately, he’s been on a fractal calendar kick. Why whine about THAT calendar when you can make your own using Ken’s do-it-yourself schema? Ken, handier than a Home Depot employee, provides a list of vehicles (his term) for making your own calendars and thus “liberating” yourself from the tyranny of public complaining. Ken says:

So, the choice is yours. Be proactive and do something creative, or continue to whine and complain about something over which you have absolutely no control and won’t change because you decide to complain about it. Chose to do something for yourself, or chose to try to tear down others because you aren’t happy about some aspect of the venture.

I guess Ken forgot that OT beat him to the punch by nearly a year. We put out our official Fractal Alternate Universe Calendar last December. We were proactive. We were creative.

Strange though. We still felt like pointing out that THAT calendar results from an ethically shaky contest. Maybe we need more date-making therapy sessions. Or put up a few more posts that tear stuff down. Or develop a new Herculean undertaking — like The OT exclusive and free 2009 Fractal Alternate Universe Calendar!!! Or, most likely, Dr. Ken needs to heal himself.

But can he? The critic who rails against critics is still whining about us in both of his supposedly Zen-inducing, throw-your-complaining-down posts championing his self-help snake oil of calendar liberation.

Fractal Universe Calendar:

And speaking of calendars…

Ring them bells. The images for the 2009 FUC are once again back online. Now that this year’s model has hit the mini-malls, Avalanche Publishing and the FUC editors must have once more let the dogs out. How have you been able to go on living without seeing this

January by Keith Mackay

[Image seen on the Fractal Universe Calendar Image Galleries.]

image by FUC 2009 editor Keith Mackay or perhaps this

February by Keith Mackay

[Image seen on the Fractal Universe Calendar Image Galleries.]

image and cover selection also by FUC 2009 editor Keith Mackay? And do you truly feel such winning samples represent the finest existing work our genre has to offer comfortably slotted into one of only a handful of current mass-marketed products showcasing contemporary fractal art? Oh, by the way, there’s work by some other artists in the 2009 edition of the FUC, too. You may be surprised to learn that some of them did not even also serve as screeners assigned to help jury the competition.

The Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest:

And speaking of competitions…

Santa’s Workshop at this site is dark and nailed up. That way no further blizzards can get in. The place hasn’t changed since announcing the winners and legions of also-rans last year. Not a peep about the 2007 exhibition held in Spain nearly a year ago. Not even a Polaroid of the judges hanging next to the winners. Not one photo or word at all about the 2007 physical installation and exhibit, although there were plenty of power shots of the co-directors smoozing from the year before. It seems you can only read about the last BMFAC exhibition on Orbit Trap. And as far as a 2009 BMFAC? Nothing so far. Nothing — but the silence and emptiness of blank, pixel-less space.

Hopefully, that last sentence doesn’t encapsulate your holiday mood, gentle readers. Bwaaa Ho Ho Ho. Pile out of the car, kids. And be sure to take off your boots. Tim and I don’t want you tracking those messy gradients all over OT’s virtual carpet.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, holiday road trip, wedreamincolor, ken childress, keith mackay, fractal universe calendar, avalanche publishing, benoit mandlebrot fractal art contest, bwaaa ho ho ho, ok who deep zoomed the cupholders, cruelanimal, orbit trap

It’s as though the creative process is no longer contained within an individual skull, if indeed it ever was. Everything, today, is to some extent the reflection of something else.
—William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Everyone knows you can’t cry over spilled milk. But, apparently, you can observe its recursive patterns.

I suspect it’s no surprise if regular OT readers, at least those with a more highly developed sense of pattern recognition, see fractal patterns when things are smashed or blown up.

Other people have sure noticed. Some have been exploring computing methodologies that use fractal analysis to explore seismological patterns of underground nuclear explosions. Others claim our sun sends us fractal twitters about its storm seasons and note that

Every 11 years, the Sun experiences its own “storm season,” with violent explosions in its atmosphere, with an energy equivalent to a billion megatons and travelling towards Earth at about 1 million km per hour (about 0.05% the speed of light), though sometimes much faster.

Predicting such events is not easy, but now, plasma astrophysicists at the University of Warwick have found that key information about the Sun’s “storm season” is being broadcast across the solar system in a fractal snapshot imprinted in the solar wind.

