Author: cruelanimal

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…

Oxford Tire Pile 9b by Edward Burtynsky [Click on images to see higher resolution renditions.]   Shut up and play your guitar. —Frank Zappa Seriously. I mean it. Calling yourself a "fractal artist" could be…

Snow Art by Simon Beck [Click to view images at higher resolution.]   The artwork improves the mountains. And the mountains improve the artwork. –Simon Beck I wrote last time about the ways snowflakes are…

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…

Shoes by Barry Rosenthal [Click to view images at higher resolution on source sites.]   Trash has given us an appetite for art. —Pauline Kael Today’s post is a quasi-photoblog entry that knocks together two…

Two Prints: Geisha Remix (2012, Left) and Cleopatra Worries Remix (2012, Right).   I’ve written before about making prints. I don’t want to rehash what I said previously. However, my thinking has "evolved" a bit…

Earthscapes. United States Postal Service (2012) [Click on images to view at higher resolution.]   The last of three posts about postage. You can skip the short context-setting intro section if you’ve already DVRed this…

Earthscapes. United States Postal Service (2012) [Click on images to view at higher resolution.]   The second of three posts about postage. You can skip the short context-setting intro section if you’ve already DVRed this…

Earthscapes. United States Postal Service (2012) [Click on images to view at higher resolution.]   This is the first of three posts about postage. The U. S. Postal Service, as part of National Stamp Month,…

I created. I uploaded. I published. [Image seen here.]   The so-called "little magazine," or more generic mainstream literary/art journal, has long been a tried-and-true avenue for artists and writers to distribute their work while…

A Shocking Fractal   I have previously written about both fractal fields of lighting and about shocking flowers, but here is an experiment that merges the two topics. A Pratt Institute student, Melanie Hoff, attached…

Mosquito eyes. Microscopy courtesy of Oliver Meckes.   I first wrote about microscopy on OT back in September of 2009 when discussing Luke Jerram‘s glass sculptures. I said then that microscopy "frequently reveals fractal characteristics…

Welcome back, readers, once again to the home edition of the Fractalbook Network’s much idolized game show: Name! That! Comment! Tonight, due to the panic of sweeps week and the fear of ratings slippage, we’ve…

Death from Above [Click on images to view at higher resolution on source sites.]   "New aesthetic" visionary James Bridle‘s latest project is Dronestagram –an Instagram feed that posts satellite images tied to U.S. drone…

  Such perfect fractal clouds are too perfect to be real. Photograph by Rüdiger Nehmzow [Click on images to view at higher resolution on source sites.]   I wrote recently about Google opening their data…

Hurricane Sandy’s Fractalscape Renders   But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: —T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" A pervasive side effect of working…

Inside a Google Data Center [Click on images to view at higher resolution on source sites.]   They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something…

Surfing Squirrel by Maria K. Lemming   I Know What I Like — Or Do I? Part Three: I may not always know why I like a given work of art, but I can usually…

FaeryRing by Jennifer Stewart [Click on images to view full-size.]   I Know What I Like — Or Do I? Part Two: I began recent entries in this series outlining with some certainty why I…

Fly Me to the Moon by Tina Oloyede   I Know What I Like — Or Do I? Part One: Last time, I was on surer footing as I attempted to explain why I know…

The Listening Heaven by Elizabeth Mansco   I Know What I Like My aesthetic sensibilities apparently run counter to the prevailing grain when it comes to my personal taste in fractal art. Photography, especially the…

Three Gravity Stools by Jólan van der Wiel [Click on images to view full size.]   Tim’s third eye opened (again) and recently puzzled out the mysteries of fractal art’s Phase Three. But I’m still…

Fractal Alchemy (Detail) by Carl Scrase Now that the decorative dust has settled from the most recent (and oftentimes lamest) iteration of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC), I figure it’s time again to…

  Why don’t I ever seem to get better, Dr. Jones? [Image seen here.] I feel strangely unmotivated to write about the 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) "winners" this go-around.  I’m tired of…

Who knew this was a documentary? [Image seen here.] It’s been a rather heavy week in science. An international scientific team in Italy claims to have recorded sub-atomic particles traveling faster than the speed of…

Some time has now passed since Tim posted his thoughts on "The Fractal Art Manifesto" — basically arguing that Kerry Mitchell’s document glorifies the artist’s role and downplays the computer’s contribution. Mitchell, in a cut-and-paste…

How dare you? Really, really, really… [Image seen here.] It seems a flash mob of Fractalbookers has lowered the drawbridge and surged out of their virtual fortress. Upon hearing Kerry Mitchell’s clarion call on the…

Hi there. I’m sponsoring BMFAC. Send appropriate entries accordingly. [Image seen here.] I guess the 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) slogs on. Here’s the latest scoops on what’s buzzworthy, overhyped, leaked out, historically…

2766 by Jock Cooper Create your own visual style…let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others. —Orson Welles The premise of this post is quite straightforward. I assert that Jock Cooper’s "Mechanicals"…

  A symbolic representation of the BMFAC judging panel. [Photograph seen here.] The 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) finally got around to releasing the names of its judges. They are: Honorary Presidents: Michael…

Was this object made with fractal hardware? Y by Mark Wallinger. Photograph seen here. Fractal art is a fractal look and doesn’t have to be something rendered from computing a fractal algorithm. –Tim Hodkinson, Orbit…

Things More Pleasant Than Thinking About BMFAC Again Dave Makin sent me a personal email to let me know the 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) has been announced.  I guess he wanted to…

Welcome back, readers, to the home edition of the Fractalbook Network’s much loved game show: Name! That! Comment! Now, finally, through the mystery of OT technology, you can continue honing your somewhat-fractal-related social networking skills…

Susitna Glacier Alaska’s Susitna Glacier revealed some of its long, grinding journey when the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead on Aug. 27, 2009. I’ll be back…

This does not look like an art exhibition. Two photographs of the exhibition of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest in Hyderabad, India, 2010. Photographs released by Esin Turkakin. Photographs of the showcase exhibition of…

It wasn’t the sleep of reason that gave birth to a monster. Some of Orbit Trap’s critics have taken issue with our claim that the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) is nothing more than…