What exactly does it mean to be un-Cola?  Cola drinks, like Coca-Cola, are dark-colored and contain caffeine.  The opposite would be light-colored without caffeine?  But both of them are sugary, carbonated drinks sold on the same shelf and dropping out of the same vending machine, or at least side by side vending machines (7Up is a product of Pepsico, Coke’s rival).

To those who like soft drinks and don’t like colas, then 7Up is perhaps very different.  Refreshingly different. But for those who are simply thirsty and don’t want to eat 10 teaspoons of sugar while trying to quench their thirst, 7Up and every other soft drink, including all the various members of the vast cola club, are all one thing:  cans of liquid candy.

Mosaics:  The Un-Fractal!

60s Scream, by Village9991

These mosaics, including the so-called mashups that are made of tiny images, are a kind of un-cola with respect to fractal art.  Their ingredients, like 7Up’s ingredients, are fundamentally different and yet seem to have all the same sweetness and fizz of regular fractals.

They look like fractals and from a purely visual standpoint, I enthusiastically declare them to be fractal art and insist they take their rightful place in that great vending machine –shining humming monolith of cold drink correct change worship– called fractal art.

And they’re cool to look at.  And maybe not so hard to make, either?  This one above I believe is a rendition of the screaming woman in the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  There’s something called actionscript which does some really neat things like this.  Flash artists do similar things.  I have no idea how it works.  Wouldn’t it be funny if they used some type of fractal algorithm to scale the mosaic pieces?

You can view a whole bunch of them here on Village9991’s Mosaici page.  He’s Italian and lives in a small village in northern Italy.

Giant Peach by Jim Bumgardner

The full-size (1800×1800) image is here and is worth a look.  The details in this mash-up are quite appealing, unlike most which get ugly when you move up close.

Jim Bumgardner is a Flickr master and has done some prominent things:

I’m a computer technologist / artist / composer in the Los Angeles area. I blog about my various projects at krazydad.com.

I’ve done a lot of mosaic art using the Flickr APIs, and co-authored Flickr Hacks, from O’Reilly, with Paul Bausch.

I’m a little obsessed with circles, radial symmetry and mechanical instruments.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I work amongst an awesome collective of nerd/hipsters at Topspin in Santa Monica.

I did some mosaic posters for squared circle, and a day in the life, here on Flickr:

[see Giant Peach image above]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One of the first things I did on Flickr was to make a number of fun-to-use Flickr Colr Pickrs. Check ’em out!

I also made the world’s first Flickr Chia Pet, an experiment in collaborative defacement.

– From Jim’s Flickr profile page

I made something similar once, using a photoshop filter called Mosaic Toolkit by Lance Otis.  Over here.

Pearl Glance by Village9991

Whaddaya know?  It’s the same guy as made the first one!  Well, I guess he’s got some sort of program to make these with because it would take a lot of work to draw these things even with a computer drawing program.

The woman, in case you don’t recognize her, is a detail from some very famous painting.  But here her image is made up of all the senseless words that people in art galleries have spoken while viewing the painting.  Individually, the words are gibberish and without any meaning.  But together they “speak” her image in a new but equally appealing way.  Some of the smallest comments are crucial details.  The other deep message in this image is: if you’ve got enough fonts installed on your computer you can do anything!

Time for another one:

Steal a Kiss by Village9991

Well hit my avatar with a digital two by four.  Same guy again.

He says it’s from a Pucca cartoon: YouTube Link.

The image has changed: it’s full of details that have their own (short) story to tell.

After watching a Pucca cartoon I now see the image differently.  I can clearly make out the two Pucca cartoon characters.  Nevertheless, the graphical effect is what makes this image interesting for me.  Those of you who are fans of the Pucca People you might feel differently.  Which is the greater art?

Blogging: The Un-Writing

I never intended to focus on the mosaic images of just one artist.  Incidentally, the way I review these things is a multi-step process and details like names often get temporarily lost in the shuffle.  First I wander around the internet and when I come upon an interesting image I bookmark the page.  This stores the link to the original (obviously) along with the image and any references to a title and author’s name.  Later on when I’m thinking of writing about something I go back to these collected bookmarks and I open up 10 or so from a single sub-folder bearing some (at the time) relevant name.  The folder names are often just dates like “June” or “May” or “3D”.  Digital art in general and fractal art as well is such an eclectic medium that meaningful sub-categories are hard to come up with.  And author names quite often aren’t the common ingredient in a particular graphical theme.

