{"id":1538,"date":"2010-09-08T15:40:45","date_gmt":"2010-09-08T19:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1538"},"modified":"2010-09-08T15:53:35","modified_gmt":"2010-09-08T19:53:35","slug":"the-jumping-spiders-of-oklahoma-and-elsewhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1538","title":{"rendered":"The Jumping Spiders of Oklahoma, and elsewhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is DNA an algorithm?\u00a0 Can its renderings be presented as Algorithmic Art?\u00a0 Will they jump down off the wall and attack the well-dressed gallery patrons?<\/p>\n

Consider the humble jumping spiders of Oklahoma:<\/p>\n

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Jumping Spiders of Oklahoma composite from the work of Thomas Shahan on Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

As always, click on any image to view it on the original web site or in full-size.<\/p>\n

It’s easy to define (and limit) fractal art to the renderings of fractal formulas, but then that also focuses our attention and our consideration on just that kind of imagery.\u00a0 That makes a lot of sense at first because really, aren’t insects and weird microscopic creatures a completely different sort of visual thing than computer rendered fractal formulas?<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we raise no objection to the inclusion of the complex creations of layering and other graphical manipulations when they’re labeled as fractal art even when their (assumed) fractal formula qualities are hard to recognize.\u00a0 (Well, they at least started out as fractals.)\u00a0 Perhaps the boundaries of any genre start to look arbitrary and fuzzy when we try to defend them.\u00a0 Maybe visual imagery is more about what it looks like than how it was made?\u00a0 In that case:\u00a0 what does “fractal” mean?<\/p>\n

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After attending every live concert ever given, this Grateful Dead fan was spontaneously transformed into a hairy spider and now waits patiently on a tree leaf for the End of the World.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Aztec Flying City by arias on Fractalforums.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Yes, arias combined the products of several formulas to create this very natural and stylish image.\u00a0 This is a masterpiece of layering, and not the usual monstrosity that often results.\u00a0 Check out the high resolution version<\/a> (6000 x 2326 pixels) and you can marvel at the rich detail in this well composed image.\u00a0 Note especially the mandelbox details near the middle edge on the right.<\/p>\n

Arias is Bernard Bittler, has a professional art background<\/a> and I believe lives in France.\u00a0 I’m sure he’ll be making many more 3D fractal images because he’s obviously very good at it.<\/p>\n

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Cube Guardian by bib (Jermie Brunet)<\/p><\/div>\n

This one is also even more impressive viewed full-size.\u00a0 I like the subtle, blue-gray coloring and of course the velvety texture of the “clock faces” or “drums”\u00a0 that are silent and yet ever-watching this tiny mandelbox neighborhood.\u00a0 I might have titled this one “fungus clocks”.\u00a0 It looks very natural and is proliferating with the growth of these round clock faces that to me resemble the smooth velvety surfaces of some tree funguses<\/a>.\u00a0 The fine detail to the left and right of the main Cube Guardian is a great presentation of the endless recursion of fractals.<\/p>\n

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Fractal forest by Power 8<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s hard to put my finger on exactly what I find so captivating about this image.\u00a0 There’s some surreal mood to this image and the title, Fractal Forest, is a good one as it really has the look of a strange, but forested, place.\u00a0 The red-green coloring is very creative and works well despite being so unusual and unnatural for such a suggested “forest” scene.\u00a0 You’d never guess this was a mandelbox (and I’m guessing) but it just shows how powerfully creative fractal art can be when you’re ready for the unexpected.\u00a0 There’s a old, oil painting, Renaissance feeling lurking around down there.<\/p>\n

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Caves by Prokofiev<\/p><\/div>\n