And still others work overtime to decode the universe and insist the Big Bang, the mother of all deep smashing, expanded into fractal space grids:

Even more interesting is [Charles] Seife’s illustration that mathematical formulas for the expansion of gases (following fractal patterns, actually) are exactly like equations for the transmission of information. Fractals, fractals, everywhere and every bit is real. Let’s consider the Big Bang. When the Bang occurred (or God lit a giant match), it threw out information bits that spread via explosive expansion in fractal pattern(s). When it is finished expanding and all of the bits of info are evenly distributed throughout forever-ness, the universe will be dark and empty and the light of Genesis will no longer “be”. This is entropy — until the next match strikes.

This post looks at what happens in the instant after a match is struck. Such a glimpse is only possible due to the window on nature provided by high-speed photography. Does this process call up an image of a slo-mo bullet lazily imploding a watermelon? Well, high-speed photography is now as many iterations beyond such grainy super slow blow-outs as today’s laptops are removed from those wall-sized, blinking light computers seen in early episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The best place I know to sift through the next wave of high-speed photography is a Flickr group dedicated to the art. Most of the photos below had their origins in this open community, although a few were found on other web sites.

And, before we start the tour, let’s ask: what’s the point? Well, I want your eyes to back up mine. After looking at fractals for over ten years, these everyday objects, captured and frozen in the moment of impact, reveal familiar patterns of self-similarity and characteristics of recursion I’ve seen again and again in generators. After all, if the Big Bang can be visualized out of algorithms, then why not a detonated egg?

We know fractals can be deep zoomed. But can fractal forms also appear when the things of this world are deep smashed?

And who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?

Egg. High-speed photography by Stefan (photofrog).

Exploded objects, naturally it seems, burst into self-similar bits. High-speed photography captures a tableau revealing such fractal properties before debris is too far-flung. Here, the eggshell breaks into self-similar sections as the yolk is pulled into a triangle and the “egg white” becomes dendrites.

Beer Bottle. High-speed photography by Johnny Chung Lee.

Beer bottles have always blown up real good making them a staple of Western saloon brawls. Again, the glass shards here quickly become self-similar projectiles, and the liquid splays out in a recognizable fractal pattern. Don’t take my word for it. Compare the pattern to the central form in this fractal image by Janet Parke.

Antibacterial Soap Bar. High-speed photography by Jasper Nance.

You don’t need to squint to see the self-similarity here in bashed forward (head) and backward (tail) patterns not unlike splatters from entrance and exit “wounds.”

Crayons. High-speed photography by spyzter. Image credit by Khuong.

This time the self-similar chunks nova outward in a semi-spiral from the calm eye. Coloring gradients got nothing on this one.

Computer Chip. High-speed photography by Pulse Phototronics.

The mound erupting from the corner of the chip reminds me of some of the 3D quats I’ve seen in QuaSZ (like this). Or is this photograph a wish fulfillment Rorschach after enduring another day of Vista?

What do you think? Do you see what I see? I certainly hope the patterns I recognize are not contained to my skull only.

If you’re the fractal police, where is your software?

Aaah, leave it to the cutting edge crowd over at Keith MacKay’s idreamincolor forum to ask the big questions and come up with the big-headed answers.

Over a month ago, MacKay posited this head-scratcher:

Lately I have been wondering if we have seen everything that fractal art has to offer. Sometimes I wonder if there nothing new to be seen in a fractal. Is everything just a variation of something that has already been created?

In this thread I would like to see examples of what you consider to be new or unusual in fractal art. What do you think?

And the results poured in. Well, sort of. Two people answered. Apparently, the idea of actually doing something new — or even finding something new — never occurred to any of the other forum members.

The first responder found plenty of groundbreaking new work. In fact, he cited and linked to no less than fifteen images … ten of which were his own. Talk about product placement. This reminds me of a certain somebody who was put in charge of a certain somebody else‘s vice-presidential exploration committee — and ended up choosing himself.

The second responder never really addressed MacKay’s question. She preferred instead to go on a tear against the “fractal police of dA [deviantART]” for not accepting her melded fractals with non-fractal materials (read: photos) into that community’s fractal art repository.

