8 min 7

Speak, Fractalbookers!

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…
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13 min 15

The Fractal Art Manifesto Revisited

While it may not be as well known today as it has been in the past, The Fractal Art Manifesto, written back in 1999 by Kerry Mitchell, is one of the very few attempts to…
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9 min 2

BMFAC Slogs On

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…
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10 min 3

On Style 3

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"…
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12 min 4

Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 5

The future of fractal art Well, bluntly stated, there is no future in fractal art.  At least not in the kind of fractal art that most artists are making today.  That’s the stuff I called…
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24 min 2

Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 4

Pixel Art vs. Parameter Art In my preceding three parts I have dealt with what I see are the limitations of fractals for making artwork.  To put it simply, the geometric imagery called “fractals” has…
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10 min 6

Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 3

What fractals fail to do… You can’t make art with them.  And we all need our heads examined for thinking we could in the first place. I should be a bit more specific when I…
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10 min 4

Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 2

What fractals are good for, or, the creative use of fractal algorithms. Fractal art needs a reboot, a re-thinking of what it’s all about.  The optimistic forecasts from the early days of fractal art, the coming…
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4 min 6

Rebooting Fractal Art: Part 1

What is Fractal Art Missing? I look at da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and I see something.  I look at just about any piece of fractal art and I don’t see that thing.  What’s fractal art…
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6 min 0

BMFAC Announces Its Judging Panel

  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…
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2 min 2

Give it up for CO99A5!

I just think it’s great.  It’s a strange, surreal place, nice composition, not oversaturated with detail and has nice, subdued but engaging color.  Check out the artist’s little story about the image: Description: This is…
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5 min 0

BMFAC Slinks Back

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…
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3 min 0

Computer Art for Old People

I’ve been trying to reconcile two conflicting things:  Firstly, that there’s something exciting about fractal programs, and secondly, that there’s something quite disappointing about fractal art today. I don’t need to explain why I’m enthused…
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9 min 0

Name! That! Comment!

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…
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4 min 2

NASA’s Earth Day Fractals

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…
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4 min 0

Reality Changes Things

Something happens to fractals when they start to resemble real things.  It’s sad, in a way, but I think fractal art is limited in its appeal to a wider audience simply because it’s “fractal.” Fractals…
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3 min 0

Lookin’ Sharp

Just when I was beginning to think the 3D fractal scene was plateauing and running out of interesting themes to explore... along comes something sharp.
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3 min 0

Velocipede Rides Again

From time to time I revisit places and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Velocipede, a long time fractal artist, has reinvented herself and started an new blog with new enthusiasm entitled, “Oh…
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8 min 0

BMFAC: “We Are All Winners Now”

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…
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4 min 3

presenting… The Information Hallway!

Still so sure it’s a better place to introduce people to fractal art than the (now old-fashioned) information highway –the internet? The recently released photos of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Exhibition really underline…
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6 min 11

The Roots of BMFAC

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…
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7 min 0

2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fractal Art Blogging

I’m sorry, but I can’t give out too many details about the actual recipient because the prize winning  journalist has been keeping  a very low profile in order to avoid “the haters” of the fractal…
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6 min 0

On Style 2

Send Out the Probes by Linda Allison No one to date has had a more profound effect on fractal art style than Linda Allison. Her fractals became the template de rigor for the Fractal Universe…
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6 min 1

The Art of the Strange Place

Although it's probably been a perennial theme in fractal art from the beginning, the recent 3D fractal explosion has greatly increased the number of images whose main impression is that of The Strange Place. Because…
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4 min 0

Parameter File Sharing For Dummies

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. biblegateway.com The most recent…
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4 min 1

Ultra Poetry

Well, the Ultra Fractal Mailing List is at it again. Last time it was opera, but this time it’s bongos, coffee houses and poetry readings. I’ve reformatted the original excerpts to give them that “je…
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3 min 2

Fractal Computing

Back in 2006, Juan Luis Martinez (Fractovia.org) wrote a post explaining why despite the growing popularity (and growing hip-ness) of the Macintosh computing platform we shouldn’t expect a similar proliferation of fractal programs to follow…
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4 min 1

On Style 1

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. —Walt Whitman Style is a fraud.  I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns. —Willem de Kooning Style is not…
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3 min 1

An Internet Fractal Gallery

The Mona Lisa is the most popular artwork in the Louvre, the most famous art collection in the world.  It measures 77 x 53 cm (30 x 21 in).  That’s the size of a high-end…
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2 min 3

Behold! Haltenny is here…

~ Click on any image to view full-size on the original site ~ He has a Deviant Art Gallery too with more examples of “steampunk” mandelboxes.  On DA he goes by Hal Tenny which sounds…
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