But sometimes they are. For me it’s all about art and not artists.  But you have to include the author’s name if for no other reason than readers want to know who made it.  Sometimes there are legal reasons such as attribution requirements.  Artists are less important in fractal art because individual accomplishment is more about the style of pushing buttons and operating the machine than it is about actually interacting with the canvas in the intimate way that painters do.  If you do what they did then you’ll “make” what they made.

Clearly, no one makes them like Village9991 does!

I’ve been looking at some mash-ups lately on Flickr ….and I was browsing around on Samuel Monnier’s site ….and July 4th, Independence Day in the States is coming up, …which is similar to Canada’s own national holiday on July 1st called Canada Day … I thought, “America Day” …and here’s two images of that great icon of America, the American Flag …and they’re both fractal, sort of …here’s Fractal America …the deeper you look, the more you see ...how close can you get?

20091103, by S. Monnier

United State of Art, by qthomasbower (on Flickr.com)

Click on either one to see a larger version with much more detail.  Samuel Monnier’s image leads to a page where you can view the image in enormous detail.  He uses a special flash applet that allows you to practically explore the image to the same degree you would be able to if you were viewing it in the original fractal program (Ultra Fractal) that made it.  If you haven’t seen one of these before, it’s well worth a look.

Can the image of a national flag (especially the American flag) be purely something to look at and not have political overtones?

No.  Absolutely not.   And why is that?

Because it’s a symbol.  Our minds just refuse to look at it as if we’d never seen it before.

In social situations, if you want to avoid controversy, “don’t talk about religion or politics”.  But the American flag is both  politics and religion to many people –and not just the Americans.

In Canada (where I live) you will probably hear much more said about Americans and America than you will in America and among Americans.  Canadians are funny that way.  And so is much of the world.  No one see America (and Americans) quite like foreigners do.  And no one seems to talk about them as much as foreigners do.  Canadians, however, see America in a more powerful way because we are both foreigners and yet, in many ways, very american ourselves.  I won’t get into it right now because it’s too convoluted and confusing, but suffice it to say that Canadians embrace America with one hand while at the same time trying to get in a punch with the other.  It’s very hypocrital and juvenile and, I’ll come right out and say it: it’s very colonial.  Colonial-minded peoples are afraid of independence —they think they’re going to lose something.  Americans, on the other hand, enthusiastically fought for independence –because they thought they would be gaining something.

And there, in a nutshell, is the difference between Canadians and Americans.  Canadians like to complain about the government and you can’t do that when you’re independent because you’re only complaining about yourself.  Americans like to fix the government and to do that you need independence and self-government.  America wrote it’s own constitution.  Canada was content to let the British Parliament do it for them.  As a Canadian I’ve always found it surprising that my fellow Canadians don’t seem to see this as a huge national embarrassment:  Canada is an act of British Parliament. America was a reformation of the acts of British Parliament (“new and improved”).

See?  Already things have gotten political.  I’m so glad that art doesn’t have to be that way.  Let’s talk about art instead.

Samuel Monnier says that fractal art doesn’t have to embrace social and political themes in order to be considered “serious art” and that if you browse through artworks of the past you’ll find many examples of good art in which these sorts of themes are not involved.  Maybe he didn’t say it exactly like that, but he’s right.  The works of Joan Miro and Paul Klee would be considered “serious art” and yet they (rarely) had any connection to what one would call social commentary.

Of course it would be a great compliment to fractal art if it also had some artwork that did engage in social commentary.  It’s not necessary (as Sam says) for fractal art to be earn the label, “serious”, but it would add another dimension to the genre.  And political themes can be quite engaging and thought provoking.

Back to the art:  Sam’s “pattern piling” version of the American flag is really without any sort of intended meaning (assuming that’s possible with the American flag).  It really is just an interesting, richly detailed, experiment with the geometric qualities that this flag possesses.  He does the same thing with the Swiss flag (Sam is from Switzerland) although the results aren’t quite as interesting because the Swiss flag’s elements are all right-angled and lack the variety that the stars of the American flag give to it.  And there’s an extra color in the American flag which in turn provides for more combinations and permutations when pattern piled.

