{"id":1053,"date":"2010-04-04T19:24:02","date_gmt":"2010-04-04T23:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2010-04-04T22:44:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T02:44:49","slug":"1053","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"Return to Phase Two"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Detail<\/p>\n

Detail of Tuna<\/em> by Chris Jordan<\/a><\/p>\n

I thought it might be fitting to once again examine pushing fractal art into its second phase.\u00a0 Tim laid the initial groundwork<\/a> for a Phase Two approach to our discipline, and I’ve presented several examples<\/a> of what a Phase Two fractal art exhibition might look like. One facet of Phase Two reflectivity is to think outside the boundaries of software<\/a>.\u00a0 Instead, Phase Two manifests fractal art as a general movement expressed broadly in any fine art genre, rather than being shrunk down to the limited box of whatever UF or Apo images happen to be selected (by, say, the two respective program authors) for the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One artist who is clearly using fractal attributes in a wider fine art context is Chris Jordan<\/a> — especially in his series entitled Running the Numbers\u00a0 II<\/em>.\u00a0 Jordan notes that the series “looks at mass phenomena on a global scale” and observes that each image “portrays a specific quantity of something” — like the estimated number of tigers still in existence<\/a> or (as in the image detail above) the average\u00a0 number of tuna fished<\/a> from oceans every fifteen minutes.\u00a0 Jordan’s series uses self-similarity to striking effect.\u00a0 In Tuna<\/em>, the staggering number of fish netted is demonstrated by many replicated shadow forms.\u00a0 In Tiger<\/em>, the 3200 remaining tigers form a border at the edges, but the bulk of the piece is blank and black.\u00a0 The superb use of absence represents what has been lost, since the middle space would hold 40,000 more tigers — the global population of the animal in 1970.<\/p>\n

But Jordan’s most fascinating use of fractal characteristics is found in Gyre<\/em>.\u00a0 OT’s readers were first exposed to the Gyre, or Great Pacific Garbage Patch<\/a>, in a guest post<\/a> last October by Guido Cavalcante<\/a>.\u00a0 RTSea Blog<\/a> describes the GPGP as<\/p>\n

an area in the mid-Pacific where the clockwise circulation of currents slowly works discarded plastics into a central area (about twice the size of Texas!).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is Jordan’s depiction of the phenomenon:<\/p>\n

\"Gyre<\/p>\n

Gyre<\/em> by Chris Jordan<\/p>\n

Riffing on Katsushika Hokusai<\/a>‘s The Great Wave<\/a><\/em> (aka The Breaking Wave Off Kanagawa<\/em>), probably Japan’s most famous woodblock print, Jordan’s re-contextualization shifts the menace away from the original suggestion of a tsunami<\/a>.\u00a0 The danger comes not from the power of the wave itself — but rather from the millions of plastic particles<\/a> contained within it.<\/p>\n

Jordan, in describing how he made the artwork, says that Gyre<\/em><\/p>\n

depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world’s oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From a distance, the millions of self-similar plastic bits<\/a> and debris are impressionistically arranged to mirror Hokusai’s iconic wave.\u00a0 But the most striking fractal dimension of Jordan’s Gyre <\/em>is the ability to zoom into it.\u00a0 First, look at Jordan’s image above and focus on the snow-capped mountain in the background.\u00a0 Now — Zoom!<\/p>\n

\"Detail<\/p>\n

\"More<\/p>\n

\"Even<\/p>\n

\"And<\/p>\n

\"And<\/p>\n

Increasing detail of Gyre<\/em> by Chris Jordan<\/p>\n

In a recent interview<\/a> with Benoit Mandelbrot<\/a> on Big Think<\/a>, the mathematician makes a passing reference to “fractal nightclubs,” which he says he “hasn’t been there” but can “guess what it was.”\u00a0 Here is a portion of the interview.\u00a0 Mandelbrot addresses chaos theory<\/a> and the origin of the word fractal<\/em>, but the reference to fractal nightclubs occurs at about the 6:00 point:<\/p>\n