The two responses, however, did have one thing in common — of course. Ultra Fractal. Obviously, to them anyway, UF is the only option for pursuing the “new and unusual.” The first responder cited its availability of new formulas (written by him?). The second responder swooned over the profound possibilities of UF5’s image import feature. And there, Orbit Trappers, in a self-similar nutshell, lies the future of fractal art.

I could point out that new formulas are always being added to UF — in much the same way new filters are always being created for Photoshop — so this is really only an ongoing evolution of already existing features. I could further point out that graphics programs like Photoshop have allowed artists to import photos and layer them into fractals for at least over ten years — that is, if one wanted to dirty one’s artistic soul with the heinous offense of (dare we speak its name?) post-processing. I could even go so far as to point out that I argued in an earlier OT post that communities like deviantART and Renderosity should question whether “fractals” made with UF5 imported photos are actually mixed-media creations and should properly be placed in more appropriate galleries. I could point all of this out, but none of these observations would address the real question raised. That is: what, indeed, represents the shock of the new?

Like the Shadow, the respondents know. UF must the sole tool of the next new wave.

If so, all of us will soon nod out as we succumb to a mass theta state. Repeat after me: same as it ever was.

Seriously, if MacKay really wants to “think outside the box” as he says in a recent blog post, then he and his certain blogging friend might start by throwing that box away and getting rid of UF entirely. In fact, maybe both of them should try making fractal art without using any software at all.

~/~

As I pointed out in my last post, many artists are making some kind of “fractal art” without relying much, if at all, on using software. Rose Rushbrooke produces amazing fractal quilts — as do other artists like Diana Venters and Elaine Ellison. Eleanor Kent‘s tools are fabric and photocopiers. Lesley Kice builds textile-based installations that demonstrate fractal characteristics. Fractal art should be broadened to include much more than images manufactured in a generator like UF. And, perhaps, such out-of-the-box examples might serve as a good place to start looking for something “new and unusual.”

To try and include every example would be overwhelming, so, for the sake of discussion, I’ve decided to limit this post to a few cases that probably fall under the general area of sculpture.

Fractal Table by Wertel Oberfell with Matthias Bär

This is an installation piece that grew out of studies of fractal growth patterns. It is extremely detailed. To see other views of the Fractal Table, including the intricate table top, go here. Does the concept of translating fractals into furniture have potential? I think so, although I’m holding out for a discount deep zoom sleeper sofa.

Neon 3D Hilbert Fractal from Perfectly Scientific

Why settle for a simple OPEN sign when you can have lit-up complex mathematics instead? I suspect true Hilbert neons would require an infinite amount of tubing, and, really, who has that much space in their rec room? Still, if you have a spare $500, you can own this:

Our sculpture is the level-2 Hilbert fractal, which for 3-dimensional space means 2^6 = 64 vertices. The neon run thus passes through 64 lattice points. Notice the beautiful properties that a) each short run of the Hilbert fractal is straight, b) each run goes in an ortho-direction (x, y, or z direction exclusively), and c) the fractal starts and ends at the sculpture’s base, allowing for elegant mounting.

Now if they would just attach a beer logo to it…

Roy makes wood-based kinetic sculptures put into motion by springs and pulleys. The one above, named by his daughter, certainly displays remarkable self-similarity — especially when set into motion (see a flash animation here). This particular one will run for 16 hours and is limited to an edition of 9. It will only set you back $3200 — plus the exertion of starting it. About the design, Roy notes:

The Variation series is the result of my continued exploration in the world of kinetic patterns created by 6 overlapping wheels that orbit a common center. Each orbiting form is designed to hold a particular orientation by rotating in the opposite direction from its orbital motion.

Although Roy states that he wasn’t thinking about fractals when he made this piece, a surprising number of his sculptures seem very fractal in their designs.

Design Sketch for “Fractal Cloud” by Miguel Chevalier with Charlie Bové

“Fractal Cloud” is a massive sculpture slated for the dockland area of Marseille and created as part of a public commission. It consists of a complex web of optical fiber cables. The cables change color every hour and appear metallic in daylight. By night, however, the sculpture is illuminated with colored projectors and (according to the artist) “works as an astronomical clock.” What makes it fractal-like? Chevalier explains:

The fractal cloud multiplies itself infinitely in a network and a play on scale that breaks with classical perspective and Euclidean geometry.

Look at the human figures in the picture above to try to imagine the scale of this piece. There are more images of the proposed installation here.