Qthomasbower’s flag is, on the other hand, a deliberate attempt to provide social commentary:  A vast mosaic of many artworks forming (by overlaying an image of the flag) a diverse but united nation waving majestically in the wind.  I think the technique is easier than it looks.  Nevertheless the result is fascinating.  It really has the detailed and intricate wonder of an image made by the iterations of a fractal formula.

Qthomasbower has some more of these on his Flickr pages.  Unlike Monnier’s image, Q’s doesn’t look so hot when you zoom in.  It’s kind of like the “digital zoom” on a camera;  the picture just becomes chunkier and cruder as you move in.  I’m sure he’s not implying that the state of American art only looks good from a distance and when covered by the imprimatur of The Stars and Stripes.

Two of Arts by qthomasbower (on Flickr)

I find these mash-ups of Q to be very interesting because of the detail and texturing they give to the image when viewed at large.  I think almost any sort of half-decent image would look fantastic when treated this way.  It gives a large-scale and massive appearance to the image because of the non-repeating and highly detailed texture all the individual image “tiles” contribute.  The mash-up contributes really only a texture layer, but the effect, as I’ve said, is very impressive.

So.  Is America a fractal?  Does it have self-similarity at many levels?  Do parts of it descend down to zero while others escape to infinity? And why does a Presidential election with only two candidates take so long to render?

I don’t dislike everything.  The OT faithful probably know from past posts that I often see fractal art works I find interesting.

When Tim and I were first forming Orbit Trap and discussing its possibilities, one idea we knocked around was to post an occasional fractal art photoblog — that is, allow the blog to function as a kind of virtual gallery by offering images without comment.  Any reaction to the art works would come from OT’s readers in the form of comments.  Today seems as good a day as any to start.

So, here are a few pieces that have have caught my eye lately.  Some are Phase One works, and others are Phase Two.

Disclaimer: I might have a bigger-tent sense of what fractal art constitutes than you do.

Like or dislike, and, if so moved, feel free to say so:

Deep Sea Monster by Maria K. Lemming.  Seen on her web site.

Tvivla by Robert Töreki.  Seen on the Ultrafractal site.

Toy Fracture by Bermarte.  Seen on Fractal Forums.

Digging You Up Again by 2BORNO2B.  Seen on deviantART.

Cries from the Wetlands by Gaiadriel.  Seen on Renderosity.

The Water Tree by Hector Garrido.  Seen on Armonia Fractal.

Iguana Eyes by Michael Kern.  Seen on Fractal Enightenment.

Fractal Recursive Spiral Pottery Pattern by Quasimondo.  Seen on Flickr.

Julia Bead Tapestry.  Seen on In Bits Mosaics.

Vent #3 by Thomas Briggs.  Seen on his web site.

~/~

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, digital art, computer art, maria k lemming, robert toreki, bermarte, 2BORNO2B, gaiadriel, hector garrido, michael kern, quasimondo, thomas briggs, photoblog 1, cruelanimal, orbit trap

The first time I saw an image made in FractalWorks it was in the gallery section of Fractalforums.com.  I was impressed and yet, I couldn’t quite figure out why I was so impressed.  There wasn’t anything really special about it and yet there was something really special about it.  It was one of those “height field” fractals, a (somewhat old) trick to give flat fractals a 3D appearance.  They’re all over the place and have been for years, but this FractalWorks one was different: more polished and more stylish than I’ve ever seen.  It also seemed to have a slightly surreal and mysterious quality to it –a strange kind of silence.

Stone Path by Duncan Champney, Made in FractalWorks. (The first one I saw. I sensed something eerie; like an approaching Minotaur.)

A comment by Paul N. Lee, the veteran fractal archivist, lead me to Duncan Champney’s website and to the incredible discovery that not only had Duncan made other images like the first one I’d found, he also made the program, FractalWorks, that they were created with.

