“I know you are but what am I?”

Photograph seen on SodaHead.

This is part of a continuing series that began with a review of an article on deviantART entitled “People who’s [sic] Fractals SUCKED!!!”  The series focuses on responding to criticisms raised by some of the DA fractal art “masters” to the review, and focuses on some specific rebuttals and the manner in which they were made.  For background, please refer to my original review, “Fractals That Suck,” as well on the first follow-up post in the series, “Fractals That Suck Redux — Part One” that addressed the issue of the “fair use” clause in copyright law and its understanding that copyrighted images can be used in the context of a review or critique.

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Part Two: Kill the Messenger

Historically, delivering bad news has proved a risky business.  Omnipotent Wikipedia explains why:

In ancient times, messages were delivered in person by a human envoy. Sometimes, as in war, for example, the messenger was sent from the enemy camp. An easily-provoked combatant receiving such an overture could more easily vent anger (or otherwise retaliate) on the deliverer of the unpopular message than on its author, thus literally killing the messenger. In modern usage, the expression still refers to any kind of punishment meted out to the person bringing bad news, but has taken on an ironic dimension as well.

It brought me no joy to be the bearer of bad news about the fractal state of affairs at deviantART.  Still, in almost every case, DA members responded to my critique not by addressing the contentions I’d made, but by attacking me personally, and doing so from a number of fronts.

Front One: My art sucks, so where do I get off passing judgment on anybody else’s art.

Mikahil Borodin, for example, says

Before posting stuff like this, make sure your own art isn’t just a bunch of brushes, third-grade fractals and photoshop filters.

suggesting that because my own work more fittingly belongs in elementary school that I somehow forfeit my right to both have an opinion and to freely express it.

Borodin returns later in the same post to expand his critical assessment of my art

But then again, if I should do a critique of your works, i would say “Generic, eyesoring colours, low quality and messy” I would also add “Looks like something that has been HEAVILY filtered in photoshop.

that, to his credit, does elaborate a bit on the generalities suggested in his first critique. I’ll circle round to address his implied criticism of Photoshop filters later in this series.

Meanwhile, the act of reviewing the reviewer thrives over at DA and arguably marks a milestone: the appearance of actual negative criticism of fractals on Fractalbook.  Fiery-Fire, aka Iwona Fido, author of the sucking/rocking DA article(s), says

They [Tim and I?] not really, that perceptive as artists neither, if you have a look at their own gallery [meaning mine, I think, since Tim and I don’t share one] of ‘so called’ fractals – at first glance I felt pity …

but doesn’t supply concrete examples of pitifulness like Borodin does.  And there are other scattered potshots littered among the  DA comment threads.  So, given the barbs, how do I feel about these critiques of my work?  Well…

Well…I’ll have to suck it up, shrug my shoulders, and carry on.  If I can dish it out, I’d better be ready to take it.  Freedom of speech cuts both ways.

Now, do I enjoy having my work trashed?  Of course not.  Who among us truly prefers criticism to praise?  But I’m fairly comfortable in my own skin.  As I writer, I got used to receiving criticism early in life.  Rejection slips are unavoidable and toughened me up.  I just move on to the next image or poem or blog post or whatever.  I trust my instincts and hope my vision is true.  As for criticism, I’ll take it, if I feel it is valid.  If not, I try to let it drop away and not get in the way of creating new work.  As for praise, I’m grateful to receive it, pleased that people like what I did, but I’m sometimes wary of its motive and always aware of its appeal.  Compliments, nice as they can be, should not be allowed to get in the way of creative work either.  One should not need praise to feel a sense of accomplishment or as any kind of a motivator to begin work on a new/next piece.  And, frankly, I think a constant stream of compliments can be counterproductive — especially if praise become addictive, or should the number of compliments make it impossible to pick out friends from flatterers.

Besides, criticism has some benefits.  It can tone up your work.  When creative writing comes back rejected, that’s a good time to look it over, again, with new eyes.  Put it through a few more iterations to improve the concept or composition or other elements. In other words, revise.  Then send out again to the next editor.

