{"id":541,"date":"2009-12-04T13:44:59","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T18:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=541"},"modified":"2009-12-04T13:44:59","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T18:44:59","slug":"presenting-fractal-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=541","title":{"rendered":"Presenting… Fractal “Art”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think the recent image by Guido Cavalcante, made in Ultra Fractal and used in a posting<\/a> to illustrate the oceanic garbage dump phenomenon, is a good example of the contrast between art and craft, two concepts which I discussed in a recent post<\/a>.\u00a0 In a nutshell, I defined art as expressive imagery and craft as ornamental, decorative imagery.\u00a0 These differing functions set art and craft apart from each other: art functions as a thought-provoker and craft functions as a table cloth.\u00a0 Sorry, I’m being harsh.\u00a0 Craft is visual beauty; pleasing to the eye and exhibiting the visual novelty of the medium that it’s made from –silent and elegant.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Garbage Path by Guido Cavalcante <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Guido’s image is an excellent, text-book example because, with all due respect to Guido, it has no real value as craft.\u00a0 By this I mean that the image as a decoration is not very appealing.\u00a0 In fact, the image is actually rather ugly and revolting.\u00a0 No one would want this as their desktop wallpaper or printed on a coffee cup.\u00a0 Anyone sending this out as greeting cards to their friends and family would have to be an environmental activist intent on awakening their social circle to this oceanic waste disposal problem.\u00a0 Your Mom won’t be displaying a card like this in the living room if you send her one.<\/p>\n

Your Mom might, however, when discussing what her children are doing, or when discussing environmental issues, bring out the card to show you what her son has told her about garbage in the oceans and how he’s using his artistic skills to impress the issue in the minds of others.\u00a0 Notice the context that the image might be used in:\u00a0 it’s always associated with the topic of oceanic garbage and never as a pretty picture.<\/p>\n

Now, the image could have been something visually attractive and ornate and then might have been something displayed on a coffee table in the living room (art doesn’t have to be ugly) but the effect that such a prettier image would have as an expression of\u00a0 this environmental problem would likely have been much less.\u00a0 The focus of art is on expression and not decorative appearance.\u00a0 Of course, if the artwork deals with a different idea or concept other than the contamination of nature, then it may be something that could be appreciated for it’s visual beauty or style as well as whatever expressiveness it might have.\u00a0 Some works of art just look nice up on the wall and add to the decor of a room in your house.\u00a0 Here’s one:<\/p>\n

\"Villa

Villa by the Sea by Arnold Bocklin<\/p><\/div>\n

Bocklin’s image has some nice natural scenery in it and illustrates (no pun intended) the huge amount of skill and craftsmanship that an artist needs before they can even begin to create art with such realistic subject matter.\u00a0 The painting medium is hard work and in addition to all that effort Bocklin has added his own dreamlike vision with surrealist elements (eg. note the size of the waves and yet she and the area around her is dry and strangely peaceful and remote).\u00a0 I’ll bet most people looking at this image have all sorts of thoughts moving through their head.\u00a0 Thoughts they wouldn’t have if Bocklin had merely painted a nice natural scene by the sea.\u00a0 That would have been nice too, but it wouldn’t have had the mental engagement that makes the actual painting a work of art rather than a work of craft.<\/p>\n

It’s the same with Guido’s The Garbage Path; what impresses us with that image is the haunting view of garbage out in the middle of nowhere which appears to be silently approaching.\u00a0 I’ll bet the impression most people get from looking at Guido’s image is exactly the same as that of the sailor that Guido quotes in his posting who unexpectantly discovered this garbage dump for real by sailing into it.\u00a0 What is the refuse of cities doing way out in the clear, clean ocean?\u00a0 This is worse than the imagery of cities buried in garbage from the Disney movie, Wall-e<\/a>.\u00a0 What’s so sinister about the subject of Guido’s image is that garbage doesn’t belong there, our world is no longer what we think it is, and that the oceans have become a toilet that can’t be flushed.\u00a0 Guido’s image does all that.<\/p>\n

And that, dear readers, is the difference between fractal art and fractal craft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think the recent image by Guido Cavalcante, made in Ultra Fractal and used in a posting to illustrate the oceanic garbage dump phenomenon, is a good example of the contrast between art and craft, two concepts which I discussed in a recent post.\u00a0 In a nutshell, I defined art as expressive imagery and craft … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542,"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-541","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\/2009\/12\/bocklin.jpg?fit=600%2C417","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":422,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=422","url_meta":{"origin":541,"position":0},"title":"Sailing into the Horror","author":"cruelanimal","date":"26 October, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Garbage Path by Guido Cavalcante [Click on the image above to see a large-scale version.] Editor's Note: This is a guest posting by Guido Cavalcante. His image was made using Ultra Fractal. Excerpts in this post were taken from \"Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic...Are We?\" by Susan Casey.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"The Garbage Path by Guido Cavalcante","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/TheGarbagePath_GuidoCavalcante_sm.jpg?fit=450%2C243&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=494","url_meta":{"origin":541,"position":1},"title":"Art, Craft and Fractals: Part 2","author":"Tim","date":"23 November, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I got a couple of comments to my previous post, Art, Craft and Fractals, which raised an issue which I think needs to be clarified.\u00a0 The term, Craft, is used in many ways and most of them are probably derogatory in the context of art.\u00a0 But it's not my intention\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=494#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":688,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=688","url_meta":{"origin":541,"position":2},"title":"Selected Shorts","author":"cruelanimal","date":"10 January, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"[Photograph seen on Manshion.] Here are some selected shorts. Apparently, I have no grand vision to impart to start the New Year. ~\/~ Orbit Trap has published several recent posts exploring the nature of fractal art, and Tim explicated an image by Guido Cavalcante and analyzed its artistic expression.\u00a0 In\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"The Google Search Engine by Garth Thornton","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/TheGoogleSearchEngine_sm.jpg?fit=450%2C360&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":546,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=546","url_meta":{"origin":541,"position":3},"title":"More Phase Two Thinking about Fractal Art","author":"cruelanimal","date":"6 December, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Art and photograph by adak'76 Repeat viewings of the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest winners consistently leave a bitter aftertaste. I'm convinced, especially after reading Tim's latest OT series on the distinctions between art and craft, that very little of what BMFAC will exhibit next year merits being called\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=546#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fractal Thong","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/FractalThong.jpg?fit=450%2C450&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":490,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=490","url_meta":{"origin":541,"position":4},"title":"Art, Craft and Fractals","author":"Tim","date":"20 November, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Art is a term that is used very loosely these days.\u00a0 I happen to think that this casual application of the label, \"art\" to everything graphical has produced some confusion in the digital art world and obscured what has traditionally been known as Fine Art, submerging it beneath a flood\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=490#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5625,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5625","url_meta":{"origin":541,"position":5},"title":"Place: Where Art and Fractals Overlap","author":"Tim","date":"23 June, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"As I concluded in my previous posting, there are only two art genres which fractals are capable of contributing to: Abstract Expressionism and Landscape\/Place. Everything else created with the fractal medium is what I would call snapshots: interesting, even fascinating imagery but lacking in expressiveness or the portrayal of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pollock.number-8.jpg?fit=1058%2C850&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541","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=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}