Segerman created this object and scripted it to navigate through Second Life, the gigantic, multi-player, online world. In addition to this figurative sculpture, Segerman has created many other fractal objects for Second Life, including fractal trees, hypercubes, and (my favorite) a “Fibonacci Pinecone.”

This is fractal art made for a world other than our own. So, to MacKay and his friends, I ask: Is this work outside the box enough for you?

This post covers only one software-less area of fractal art. I imagine I could just as easily put together a similar post in other areas like ceramics and fiber art. So, the next time someone tries to buffalo you by pointing out that a for-engineers-only program like UF is the end-all wave of the future, forcefully remind them that you don’t need no stinkin’ software.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, digital art, stinkin’ software, ultra fractal, treasure of the fractalbooking madre, keith mackay, werter oberfell, perfectly scientific, david c roy, miguel chevalier, henry segerman, second life, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Bee Pole by The Jafagirls

No review this week. But will you settle for a meditation instead?

If we assume that fractal art is indeed a legitimate fine art form — and I do — then every facet of fine art must be open to fractal art. I’ve argued in a previous OT post that fractal art can be used for political expression. Guido Cavalcante, in another early OT post, advocated using fractals for social commentary and for “making the hidden visible.” And Tim has shown, in a meta sense, that digital art can even be utilized to hold a mirror up to the fractal community.

But can fractal art max out with perfect subversiveness? Can fractals be used for guerrilla art?

Lenin with Mittens

[Photo by majorbonnet.]

Some artistic genres that were once perceived as more suited for the craft section of the remaindered bin have come out swinging. The knitting community, in particular, has long showed a penchant for creating and displaying art using guerrilla tactics. Rose White, who lectures on the history of guerilla knitting, summarizes her talk as follows:

Contemporary knitters feel very clever for coming up with edgy language to describe their knitting, but the truth is that for decades there have been knitters and other textile artists who are at least as punk rock as today’s needle-wielders.

Knit Tank by Marianne Joergensen (and 1000 volunteers)

Any artistic movement faces certain struggles and some internal criticism when being born. Apparently, according to a post on 24c3 entitled “The History of Guerrilla Knitting,” the crucial turning point for knitters came at the close of the 1960s:

Another schism happened at the end of the ’60s and beginning ’70s. Then enters our heroine: Elizabeth Zimmermann. She was commissioned to make a sweater. She gave it to the company but they re-wrote the patterns using a proprietary system. Disgusted by the process, she started her own company and she’d invite knitters to be the boss of their knitting, distinguishing the “blind followers” from the “thinking knitters.” The point was to put the control of what was going on back into the hands of the knitter. It’s like Linux versus Windows.

Sound familiar? Fractal art is waiting for a similar transformational break. The prevailing monarchy — with its de rigueur software (UF) and its corrupt, self-serving contests (BMFAC, the FUC) — constitute our comparable “proprietary system.” These Fractal CEOs create competitions designed to first and foremost highlight their own art, then claim in subsequent publicity materials to be showcasing “high quality works by the most important fractal artists in the world.” Even OT disliker Ken Childress catapulted such propaganda again last week on his blog (no link):

UF is the program of choice for many of those who are the most respected fractal artists today.

And Childress proves this claim by … simply making the claim — as if saying so makes any utterance true, just like judging a fractal contest that includes your own work makes you respectable and “important.” Meanwhile, Childress gets to hang out with the self-selected Kewl Kidz in the Fractal McMansion. Why rock the boat when you’re sitting on a velvet cushion in it?

So, it looks like we are at a crossroads. And here’s the question of the hour. Are you a “blind follower”? Or are you a “thinking” fractal artist?

In many ways, the textile and fiber arts have a head start, but there are encouraging signs. Rose Rushbrooke continues to break new ground with her fractal quilts. Eleanor Kent uses knitting needles and photocopiers for her fractal-laced textile creations. Other fiber artists, like Lesley Kice, create installations exhibiting fractal properties like self-similarity. And if you prefer wearing your art, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories will gladly show you how to make your own fractal earrings.

Knitting Machine by Dave Cole

Can fractal artists push the guerrilla envelope? Do we have our own Banksy? And what forms will these fractal guerrilla excursions take? Hacking websites to insert fractal art pop-ups? Quats made with Play-Doh left conspicuously in daycare centers? Wearing cauliflower buds in our suit lapels instead of carnations?

