{"id":409,"date":"2009-09-11T09:04:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T13:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=409"},"modified":"2009-09-11T09:04:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-11T13:04:00","slug":"fractal-art-without-a-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=409","title":{"rendered":"Fractal Art Without a Computer?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xhtml'>\n<div align='center'><font face='sans-serif'><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ambaka.com\/blog\/25\/howitzerhead2.png?w=545\"\/><br \/>Could this work be described as &#8230;<i>Fractal<\/i>?<br \/><a href='http:\/\/kuksi.com\/artworks\/sculpture\/'>Admiral Otto Von Howitzerhead<\/a> by <a href='http:\/\/kuksi.com\/'>Kris Kuksi<\/a> 2009<br \/><\/font><\/div>\n<p><font face='sans-serif'><br \/>Samuel Monnier, writing at <i><a href='http:\/\/www.algorithmic-worlds.net\/index.php'>Algorithmic Worlds<\/a><\/i>, his new website &#8211; gallery &#8211; and blog, said some very interesting things about the fractal nature of sculptures done by <a href='http:\/\/www.algorithmic-worlds.net\/blog\/blog.php?Post=20090729'>Kris Kuksi<\/a>.\u00a0 Sam said that Kris Kuksi&#8217;s scuptures &#8220;are very interesting examples of non computer-generated art with fractal characteristics (namely displaying structures on a wide scale range).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a more recent blog posting, <i><a href='http:\/\/algorithmic-worlds.net\/blog\/blog.php?Post=20090831'>Fractals In Traditional Art<\/a><\/i>, Sam goes into more detail why the term &#8220;Fractal&#8221; could be used in this context of non-digital art:<br \/><\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><font face='sans-serif'>The artist pushed the physical limits of the medium to display details as small as possible. You generally do not expect sculptures to have submilimetric features, Kuksi&#8217;s sculptures do.<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font face='sans-serif'>The details have as much artistic importance as the global structure of the work. On his deviantart page, Kuksi displays several photographs of each work, to exhibit details invisible on the global view.<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font face='sans-serif'>Self-similarity is present, through characters and objects of various sizes.<\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><font face='sans-serif'><br \/><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font face='sans-serif'>Sam&#8217;s posting is cautious and doesn&#8217;t make broad speculative statements like I do.\u00a0 He says &#8220;I think these three pragmatic criterions give a starting point to determine the fractal character of a work.&#8221;\u00a0 Note the word, &#8220;pragmatic&#8221;.\u00a0 It means practical, hands-on, useful for getting something done.\u00a0 Sam is talking about determining the &#8220;fractal character of a work&#8221; by looking at it and not by the way it was made.\u00a0 That&#8217;s an obvious conclusion, isn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 Kris Kuksi&#8217;s work only <i>looks<\/i> fractal; it&#8217;s a hand-made sculpture, it wasn&#8217;t made with a fractal program.\u00a0 He also says it&#8217;s a &#8220;starting point&#8221;.\u00a0 Even so, I think I can see the finish line from here.<\/p>\n<p>This is something very new and very dangerous.\u00a0 I see it as something like the Copernican Revolution for Fractal Art.\u00a0 Copernicus showed that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around.\u00a0 Until his time people intuitively assumed that the rising and setting Sun was moving around the Earth <i>&#8211;rising and setting<\/i>.\u00a0 Copernicus changed their minds (not everyone right away, mind you) by showing them evidence that the Sun&#8217;s <i>apparent<\/i> movement was actually the result of the Earth&#8217;s <i>actual<\/i> movement.\u00a0 He presented people with evidence that convinced them to see their world in a different context: a Sun-centered context instead of the old Earth-centered context.<\/p>\n<p>I think this could be the beginning in what could become the complete unraveling of fractal art as a genre.\u00a0 After this we will all see fractal art from a Visual Context instead of a Software Context.\u00a0 We will see that Fractal Art revolves around visual appearance and not around the software that made it.\u00a0 Fractal Art will be defined by visual criteria and not by its association (whether it&#8217;s noticeable or not) with fractal software.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>If a piece of art can have fractal characteristics derived from something other than a fractal formula, then there&#8217;s really no difference between an image made in a fractal program and one made in a plain old graphics program as long as they both have a similar, <i>fractal style<\/i>.\u00a0 Furthermore, fractal art is then really nothing more than this <i>fractal style<\/i> which is, of course, easiest to produce with a fractal program but could also include any kind of image <i>resembling<\/i> the output of such fractal programs.\u00a0 Fractal art is a fractal <i>look<\/i> and doesn&#8217;t have to be something rendered from computing a fractal algorithm.