This image I found in a thread on Fractalforums.com discussing the “Hausdorff dimension of the Mandelbulb”<\/em>.\u00a0 I have to confess that although Fractalforums is an extremely rich environment for the discussion of all sorts of concepts and technical matters related to fractals and their rendering, all I mostly do is look at the pictures.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this image was not intended by Prokofiev (a screen name, I assume) to be a powerful work of fractal art but rather merely to function as an illustration of some concept or technical issue?\u00a0 Well, in that case it succeeds at both.\u00a0 I’d like to title it, “Unzipping Infinity”.\u00a0 Art doesn’t have to be lavish and complicated, it just has to push a few buttons in your mind.<\/p>\n

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Method by Far<\/p><\/div>\n

A cellular automata triptych (three panel) made in Ultra Fractal.\u00a0 Although cellular automata aren’t anything overly complicated to render, I didn’t know UF could render CA images.\u00a0 I like the triptych style; it suggests something carefully made and designed to be set over top of an altar —sacred renderings<\/em>.\u00a0 Click on the image to see the cosmic details as well as things that cannot be explained.<\/p>\n

CA have some interesting fractal and not so fractal qualities to them.\u00a0 For one, there’s always a large scale structure to the image as well as a myriad of small, tiny scale structures.\u00a0 This gives CA both a macro as well as micro appeal.\u00a0 CA are the busy ants of the fractal (or something) world and this set by Far is a reminder that the creative possibilities are far from over for them (no pun intended).<\/p>\n

Time for a movie.\u00a0 Here’s an excellent fly over of a special area of a mandelbox that Kraftwerk (aka Mandelwerk on DA, aka Johan Ason) has been exploring recently.\u00a0 This fly over is particularly well done and much more engaging than most I see because there is a specific subject or point of interest in it, that being the “Cheops” collection of structures which are also particularly interesting as still images in their own right.\u00a0 Much more of “Cheops-ville” can be seen at Mandelwerk’s Deviant Art<\/a> site (aka Kraftwerk).<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is DNA an algorithm?\u00a0 Can its renderings be presented as Algorithmic Art?\u00a0 Will they jump down off the wall and attack the well-dressed gallery patrons? Consider the humble jumping spiders of Oklahoma: As always, click on any image to view it on the original web site or in full-size. It’s easy to define (and limit) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/jumping-spiders-of-Oklahoma.png?fit=474%2C786","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1210,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1210","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":0},"title":"A Knighthood for Knighty","author":"Tim","date":"25 May, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A review of the new Kaleidoscope (escape-time) IFS fractals posted to Fractalforums.com by the user Knighty. Superb coloring and seemingly endless variations of this formula make Knighty's work well worth looking at as well as an inspiration to others like Subblue, some of whose work is also included.","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1210#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/sequence.jpg?fit=500%2C750&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1962,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1962","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":1},"title":"ASCII: Wild Fractal Typewriter","author":"Tim","date":"24 November, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A new fractal program (alpha version) yFractalExplorer. It's real-time rendering abilities include displaying the image as color ascii art. A couple other examples of animated fractal ascii art which begs the question: \"Is fractal land ripe for an ascii art revival?\" Of course not, but it's still cool to look\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=1962#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":362,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=362","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":2},"title":"Fractal Woodburning","author":"Tim","date":"28 January, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not making this up.\u00a0 I went surfing about to see what I could find in the fractal world and lo and behold at Flickr, a couple of pages into a search on the term \"fractal\", I saw wires, boards and strange, curly burn patterns.photo by AetherPhoto caption from Aether's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":248,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=248","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":3},"title":"Spider Writing","author":"Tim","date":"10 November, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Block-waving is all about lines. If there's no lines, then you just end up with a pile of block-waved mush.I was looking through an old book on my computer. It was a series of scanned, tiff images. I noticed the fine lines in the black and white engravings and instantly\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4633,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=4633","url_meta":{"origin":1538,"position":4},"title":"Fractal Artists are Deluded Narcissists","author":"Tim","date":"26 March, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"First, let me explain.\u00a0 I make such a bold statement not because I hate fractals (or fractal artists) but because I love fractals and include myself among the hopelessly deluded. 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