Who in our community will step up? Or is someone already mining this territory? And, please, you won’t convince me the many CafePress commercialistic offerings of fractal thongs can be called erotic sorties into the battleground of guerrilla foreplay.

Back with another more review-type post soon. In the meantime, how about a little music?

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, guerrilla art, guerrilla knitting, fiber arts, textile arts, jafagirls, majorbonnet, marianne joergensen, maskerade, dave cole, smell my cauliflower, recursive thongs, cruelanimal, orbit trap

I find art is best contemplated while jogging…

They say you learn something new every day.

Today, I discovered it’s not easy to write a review of an exhibition I never actually attended.

Then again, it’s impossible to actually attend an exhibition when you don’t hear about it until seven months after it has closed.

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If OT’s readers and Fractaland in general have been waiting for an update about the 2007 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Exhibit, well, as the saying goes, you missed it. Don’t feel bad. I’m sure you aren’t the only one.

I know I was certainly looking forward to seeing it. I missed it, too.

And I even actively tried to keep tabs on it. I regularly scoured the usual fractal art forums, communities, and assorted haunts in hopes of ferreting out any peep about it. What did I find? Nothing. On Fractalus? Zero. Why even the BMFAC 2007 web site remains strangely silent — about its own much trumpeted exhibition no less! The webmaster was certainly not shy about providing coverage of the 2006 BMFAC exhibition festivities. But news of the BMFAC 2007 exhibition appears to have been buried in a witness protection program. Don’t take my word for it. Google it yourself. Try: “benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest exhibition 2007.” I already know what you’ll find. One relevant entry. Here — where one paragraph vaguely states that a winning selection by the artist will be displayed in Spain in November. That’s it. And that’s where I took my only clue to find the MIA exhibition.

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I began by checking the Spanish connections to the contest and Googling the BMFAC’s listed judges — especially those who had no work displayed in the exhibition. Doors finally began to open. One judge in particular stood out: Javier Barrallo.

Running a search on him, I found two — and only two — articles about the 2007 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Exhibition. Both articles are written in Spanish, so I had to rely on Google’s translation engine for an English transcription. I also pasted text into Babelfish for another translation used for comparison purposes. Quotes that appear in this post are derived from Google, and bracketed inserts from Babelfish are sometimes included for clarification.

The first article, which appeared on lukor.com, is here. The second article, which appeared on the web site of the university where the exhibition was held, is here. I have linked to English translated versions, although the original Spanish pages can be easily found by either following links at the top of the linked page or by pasting a shortened version of the URL address into your browser window.

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And what do we (appear to) learn?

The exhibition was held in Pamplona and displayed in the “lobby of El Sario” at the Public University of Navarre. The exhibition ran from December 21st, 2007, to January 31st, 2008 — according to this agenda item in the university’s calendar.

Both articles bill the event as: International Art Contest Fractal Benoit Mandelbrot 2007. Javier Barrallo (Calonge) is described as “the director of the contest.” No mention is made of previously assumed director Damien M. Jones (although this site lists Jones and Barrallo as co-directors) or any of the other BMFAC judges. None of the exhibited artists is mentioned by name either, although the titles of several art works are cited.

Barrallo is a professor of Applied Mathematics at the Public University of Navarre. He appears to be a fairly accomplished academic and has roots in the Ultra Fractal cult community. His work turns up in several “Ultra Fractal Challenge” events hosted by Janet Parke. He has contributed to the UF List Parameters Database. He certainly knows and has ties with Jones — and even co-authored an article with him. These established connections between the “co-directors” might further explain why the BMFAC’s submission requirements are so heavily weighted towards UF — and also why the selected judges are mostly (totally?) associated with the software as well.

One article notes:

Of the twenty-five works that make up this show, fifteen have been specifically chosen and the rest are guest artists.

“Guest artists.” That’s one way to put it. The other article describes the non-winning artists as “invited.” Neither article mentions the professional faux pas that these “guest artists” also conveniently served as the contest’s judges. Nor did the exhibition appear to differentiate the guests from the winners when displaying the art prints. In the photograph above, the only one I could find of the exhibition, one sees (if a black and white photo of an art exhibition can be called “seeing”) an image by self-selected “guest” Kerry Mitchell (left) hung beside juried “winner” Susan Chambless (center).