There’s a long tradition in fractal art of people performing the roles of both artist as well as programmer.  Duncan Champney joins that royal list and furthermore offers his excellent program free to anyone who wants to share his passion for exploring what his super fractal machine can do.  But before you head off to download it I should mention that it’s for Macs only.

3D view of Mar2310lma1c by schimkent, made in FractalWorks

From what I’ve seen the program’s forte is 3D fractals of the height field, or geographical terrain,  “relief” -variety.  However, as simple and plain as that might sound in these modern days of Mandelbulbs and Mandelboxes, FractalWorks does this one thing very, very well.  These sorts of old-style 3D fractals made in other programs can be rather kitschy to look at, but FractalWorks manages to achieve a quantum leap in rendering quality that gives this old technique a new and vibrant appeal.  But of course as with almost any kind of fractal program, it still requires an artistic eye and the relentless persistence that only an enthusiastic explorer can possess to produce really good work with it.

Ordinarily I’d just shrug off stuff like this as eye candy but FractalWorks has elevated this simple type of fractal to a new level of sophistication.  There’s something fresh and different here.  Like I said when describing my first encounter, there’s something special and captivating about these FractalWorks works.  Some have a fairy tale look to them and others suggest a landscape that is much more surreal and haunted.  Don’t let the fruity, frosty renderings fool you; there’s more to some of these FractalWorks images than mere graphical sweetness.

Duncan Champney wrote the program and started up a Flickr group to get people interested in it as well as to offer advice and encouragement (I’m just guessing).  Although Duncan produces some of the best images made in FractalWorks, I discovered from the Flickr group someone who also makes work that is equally good: schimkent! I think the proof of a really great program is in what the users of it can do and not just the super results the author can get with it.  Shimkent (and others) have shown that Duncan has created a very capable and creative fractal art tool in FractalWorks.  Even if it is only for those Starbuck sipping, sophisticated Apple computer users…  They ought to have at least one good fractal program, shouldn’t they?

Fractal Stimulus Plan, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks

Schimkent: I think his real name is Kent Schimke (hence, the clever screen name —schimke-nt).  Kent’s LinkedIn profile says that he is “…helping a developer create a fractal generating program called FractalWorks for macintosh computers.”  I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s the guy.

Kent’s got a really good eye for color and also seems to have a good grasp of what makes for a good 3D FractalWorks scene.  Both he and Duncan have made some very eye catching and interesting images.  I would never have thought such a simple 3D height field program could produce such a wide range of creative works but I guess, as Kent says, “You just don’t know what you can’t do.”  Well,  Kent seems to have excelled in pushing FractalWorks’ envelope and taking us to new places.

Touch of vertigo, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks --see what I mean by schimkent's great eye for color?

In addition to his own Flickr gallery, Kent has also recently had a wall calendar featuring some of his FractalWorks images published by Browntrout entitled, Chaos Fabulous Fractals 2010.  This is not the Cafepress, self-publishing, print on demand type of thing (the one at a time whenever someone buys one), but rather the traditional editor/publisher/press-run type of publishing.

Apr06wja1b, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks

Teed Up, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks. (I really like the perspective in the blue objects in the top area. Extraterrestrial garden.)

FractalWorks was released a couple years ago and since then it’s been upgraded a few times.  The most recent upgrade was just recently, May 4, 2010.  I’m sure the reason for such continuous development has been the impressive results users have achieved with the program.  That’s what usually drives fractal program development.  As the Flickr group message says:

FractalWorks is a free, high performance fractal renderer for Macintosh computers.
You can download fractalworks and try it yourself at the FractalWorks download site.

04 May 2010: Version 0.6.2 has expired. I just uploaded a new version, version 0.6.3 to the link above. Please upgrade to the new version.

-from the Flickr Group, FractalWorks site

I majored in Geography back in my university days and I think one of the things that drew me to that subject was all the imagery that one ends up studying, particularly the Remote Sensing images.  Perhaps part of the appeal that these FractalWorks images has for me is their similarity to maps and especially aerial photographs, something which the Wikipedia defines as “the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position“.

3D view of Aprwmc1a, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks. (It's autumn in fractal country.)