The publishing process has the advantage of keeping earlier iterations of not-quite-polished creative writing in the hands of editors and not yet seen by the public.  This allows art to better season.  The disadvantage of Fractalbook is that everything falls instantly into the laps of clique members — who may feel in competition with you or have other ulterior motives.  Worse, there’s never any motivation to rethink or revise any given posted image.  Look at the length of that comment thread.  Listen to all those oohs and aahs and pats on the back.  Every piece arrives fully realized — perfect — just like all the others.  After all, not just anyone can be called a “master?”

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Front Two: Name-Calling.

I once wrote an OT post about Fractalbook.  In it, I traced the origins of online art communities and observed:

Fractalbookers think Fractalbook has noble, even highbrow origins. Something like a quilting bee or a debating society. But even more cultured. Like maybe their own personal Louvre where each Fractalbooker can be both artist and patron. Master craftsman and astute critic. Philosopher-king and mountain mystic. Pablo Picasso and Robert Hughes.

But an Art Pantheon is not the blueprint for Fractalbook. It has roots in a much more familiar model.

High School.

But I may have set the social development bar too high. The level of discourse coming out from the DA “masters” is often more in the range of a third-grader (ironically, according to Borodin, the prime audience for appreciating my work).  Consequently, the rhetorical complexity of  most responses rarely rises above a third-grader’s well-known favorite counter-taunt: I know you are but what am I?

After all, if you can’t counter or refute someone’s contentions, just insult them or call them names.  Let’s go to the video tape:.

grinning as ever!, who later calls me a “thief,” says

Just a knit picking bore! I had loads of fun making fractals! So whats it to you..Mr lonely!

although, personally, I do not consider the pervasiveness of conformity at DA, seen in the replication of design and ornamentation of style in at least 70 DA “masters,” to be “knit-picking.”  I’d consider such a situation more like a viral outbreak of abidance.  And I’m sure you had fun making fractals.  I’m sure you enjoyed the praise each received, too.  I just suggested that one of those fractals might not necessarily rise to the level of being art.

And what’s one to make of the following paradox?  Borodin says I am “a complete douche” and then turns around and tells me to “have a nice night.”  I’m getting mixed messages here, so I figure it’s a toss up.  But there’s no mistaking how Georg Kiehne (Xyrus02) feels:

I’ve heard of your writings in the past but no article has disgusted me more than this. Why do you even read postings on deviantART if you hate it that much? Can it be that there is an attention-addict child on the other line craving for stuff it could rape by twisting others words like the medium-class spirals I see all over this place?

Maybe it’s good I can’t quite ferret out the meaning here.  Am I the “attention-addict child?” Or am I raping children?  Or just raping images?  Or maybe raping ideas?  At any rate, I hope this is all just a hyperbolic misfire.  If not, I find it offensive.

And the above is just what a few of the “masters” will say to your face in the home of your own blog.  Back in the lair of the “masters,” within the paper-thin cyber-walls of DA, here’s how IDeviant feels:

As for those wankstains trapped in their own pathetic little orbits, I wouldn’t give them the steam off my fucking piss, let alone the dignity of a reply to their lily-livered vitriol

I want to point out, just for the record, that no one here at Orbit Trap was seeking that particular item in the first place. Even so, the remark does seem more than a little…uncongenial.  You’d think Ms. Fire, who initiated the post, would want to take steps to turn down the heat a bit.  But you’d be wrong.  She replies that

Few people from DA ‘reads’ their blog and they commonly known as obsessive ‘trolls’ or attention whores, who are well known for being nasty and mean.

That should definitely help to put out the torches and put down the pitchforks.  And, now that I’m cognizant of being an attention whore, let me call attention to how she concludes her remarks

Maybe it’s true, guys with ‘flashy-sporty cars’ do make-up for other things they don’t have in the traps case is ‘talent’

because it brings me to the next category which is

*
Front Three: Call in the Shrink

If you can’t refute someone’s argument, but can’t bring yourself to stoop to name-calling, then just play armchair psychiatrist.  Since I disagree with you “masters,” I obviously must be insane, neurotic/psychotic, or somehow psychologically traumatized.  In Ms. Fire’s analogy above, it’s clear that the OT bloggers are mentally scarred by having noxious attributes and a truckload of personality defects.  We “drive” a hotshot blog because (down deep) we know we are hacks as artists.  In other words, we overcompensate for ever-so-obvious moral or physical shortcomings. Well, I think I can see what DA’s Junior Freudians are implying

Yeah .  Ha .  And I bet “Mr. Animal” has a tiny dick, too .  Ha Ha .

which, I guess, is pretty funny — if you’re a third-grader.