I’ve said from the start this entire fiasco is set up as a publicity stunt for the judges to exhibit themselves in a seemingly competitive scenario in order to appear juried and thus more prestigious. But, of course, the respectable veneer is a stacked deck from the start. The BMFAC guest-judges are quick to judge others but repeatedly refuse to let others judge them.

I wonder. Can you be a guest at a party you are throwing for yourself?

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Here is how Barrallo describes the art in the exhibition:

We try to [give] a representative exposure of what fractal art [is at] this time [and] wanted to have a dozen [ten] artists, expressly invited by [their] capacity in this discipline.”

So, indeed, the BMFAC is meant to be a representative sampling of the best contemporary fractal art. Made primarily with Ultra Fractal. With a backstage pass for the Ultra Fractal-loving judges who get a green light to soak up 40% of the wall space. While a remaining heavy ratio of UF selections comprise the rest of the show. Does that sound representative to you? And exactly what constitutes the “capacity in the discipline” of the judges — other than hanging out near the UF orbit of co-director Jones?

One article notes that the displayed art work was “the computer representation of a single mathematical formula, usually very simple.” In the other article, Barrallo observes that the displayed fractals are

like painting by numbers. Here there is no work [done in a] photo editor but answered [strictly by] mathematical formulas, the outcome of those formulas is translated into numbers and those numbers to colors.

Those fractals sure sound pure as the driven pixel. I’m gratified to learn that no post-processing cheating in photo editors was allowed to taint these pristine proceedings. Oh. No. But wait. Hypocrisy alert. Since most of the winning/invited entries were made using Ultra Fractal, wasn’t nearly every displayed work masked and layered and pancaked to the edge of their event horizons using the graphic manipulation Photoshop-Lite features built into UF?

Long story short: Those suckers on display were hardly “simple.” They’re Franken-Fractals — through and through.

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And, hey, all you wannabe BMFACers and OT readers with curious minds that want to know, could this be the reason we’ve heard zippo so far this year about a (now officially cancelled by Tim) 2008 BMFAC? One article states that the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest is

held every two years.

Really? That’s news to me — especially since the first two contests were held in subsequent years. Of course, since all of us have been living in a virtual BMFAC news blackout, all of the information in the articles is a revelation. Like the similar (and recently disappeared) Fractal Universe Calendar Contest, Jones & Co.’s primary work ethic appears to be grounded in a smothering secrecy. Isn’t this our community’s big shebang? “Our” International Fractal Art Contest? Wasn’t there a deluge of 50+ also-ran honorable mentions in the big BMFAC winnowing nearly a year ago? Therefore, the rarified exhibition selectees should be deemed exemplary and deserve the further recognition an exhibition should ideally provide. In fact, the exhibition should be the apex of the contest — not a hush-hush throwaway shunted into obscure Google netherworld caches. If nothing else, shouldn’t at least the BMFAC site have some record of their own exhibition to provide a further public illustration of the power and grace of the winning entries — the best-of-the-best sweated over by the BMFAC judges after they first made absolutely certain their own art was grandfathered in “invited”?

Why you’d almost think the BMFAC organizers and judges are ashamed of something.

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Did I mention they should be?

Here’s a selection of what I wrote to Jones last October when we had a verbal skirmish in the Xenodreamers group. What I said to him then remains just as true today:

If this were nothing more than an invitational exhibit, no one would be asking questions. But this cozy arrangement to showcase friends is masked as a contest that presumably has rigorous integrity. But the contest is an afterthought that occurs only once the judges have made their initial gallery grab. Without the addition of the contest, the judges could not display their work at all — and certainly not under circumstances that have the appearance of being juried and thus more respectable.

[…]

If you want to run a legitimate contest, then pay your judges (even if that means an entry fee) but keep them out of the “winner’s circle.” And if you want to display your work and the work of your friends, then hold an invitation-only exhibit and be satisfied.

As long as you try to have things both ways, questions of ethical conflicts and unprofessional behavior are going to dog you.

Maybe this fractal art contest can still be saved and receive a much needed professional makeover this year — or, as seems to be suggested, next year. If not, then its organizers and enablers can expect the howling will once again be heard — across the expanse of ocean — as far away as Spain.