Fall Colors, by schimkent, made with FractalWorks

Another legacy of my geography days was the slowly developed ability to view stereo pairs of aerial photographs without the special lenses that make it easier for your eyes to perceive the 3D effect.  In digital art circles this special 3D imagery seems to be called “cross-eyed” stereogram.  I take it from this stereogram set posted on Duncan’s site, that FractalWorks is able to produce the paired images that produce this three dimensional illusion.  Here’s another also made in FractalWorks but slightly different in that you need red-cyan 3D glasses to view it (the old-style 3D movie glasses).  And here’s an even better one.  Wait!  This one too!  Go out right now and buy a pair of red-cyan 3D glasses so you can see this one!!!! (try the high res version on Flickr for an even biiiiiiger thrill).

FractalWorks produces a kind of high-quality imaginary aerial landscape.  Of course, that was always the intent I believe of the height field effect in fractal programs.  It’s just that FractalWorks has come along and achieved much better results than any other program that creates these kinds of fractal images, at least of all the ones that I’ve seen so far.  Although I’m sure Ultra Fractal or Chaos Pro could be programmed to produce similar smooth and richly colored images like this, no one seems to have attempted it yet (although there have been good examples of a mild form of 3D relief imagery created with them already).

3D view of Sep13lmb1d, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks. (This is the enchanted forest. Can you find Granny's house without getting lost?)

Well, three cheers for Duncan Champney for making this Mount Everest Machine of fractal programs and taking us right up to the top of it along with him.  And to Kent Schimke, his agile sherpa for showing us how great the views can be.

3D view of Jun16wmb1d, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks. (I know this is a pretty ordinary fractal, but what is it about FractalWorks that makes it look so cool?)

3D view of Feb12wja1b, by schimkent, made in FractalWorks. (If color was a flower, this is what it would look like.)

Well, I could go on and on doing this.  These FractalWorks images are really something.  Too bad I don’t have a Mac.  Oh well, we can still look at the results.  You can browse the entire Flickr group at this link.  And should you happen to own a Mac, why not download the free program and try it out while you’re sipping your Starbucks coffee and looking as stylish and hip as Mac folks always do?

I want to talk about the money in fractal art.

Where in the fractal world is there any sort of commercial success?  I don’t mean someone making some trivial amount of money, I mean someone making enough money to, as they say, quit your day job, kind of money.

Is this the financial forecast for Ultra Fractal sales?

Of all the artists, programmers, publishers, online instructors and other types of individuals in the fractal world, who would you say would be the most likely to be making some serious amount of money?

My first guess would be Ultra Fractal author, Frederik Slijkerman.  Ultra Fractal currently sells for $69 US for the standard edition and $129 US for the full featured, animation edition.  It’s a very popular fractal program and has been for ten years or so and is an ongoing concern as they say in business circles.  But has it made Frederik so rich that he’s moved into a castle and spends most of his time in his counting house counting all his money?

I don’t think so.  As far as I can tell, Frederik spends most of his working time at a regular (non-fractal) programming job.  (His Linked-in profile) I’m sure he’s making something off his sales of Ultra Fractal, but even if there were 500 paid-up users of UF5, and I think that’s a gross overestimation, that works out to about $35,000 US.  But put that in “earning a living” terms and it’s not much of paycheck compared to a regular job.

So, Frederick, of all people in the fractal art world who I would guess to be in a commercially viable position is probably making more money at his day-job than at his “fractal-job”.

I wrote a post last year entitled Is The Name Of Our Hero Benoit Mandelbrot Being Used To Market Ultra Fractal?.  But now I’d say that even if anyone ever had the idea of attempting to promote UF via this contest (and why would anyone think that?) that now it’s obviously a waste of time.  There simply are not enough users of fractal art software to generate even a modest income on an ongoing basis.  In short, I think Frederik’s motives in creating and selling UF are more personal than commercial.  I’ll bet he could make much more money with the time he spends developing UF by putting it to use on projects of a purely commercial and straightforward business nature (i.e. his day-job).  The fractal art world would have to change considerably, such as grow significantly in size and become much more trendy for this to be any different in the future.  And who’s to say most of those newcomers wouldn’t opt for the freeware program ChaosPro?

