7 min 0

The Synthetic Aesthetic 5: Surrealist Pioneers

The work of some surrealist artists back in the early 20th century involved the use of creative methods that are almost analogous to many of our modern computerized algorithms and effects.  For people like myself…
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6 min 0

Present-Shocked Self-Similar Trash

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…
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8 min 0

The Synthetic Aesthetic – Part 1

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…
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8 min 1

Paint by Fractals

What shower of insults and rotten tomatoes are provoked up by such a play on the expression, “Paint by Numbers”?  And yet, to those who know what galactic boundaries are quickly traversed by just a…
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13 min 1

Fractal Getaways: Your Electronic Vacation

Our brains need a vacation.  And what could be a better Brain Resort than the electronic paradises of the fractal realm.  Here’s a sampler of some of the most interesting fractal scenery and composite images…
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7 min 3

Psychoanalyzing Fractal Art: Fractalsport Psychosis

Yes, fellow patients, and particularly those in the line-up waiting for shock-treatment, we are sometimes gripped by that psychotic condition which I would label, “fractalsport”. What is fractalsport?  You know what fractalsport is and are…
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6 min 0

Earthscapes: Bottom Row

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…
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5 min 0

Earthscapes: Middle Row

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…
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5 min 1

Earthscapes: Top Row

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,…
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5 min 0

Fractal Artists are Deluded Narcissists

First, let me explain.  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…
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5 min 2

Uploading = Publishing?

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…
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1 min 1

Danger: High Voltage

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…
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7 min 2

X-ray of art! Fracplanet 0.4.0

From the developer’s, Tim Day’s site: Fracplanet is an interactive tool for creating random fractal planets and terrain areas with oceans, rivers, lakes and icecaps. The results can be exported as models to POV-Ray and…
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9 min 4

Jump into Fractals!

Stop what you're doing, forget everything you know --and just jump into fractals! Synthetic. That's a good word in computer art. You like synthetic things if you like computer art. There's too much color in…
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3 min 0

Ode to Mandel Donut Vegas

Dave Makin, in a thread over at Fractalforums.com suggested that the mandelbulb deserves more attention: Anyhow, while still shaking my head and wondering (like taurus66 in the quote) why anyone would be interested in that…
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12 min 0

Food for Thought

I travel the internet, I make “Viewmarks” of artwork worth reviewing, and sometimes I end up with little scraps of things that I just can’t seem to fit into a proper blog posting.  But I…
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7 min 2

More Microscopy

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…
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7 min 0

Panorami Frattali by DorianoArt

DorianoArt has a real talent for mixing fractals with photography and doing it with style.  It’s not the typical marriage between earthy fractals and leafy scenery.  It’s more like an extraterrestrial romance between mother earth…
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13 min 1

The Varieties of Fractal Experience

There’s a theme that binds all these images together but I can’t seem to find the right words for it.  Freaky; harmonic; other worldly; sacred symbols; journey into mystery: they all fit for some but…
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5 min 0

The Epiphytic Art of Comments

Like the elegant orchids and other surface-dwelling plant species called epiphytes, image comments can have a richness and uniqueness that is surprising when one considers their tiny size and extremely casual origin. And also like…
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6 min 0

Blocked Drones and Shocked Flowers

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…
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3 min 0

The Physical Clouds

  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…
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4 min 0

Arvinder Bawa’s Fractal Exhibition in Spain

Arvinder Bawa recently had a showing of his fractal artworks in Laredo, Cantabria, Spain at the Sala Ruas gallery.  The poster explains it best: ~Click on images to view full-size on original site~ Arvinder has…
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6 min 0

…Plenty of room at the Hotel Fractalfornia

~Click on images to view full-size on original site~ Just a neon sign, cloudy sky and moon, but what a transformation.  A number of 3d fractalists refer to having an “architectural style” and here you…
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9 min 0

Iterations of Hurricane Sandy

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…
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3 min 2

Brother, can you spare $58?

Fractalforums.com’s owner, Christian Kleinhuis (aka Trifox) is attempting to put out another fractal art calendar this year.  I reviewed last year’s and called it, “The Best Fractal Calendar Ever!“. I hope that review scored me…
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4 min 0

The Fractal Cloud

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…
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11 min 2

No More Flat Fractals!

Does it seem that no one has any interest in the old, 2D fractal images anymore?  And furthermore, does it seem that since the advent of the 3D fractal craze that there are more fractal…
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