{"id":5613,"date":"2016-06-02T20:33:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T00:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5613"},"modified":"2016-06-11T17:50:46","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T21:50:46","slug":"why-cant-fractals-do-what-art-does","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5613","title":{"rendered":"Why can’t fractals do what art does?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years I’ve come to see this as the perennial problem in fractal art. Naturally there are many other perspectives regarding the “art-worthiness” of fractals, among which the most common seems to be that they’re essentially no different than any other medium that artists work with. But this doesn’t explain why the enormous creative powers of fractal formulas hasn’t resulted in enormous amounts of creative art. Fractals ought to be artistic powerhouses but instead they’re merely fractal<\/em> powerhouses.<\/p>\n

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There’s a killer on the road…<\/p><\/div>\n

There seems to be something deceptively enticing about fractals with respect to their artistic potential: they look like they can do almost anything and yet after a couple of decades what has resulted is almost nothing except for works of mere technological interest. There are no great works of fractal art, only a great number of little fascinating things.<\/p>\n

The fractal medium is deceptive. Part of the deception of fractals is that the creative thrill of using a fractal program and zooming through the incredible fractal vistas that it magically generates is lost when we stop the “fractal experience” and try to capture it as a still image. It’s like looking at vacation photos or, for your audience, looking at someone else’s<\/em> vacation photos; they’re just not anything like the real thing, the vacation is missing from the vacation photos. But then a picture taken on a roller coaster isn’t anything like riding that roller coaster and fractals are a graphical roller coaster. To use yet another analogy: fractal art pulled out of its interactive fractal environment is like a fish out of water. We don’t understand the art form and so we don’t understand why it dies when we move it to the art gallery.<\/p>\n

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The other deceptive thing about fractals I’ve come to recognize is that they speak a completely different visual language than most everything else in the art world. Fractals are not just abstract, they’re an almost empty kind of abstraction; full of fractal style and “infinite detail” but lacking anything that the average person can connect with, relate to.\u00a0 Monet’s water lillies are full of feeling although being, just like most examples of impressionism are, semi-abstracted. Fractal programs can create all sorts of freaky things but they just can’t do what simple water lillies do. It sounds ridiculous to say that but that’s what is deceptive about fractals: they contain all the ingredients for an explosion of art but seem to be missing that ridiculous little spark.<\/p>\n

And that would be an artist, right?\u00a0 What about the artist? How about adding the creative talents and direction of a feeling, human mind to the mix? A fractal program is just a tool. An artist will use that software tool to make art just like a photographer uses a camera to make their art.<\/p>\n

Yeah, how come that doesn’t work either?<\/p>\n

One of the biggest surprises of the Ultrafractal phenomenon where the artist was placed right in the middle of the rendering process where they could layer, mask, import, add, substract, multiply, etc… with full artistic control, was that it didn’t make for fractal art that was any better than the old single layer fractal programs. It just allowed everyone to boast about how hard they’d worked to make it. In fact, I came to the conclusion that the more an “artist” was allowed to get their hands on the imagery and alter the simple processing of a fractal program, the more likely they were to degrade the image rather than improve it. Becoming an “Ultrafractalist” allowed everyone to say they were artists and not simple button pushers but the lack of good artwork just emphasized how incredibly defeating the medium was because those “artists” were no better than button pushers when it came to making fractal art. Just look at all the award winning stuff the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contests exhibited: who remembers any of them now that the social effervescence that attracted their audience is gone? Fractals programs were more interesting when they were soulless mechanical things than when they received a human heart from their well intentioned Wizard of Oz artist who was now directing them by hand: manual and mechanical methods don’t mix.<\/p>\n

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There are only two strategies for making art with fractals. What I mean is there are only two areas of fractal graphics that overlap with areas in the world of art. Maybe there are more, but I’ve noticed only two after my brief fifteen years with the medium. There are only two artistic genres that fractals have any natural talent to function in and that’s Abstract Expressionism and Landscape. Outside of those two themes fractal programs are just an amusement park to stroll around in.<\/p>\n

And I’ll tell you, I love to go on those fractal roller coasters more than anyone. I just don’t expect any art to come from them anymore, just vacation photos: warm memories of the past that no one understands but me.<\/p>\n

Stay tuned.\u00a0 Part II won’t be quite as grumpy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years I’ve come to see this as the perennial problem in fractal art. Naturally there are many other perspectives regarding the “art-worthiness” of fractals, among which the most common seems to be that they’re essentially no different than any other medium that artists work with. But this doesn’t explain why the enormous creative … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5613","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\/2016\/06\/freak07.jpg?fit=500%2C375","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3009,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3009","url_meta":{"origin":5613,"position":0},"title":"Fractals: A New Medium","author":"Tim","date":"22 September, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I think I've found a better way to explain what makes fractal art so different than other art forms.\u00a0 The differences are there simply because fractals themselves are a different medium to work with.\u00a0 Fractals are different than paint and canvas or chisel and stone. In fact, fractals are probably\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3009#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Zon9.jpg?fit=500%2C500&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5485,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5485","url_meta":{"origin":5613,"position":1},"title":"Let’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":5672,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5672","url_meta":{"origin":5613,"position":2},"title":"Everything you need to know about Fractals and Art in one blog post","author":"Tim","date":"11 August, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Fractals are many things to many people but as an art form they're really very simple:\u00a0 Fractals are a visual medium. Do not be fooled by such simple language and such a simple statement,\u00a0 \"medium\" is the thin edge of the wedge that splits fractal art apart and reveals all\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"322px-Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/322px-Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2843,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2843","url_meta":{"origin":5613,"position":3},"title":"Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 2","author":"Tim","date":"1 August, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"What fractals are good for, or,\u00a0the creative use of fractal algorithms. Fractal art needs a reboot, a re-thinking of what it's all about.\u00a0 The optimistic forecasts from the early days of fractal art, the coming fame and pubic recognition, needs to be corrected and downgraded in light of what has\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2843#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4633,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=4633","url_meta":{"origin":5613,"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. A quaint anecdote I came to this realization in a rather unexpected way: through rediscovering the joy of fractal artistry.\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\/03\/fracto01.jpg?fit=494%2C599&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5625,"url":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=5625","url_meta":{"origin":5613,"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\/5613","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=5613"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5622,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions\/5622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}