\u00a0 There can be examples of <i>fractal imagery<\/i> made in a <i>non-fractal <\/i>program and similarly, examples of <\/font><font face='sans-serif'><i>non-fractal imagery<\/i> made in a <i>fractal<\/i> program.<\/font><br \/><font face='sans-serif'><br \/>In fact, Samuel Monnier&#8217;s pattern piling (see his <a href='http:\/\/www.algorithmic-worlds.net\/expo\/expo.php'>Portfolio<\/a> on <i>Algorithmic Worlds<\/i>) is an example of why we should adopt this more visual definition of fractal art than hold onto the traditional, software definition, because his artwork is, in my opinion, as fractal as any two-dimensional image will ever be and (visually) indistinguishable.\u00a0 In fact, if you don&#8217;t adopt the visual definition of fractal art then I guess you have to exclude the kind of work that Sam is making.\u00a0 Even though it is made with Ultra Fractal, it&#8217;s not really the usual Ultra Fractal <i>fractal<\/i> output. Sam has used Ultra Fractal&#8217;s programing features to create work that uses non-fractal algorithms and is therefore, by the usual criteria, non-fractal &#8211;unless one makes that decision on the basis of<i> visual criteria<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Just for illustration purposes, a quick glance over the winners of either years of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contests will show you how overly simplistic and possibly meaningless is the term, fractal art in its current form.\u00a0 What do <a href='http:\/\/www.fractalartcontests.com\/2007\/winners.php'>these images<\/a>, all chosen as winners in a <i>fractal art<\/i> contest have in common? and how easily would one distinguish them from artwork in other abstract, algorithmic, or simply digital (eg. made in Photoshop) categories?\u00a0 The rendering methods that are used to produce &#8220;fractal&#8221; images contribute enormously to the final result and artists can easily start to focus on aspects of an image that are largely created by the rendering algorithm and not the fractal formula without realizing it, and thereby create work which is better called &#8220;render-ism&#8221; than fractal.\u00a0 Add layering to the process and the ultimate result can be something quite interesting, but also quite <i>non<\/i>-fractal.<\/p>\n<p>Fractal formulas produce a style of imagery, but that style is not exclusive to fractal software.\u00a0 But if we are to include as fractal art, images that portray the fractal style but lack a traditional fractal &#8220;pedigree&#8221;, then shouldn&#8217;t we also question the presence of fractal art images that  have a genuine fractal &#8220;pedigree&#8221; but lack that clearly defined fractal style and even perhaps exclude them?\u00a0 Will fractal art survive such a revision, including it&#8217;s neighbors as part of the family because they <i>look<\/i> like them and abandoning some of it&#8217;s own children because they, by the same criteria, <i>don&#8217;t<\/i> look like them?\u00a0 That&#8217;s why I think it&#8217;s not such a crazy thing to say that fractal art, as a strict and simple category, doesn&#8217;t really exist, and probably will become much less distinct in the future, if in fact it doesn&#8217;t simply merge with algorithmic art or with the larger, and more general, digital art category.<\/p>\n<p>It could happen because fractal artists will see themselves and their work in more general terms and not identify or associate as strongly with the label fractal art as they will digital art or algorithmic art.\u00a0 And why will they see themselves that way?\u00a0 Because they&#8217;ll look at their artwork from a different perspective and describe it in visual terms like &#8220;I make abstract, decorative type work with multiple layers using things like fractals, masking and other graphical effects&#8221;.\u00a0 I think that currently describes ninety-percent of all fractal artists.\u00a0 They&#8217;ve been revolving around a specific artistic style for centuries (I mean, years) and not around fractals or anything unique to the software they&#8217;ve been using.\u00a0 But like the Earth-centered people in Copernicus&#8217; time, it makes sense to them, it seems natural to them to think that way.\u00a0 They see the Sun revolving around them and not vice versa.\u00a0 But a closer look at fractal art &#8211;and fractal<i>-like<\/i> art&#8211; I think reveals those beliefs to be superficial and merely a matter of habit and convention.<\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8217;s what Samuel Monnier in his observation of Kris Kuksi&#8217;s work has discovered, although he hasn&#8217;t come (jumped?) to the same conclusions as I have.\u00a0 If we judge fractal art by it&#8217;s visual characteristics, then the genre will be extended to include work previously considered non-fractal because of the non-fractal process by which it was made; but the genre will also shrink to exclude works which were previously considered 100% fractal by virtue of the &#8220;fractal&#8221; software used to create it <i>&#8211;because it doesn&#8217;t display any fractal characteristics<\/i>.