I read an interesting article by Rhiannon Cosslett in the The Guardian entitled, Art is all about nuance. Let’s not lose it in the alarmist censorship debate (Feb 8, 2018).  In attempting to explain the real source of the controversy behind the removal of a Victorian era painting from display in the Manchester Art Gallery, … Continue reading →

An old, point and click program operating in grayscale can be more creative and artistically profitable to use than a cutting-edge fractal flame renderer like Chaotica or JWildfire. Continue reading →

Not too long ago, before the advent of the Mandelbox and Mandelbulb 3D fractals, there were basically two types of fractals and two types of fractal artists: plain fractals and flame fractals. Flame fractals were a very interesting new development because they had a whole new look. They were light, gaseous and wispy while the … Continue reading →

Executive summary The user does what the machine can’t do and the machine does what the user can’t do and together they make something. Automatism explains how fractal imagery works and mutation explains how a fractal user works but only symbiosis explains how fractal “art” works. Automatism works at the local scale while mutationism works … Continue reading →

This third part is all about everything to do with fractal art that isn’t automatic and machine generated. This is where the medium of fractal based automatism gets mixed with user inspired and guided modifications. These modifications for the most part take the form of photographic backgrounds and overlays Continue reading →

Six months ago… I decided to summarize… and bring to completion… all my thoughts… …about whatever it is my computer hobby is all about. I didn’t even have a good label for it. But nothing helps you think deeper and deeper than trying to write more and more precisely about something. It wasn’t about fractals … Continue reading →

Alright, maybe it’s just me but the image above and just about everything else in the Mogao Caves bears a strong visual resemblance to what I see in fractal programs. What I see in fractal programs:  That might be a new way of defining the term but I believe it’s the most relevant in the … Continue reading →

In my previous series of postings (first, second) on how to separate the art from the fractals, I basically say that the only way to do more with fractals than simply create computer crafts is to focus on producing works of abstract expressionism or landscape/place.  These are the only two existing art genres where fractals … Continue reading →

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 →

I should begin by mentioning I never actually met Paul –offline, that is. But I suspect that describes most of the people he knew, since he was so active in the online world. In fact, I was invited to his wake solely on the basis of being in his email contacts list. Paul led a … Continue reading →

Untitled by Alice Olive   And then you get an artist says he doesn’t want to paint at all He takes an empty canvas and sticks it on the wall –"In the Gallery," Dire Straits I wrote last time about my concerns that most fractal "artists" are more accurately merely technicians using software manipulation to … Continue reading →

It’s useless, and although there have been efforts to build something substantial there, ultimately the page keeps reverting back to a few shallow paragraphs that fail to even offer a basic definition.  I’ve been going there for several years and have always wondered why it never seems to develop into anything, but now I think I’ve figured out what … Continue reading →

It was called the “International Fractal Art Symposium” and was held in San Sebastian, Spain (that’s in Europe) from June 25th to 27th, 2014.  I first heard about it back in December 2013 in a thread on Fractalforums.com, but reined in my instant desire to comment about it because something made me think it was … Continue reading →

Here’s a bunch of images that caught my eye while out prospecting with my virtual mule.  Let’s take a look while I try to psychoanalyze myself and add another chapter in the book, “Art as Rorschach Test”. ~Click on images to view full-size on original site~ Stratographic detail/ Prince of Persia Sands of Time like … Continue reading →

Photographs of Snowflakes by Alexey Kljator   Nothing better reveals the pervasiveness of underlying fractal patterns that lie beyond the scrim of our sensory perceptions than microphotography. The medium digs gold mines for fractal treasure hunters.     We claim to understand that no two snowflakes are alike. We have even calculated the parameter files … Continue reading →

The Creative Device Synthetic art has only one principle to it: the creative device.  As a result, the synthetic aesthetic is not bound to any particular medium but rather is a way of being creative within any medium.  The computerized medium holds the most potential for synthetic art because it allows for much easier creation … Continue reading →

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.  I believe it might be of great benefit to pause and clarify those ideas before moving on to examples of actual artwork that illustrate these trends. Here’s the … Continue reading →

This is another one of those theoretical postings; you might want to skip it and go look at some fresh fractal art instead.  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 form has made fractal art … Continue reading →