Unless, of course, you prefer a much more infant-based, pre-verbal humor like that of grinning as ever! who, as a clinically-based comedian but unskilled typist, conjectures:

gdzsjkvirnsvjxnh kdfojvzx/locji z kiasdfuvhylsa,cjkhzkudrfhzdfvj ghskobx.n

But, make no mistake, there’s no shortage of possible psychiatric profiles.  Another favorite, and one long preferred by OT’s detractors, is the “sour grapes” diagnosis — in which OT’s bloggers are either bitter for not winning BMFAC, or in a rage for not placing in the Fractal Universe Calendar, or are too moody and socially stunted to fit into DA’s social scene and so lash out at their betters, or some other scenario I’d never consider ever wanting in the first place. Here’s a textbook example from rocamiadesign who says

OGM! I just read the blog, critiqueing your articles and then followed your link to the blogger’s “art”. Ewwwwwww! I think that he’s just spewing vitriol because he’s jealous of artists whose work actually sells.

meaning, for those of you keeping score at home, that I’m a loser — both as an artist and as an entrepreneur. Since I now assume rocamiadesign’s work, in contrast to mine, sells, why don’t we take a look at it:

Precious by rocamiadesigns

No!!! She outflanked me with the cute kitty maneuver. And public taste being what it is, and given the prevailing aesthetics of mass culture, I cannot recover.  I yield the field to a superior enterpriser.

Sometimes, two of the “masters,” highly trained headshrinkers, surely with advanced degrees in neuroscience, consult and come to a consensual assessment, as Dr. Borodin reports what he and his distinguished colleague have concluded:

Reading your articles (not that me or Iwona or anyone else wants revenge or anything like that….)we have concluded that you are not writing an review about the fractal community, you are boosting your own pitiful little ego of yours.

You know, Doc, calling me “a complete douche” is not exactly helping my self-esteem issues.  So, I think I’ll get a second opinion.

Other times, for the more gifted wannabe analysts, the psychological insights can rival those of Dr. Phil.  Like Dr.IDeviant, who, putting aside his urinary tract temperature for the moment, offers this extended prognosis without even the benefit of sitting in numerous talking cure sessions with me:

My ‘shrooms! And I just couldn’t resist a little tirade against the OT crew. I suspect a background in weak political activism or some such, the psychology is so obvious and repetitive, like precocious adolescents revelling in their new-found pseudo-intellectualism whilst simultaneously shit-stirring at the fringe of the community they just cannot join due to their own misanthropy. A serious critic would never adopt that tone without first having been personally humiliated at the hands of the target

So I’m a product of my environment, huh.  Too much social concern and education?  That’s my problem?  So I act out by conducting guerilla raids on DA because I’m too much of a misanthropic sourpuss to actually fit in with the other DA kewl kidz as they call each other an artistic “master” and stroke one another’s egos in the hopes of having theirs stroked in return?

I think all those other egos, each calling themselves “a master,” are probably crying out for help more loudly than mine.  And listen, Dr ID.  After you write me up a scrip for Zoloft to mellow out my tone problem, do you think you could help out that guy above who thinks I’m a rapist before he does decide he actually wants some of that revenge Dr. Iwona and Dr. Borodin say does not interest them?  Thanks.  Much appreciated. Now…about the bill…

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So, gentle readers, keep obsessively clicking your mouse like a TV remote and join us for our next exciting OT episode of Fractals That Suck Redux entitled: “Text vs Subtext” — plus, for your further enjoyment, a special bonus short called “Who Really Uses Shoddy Tools?”  Until then…

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P.S. To be fair, I should add that not every critical response to my post was pitched to a third-grade level.  Comments made by Esin Turkakin and chiaraLinde, for example, were civil, thoughtful, and welcomed — even if I did not always completely agree with all of their points.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractalbook, fractals that suck, fractals that suck redux, calling dr borodin, calling dr ideviant, kill the messenger, i’m rubber you’re glue, shrink this why dontcha, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Bad ol’ weviewer! You fwighten me! You make my widdle heart quiver!