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><span class='technoratitag'>Technorati Tags: <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Fractal' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Fractal'>Fractal<\/a> &#8211; <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Fractal+Art' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Fractal Art'>Fractal Art<\/a> &#8211; <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Samuel+Monnier' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Samuel Monnier'>Samuel Monnier<\/a> &#8211; <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Algorithmic+Worlds' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Algorithmic Worlds'>Algorithmic Worlds<\/a> &#8211; <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Kris+Kuksi' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Kris Kuksi'>Kris Kuksi<\/a> &#8211; <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Digital+Art' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Digital Art'>Digital Art<\/a> &#8211; <a href='http:\/\/www.technorati.com\/tag\/Art+Genres' target='_top' rel='tag' title='Technorati tag: Art Genres'>Art Genres<\/a> &#8211;  <\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Could this work be described as &#8230;Fractal?Admiral Otto Von Howitzerhead by Kris Kuksi 2009 Samuel Monnier, writing at Algorithmic Worlds, his new website &#8211; gallery &#8211; and blog, said some very interesting things about the fractal nature of sculptures done by Kris Kuksi.\u00a0 Sam said that Kris Kuksi&#8217;s scuptures &#8220;are very interesting examples of non &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=409\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5075,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5075","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":0},"title":"The Synthetic Aesthetic &#8211; Part 1","author":"Tim","date":"22 August, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another one of those theoretical postings; you might want to skip it and go look at some fresh fractal art instead.\u00a0 But if you're still interested, in this posting I intend to examine what fractal art has come to be and show that this evolution of the art\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/jhl16.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5485,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5485","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":1},"title":"Let&#8217;s face it:  Fractal Art really is a Computer Science Club","author":"Tim","date":"17 September, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Fractal art got the boot a long time ago... Let me start with an interesting quote from the (archived) Wikipedia talk page: This article should probably be merged with fractal.\u2014Eloquence 17:12, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC) It's the very first comment on Fractal Art's Wikipedia page.\u00a0 I love the irony of\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5485#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/one.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5154,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5154","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":2},"title":"The Synthetic Aesthetic 2:  The Re-Introduction","author":"Tim","date":"29 August, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In the first part of this series, I introduced a few new ideas which have a central part to play in my concept of the Synthetic Aesthetic.\u00a0 I believe it might be of great benefit to pause and clarify those ideas before moving on to examples of actual artwork that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":376,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=376","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":3},"title":"Is Ultra Fractal Really a Fractal Program or Is It a Bold New Spaceship By Which To Explore the Algorithmic Heavens?","author":"Tim","date":"22 March, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Consider this:And about these continuous and pointless attacks against Ultra Fractal, maybe you should just start displaying some fractal images that obviously cannot be realized in Ultra Fractal. I haven't seen any on your blog so far. The ease with which it is possible to implement ideas into algorithms and\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=376#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2875,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2875","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":4},"title":"Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 5","author":"Tim","date":"15 August, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The future of fractal art Well, bluntly stated, there is no future in fractal art.\u00a0 At least not in the kind of fractal art that most artists are making today.\u00a0 That's the stuff I called Parameter Art in my last posting, Part 4.\u00a0 What we've all seen is what we're\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2875#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":418,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=418","url_meta":{"origin":409,"position":5},"title":"Sheets in the Wind and Rings of Gold: The Ultra Fractal Style","author":"Tim","date":"2 October, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Whether you're a fractal artist or simply just a fan of fractal art, you're bound to eventually notice similarities in style and develop preferences for this kind of art or that kind of art. Fractal art is still what I would consider to be something of a niche art form,\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\/409","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=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}