“More personal than commercial“.  I think this sums up all the rest of the fractal world from a money-making perspective.  But let’s look at online instruction anyhow, which, like UF,  is something that has had ties to the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art contests via the judging panel.

No, there’s not much money there either!  Courses were about $25 US for a ten week course (two and a half months) and twice that for double semester courses.  Assuming you were a very keen instructor and you taught four course semesters a year and had a full class each time (not likely) what great pile of cash would you be rolling in at the end of the year?  Ten students a course, for instance, four times a year, and you (the instructor) get what?  Well, you wouldn’t get the whole $25 tuition, you’d have to split some of it with the online school who have their own administrative expenses to cover (and they want to get rich too, right?).  How about you get $20 per student at 10 students per semester and four semesters a year?  That would be (a whopping) $800 US per year.

Look before you leap --into the riches of online instruction!

Of course, if you’re trying to cover the rent  and buy groceries (you can’t get rich if you die on the way) then you might consider teaching more than one course.  Say you managed to teach 3 per semester.  3 x 800 is $2,400 US per year.  This is beginning to sound like a Get Poor Quick Scheme.  If money’s an issue then you need another job or you’d better just stay with a day-job.

Not surprisingly, none of the current or former judges of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest are teaching online courses anymore.  Did they make too much money and decide to retire?  I don’t think so.  Their interest was, again, “more personal than commercial”.  I suspect they simply wanted to explore the option of teaching UF skills in an online environment.  Sure, there’s some money to be made, but it’s a token amount which might be some compensation for the instructor’s efforts but not a serious way to make a living or elevate one’s standard of living.  Would such a fractal-job income mean anything if you were applying for a mortgage? or a business loan?  Or how about bragging rights at a cocktail party?  “Hey, that’s nothing, man!  I’m a professional online fractal instructor and I made eight hundred bucks last year!”

Now how about selling artwork?  That ought to be worth something.  Hey!  Isn’t that how Picasso and Warhol got rich?  Ironically, I think this is probably the least profitable enterprise in the fractal art world.  And why would I say that?

Well, for starters, fractal art, like all digital art, is not collectible.  You can’t buy an original fractal print like you can an original painting.  You could print a limited edition of images and then (honestly say) you’re destroying the digital files (image and parameter files) just as print-makers destroy the original printing plate for art prints they sell after printing a numbered series of prints.  Throw in your (really famous) autograph into the package and then charge a bundle.

But the big problem with fractal art is that there’s so much of it around and it’s so easy to make.  People can shop around and find similar stuff for sale cheaper or even make it themselves. Can’t do that with Picasso’s paintings or Warhol’s silkscreens.  And of course fractal art isn’t as popular and as critically acclaimed as such traditional artworks are.  There’s probably money to be made in selling prints or fractal art for illustration purposes (book-covers, magazines…), but again, it’s some money, not enough to live on much less get rich at.  Yes, I think we’re back to the “More personal than commercial” aspect to things.

Alright.  Now I come to my main point in all of this:  Issues in the fractal art world are not taken as seriously as they would be if there were commercial interests at stake.

For instance: nobody really cares how the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contests are run because winning or losing is purely a (temporary) matter of online status and has no impact on art sales or any other fractal commercial enterprise in any really significant way.  Maybe a few more UF licenses get sold because of the publicity, but I doubt it has any significant effect on anyone’s personal wealth or lifestyle.  (Actually, there is very little publicity generated by the BMFAC, isn’t there?)

I’ve seen artists advertising images on their websites as “Winners” in the BMFAC, but the real commercial opportunity would be selling prints right at the exhibitions themselves or at least taking orders.  Despite the other failings of the BMFAC, they have succeeded wonderfully in preventing the contest from becoming commercialized.  They don’t even sell a simple $10 souvenir poster or  wall calendar.  They could easily do this online from the contest site as well as from a table at the exhibition (hey, who needs a table? just stand by the door and sell them like newspapers).

Yes, the fractal art world is almost ascetic in it’s attitude towards fractal art and community events like contests.  We’re all in it for the art or for other things that have never had any commercial value like the social scene.  I believe that will change if fractal art ever develops a serious commercial side to it.  Until then it’ll continue to have the casual atmosphere of a community art club where even the big names are involved for reasons that are “more personal than commercial.”