{"id":372,"date":"2009-02-26T00:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T04:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=372"},"modified":"2009-02-26T00:37:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T04:37:00","slug":"tims-guide-to-the-fractal-community-a-response-to-sherlock-fractal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=372","title":{"rendered":"Tim’s Guide to the Fractal Community: a Response to Sherlock Fractal"},"content":{"rendered":"
Terry, much of your discussion revolves around the notion and concept of a fractal art community.\u00a0 I need to address this first because I believe that will clarify this discussion immensely because this community thing complicates everything else.<\/p>\n

There is no fractal art community.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

There is no fractal art community; not in either a formal or practical sense.\u00a0 What might, in the minds of some, pass for a fractal community is in my analysis nothing more than a few groups of like-minded people gathered around:
1) Ultra Fractal software;
2) Fractal Universe Calendar;
3) Various networks of friends at the online art portals, Renderosity and Deviant Art (i.e. “Fractalbook”)
4) Two dormant, but still plugged-in, web-rings
5) The occasional, courageous person who starts up a new fractal forum<\/p>\n

Everyone else left over who has an association with fractal art belongs to primarily:
1) a few individual programmers (some active, some retired)
2) about a hundred individual artists (personal websites, web-ring members)<\/p>\n

The fractal art world is a very small and fragmented bunch of people and programs.\u00a0 I don’t think that’s a “community”.\u00a0 The few clusters that I’ve mentioned have given very little shape or direction to what is called “fractal art”, a genre, or much larger entitiy, which I would say exists merely as a descriptive label (art made with fractals).\u00a0 What these groups are doing through their association is developing one or two very casually defined styles by pursuing what interests them and looking at what each other is doing.\u00a0 If they appear to be rejecting photoshop filtering transformations or artwork which expresses themes from real life or socio-political ideas, I think it’s largely because:
1) It doesn’t interest them
2) It’s hard to do with fractal imagery, post-processed or not<\/p>\n

Maybe in the past, in the old days when fractal programming was developing and people used newsgroups to communicate, there may have been something resembling a community that had an identifiable identity and coherent standards, but that was before my time, and currently I don’t see anything like that.<\/p>\n

I think fractal art of any style or school of thought will be evaluated by it’s audience<\/i> in the same way that any other type of art is judged: composition; expression; color; style; overall impression; message — the sort of things you’re advocating.\u00a0 Fractal artists may have a unique perspective on their art but I don’t think their audience will.\u00a0 Boring art is a self-limiting disease, whereas exciting new styles attract attention and recruit new followers and more growth.<\/p>\n

You talked about getting rid of the idea that fractal art is this or fractal art is that — the “this” or “that”.\u00a0 I think that is happening, but the result is that fractal art is evolving into a number of unrelated styles — all fractal art, that is, art with fractals — but only nominally related; a rather weak association.<\/p>\n

There is a distinct Ultra Fractal style (although not all Ultra Fractal artists exhibit it) that incorporates layering techniques and is best seen in the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest selections.<\/p>\n

I prefer a more classical style that depends on the algorithms for effect and is primarily made in single layer programs but can benefit from some graphical effects which enhance the algorithmic imagery.\u00a0 I am also somewhat of a lazy artist too.<\/p>\n

What you do Terry, is yet another style of fractal art that expresses themes and ideas in the way that traditional artwork made by hand does.<\/p>\n

I think fractal art as a genre is becoming as meaningless a label as say, silkscreen art is.\u00a0 Andy Warhol did a lot of work using silk-screening, but that doesn’t mean him and people who make t-shirts with animal cartoons on them have very much in common as artists.\u00a0 “Fractal” describes what we all do less and less and is becoming more of a trivial connection than a core attribute.\u00a0 A disintegrating community, if there is, in fact, one at all.<\/p>\n

I think fractal art is not<\/i> and can not<\/i> be defined by any one person or group, but rather is defined<\/i> by the artwork that is actually being made and exhibited; and that artwork, and the people who make it, I believe are diverging and fragmenting, not converging or solidifying.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Terry, much of your discussion revolves around the notion and concept of a fractal art community.\u00a0 I need to address this first because I believe that will clarify this discussion immensely because this community thing complicates everything else. There is no fractal art community. There is no fractal art community; not in either a formal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":327,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=327","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":0},"title":"Ultra Fractal 5 and a New Paradigm of Fractal Art","author":"cruelanimal","date":"5 July, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought I'd try writing a post, in a straight-forward and non-sarcastic manner, that tries to clarify my concerns about Ultra Fractal 5. Here goes.I believe UF5 has brought fractal art to a critical crossroads. UF5 will almost certainly kick-start a paradigm shift as to how fractal art is seen\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=327#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/jockitems___1146507568.jpg?fit=325%2C316&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":343,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=343","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":1},"title":"Guerrilla Fractals?","author":"cruelanimal","date":"6 September, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=343#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bee Pole by The Jafagirls","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/BeePole_Jafagirls.jpg?fit=475%2C632&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":202,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=202","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":2},"title":"Has Ultra Fractal become the Walmart of fractal art?","author":"Tim","date":"4 July, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"So radically innovative are Ultra Fractal's capabilities that they have literally redefined fractal art since the program's debut.\"(From Ultrafractal.com)It's complicated. Believe me, it took me a few years to come to such a radical and harsh conclusion. I mean, what could be bad about a program that has been used\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 16 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 16 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=202#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":435,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=435","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":3},"title":"A History of the Orbit Trap Blog","author":"Tim","date":"4 November, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"All about the first year of the Orbit Trap fractal art blog. Candid, behind the scenes commentary never before published. 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Until all men can stand up for what they believe in, THE SAME DAMN THING CAN HAPPEN TO ANY ONE OF YOU!\" - Sheriff Buford Pusser, 1977, Walking Tall: Final Chapter Okay, I think\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=468#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ambaka.com\/blog\/26\/talking1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":398,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=398","url_meta":{"origin":372,"position":5},"title":"Is The Name Of Our Hero Benoit Mandelbrot Being Used To Market Ultra Fractal?","author":"Tim","date":"10 August, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been more than three years now since the original Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest made it's debut.\u00a0 For those of you who haven't been following these things, we've criticized the Contest over a number of things but primarily for the reason that the contest favors art work made with\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}