Image by James Cauty.  Seen on Uncertain Times.

Well, I certainly started a buzz with my last post.  I feel like I kicked a beehive after poking the queen bee in the eye with a white-hot branding iron.

I guess that’s what happens when the plastic bubble that encases Fractalbook is punctured and popped.  Here’s a recap.  I stumbled into an article on deviantART called “People who’s [sic] Fractals SUCKED!!!  The compiler, Fiery-Fire, who says she prefers I use her real name, Iwona Fido, and who is (anyone surprised?) a 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest winner, set out to show the difference in the skill level of images made early vs. recently in the “careers” of various DA members that she unironically dubbed fractal “masters or wizards.”  However, I reviewed what turned out to be only the first of three articles in a series (with a fourth surely in the works), and Ms. Fire, in a DA comment, was quick to point out how dull-witted OT was not to have noticed the article some months earlier

Well….it did take them [Orbit Trap] almost 8months to find the article So they not the brightest bunch

as if Tim and I stay on constant DEFCON 1, 24/7, scouring for the appearance of every new, neuron-strangling back-slap or kiss-up taking place in DA’s Fractal Clique Central.  The discovery of two additional Suck vs. Rock compilations means that my initial count of 21 “masters” was far too modest.  There are actually, according to Ms. Fire, 70 (and counting) fractal art “masters” — which I think is more than the number of artistic masters, in all other disciplines combined, listed in Heinrich Wolfflin’s Principles of Art History.

What I saw in that first article was a microcosm of most of the contemporary fractal scene’s ills — like (and try reading the rest of this paragraph quickly…like a pitchman’s rapid-fire delivery of disclaimers at the end of a TV commercial) valuing becoming proficient with software while noting nearly every “master” favors generating slick, baroque graphics- processing-heavy works preferred by users of either Ultra Fractal or Apophysis that results in a mass conformity certified by the replication of a deluge of self-same variants of fractal works seemingly made more to rack up popularity points in lengthy praise-dense comment threads and to place prominently in the next BMFAC contest rather than engaging in the making of fine art through embracing the spirit of inventive, experimental, individualistic acts of creative self-expression.

To illustrate my premise, I showed a number of images by Ms. Fire’s “masters” that displayed nearly interchangeable spiral formations, although, after seeing the continued ossification of the other previously unseen 49 other “masters,” I now realize I could have just as easily constructed several additional posts displaying previously unused images caught in the act of reduplicating forms other than spirals.  I concluded by noting that the highly buffed, overly fussy later works that supposedly rocked may be well crafted, but it was actually the more minimalistic earlier works that supposedly sucked that might be considered more artistic and often made more salutary use of design elements.

The review caused considerable emotional reflux round the bend at Fractalbook.  Some of the self-proclaimed “masters,”  accustomed to having every post of their work kissed and stroked and wrapped in a warm Snuggie stitched out of flattery, suddenly experienced the cold-water-to-the-face shock of an actual critical review.  In fact, the whole notion of an objective critique appears to be an alien concept to the Fractal Masters of deviantART (FMDA, Inc.).  When they placed their work in a public, online art community, how could they have ever imagined that the public might actually show up to view what they themselves openly displayed?  The only prospect imaginably worse would be if some members of the public might further have the gall to reflect on and then review their public, “masterly” fractal art in a fashion that does not involve gushing out yet another faving rave punctuated with cutesy, animated smilies.

If you haven’t read the review in question, surf back to it first and drink it in — and be sure to slowly sip rather than gulp the comments from the rankled DA “masters.”  I made a point to put up all comments emanating from Fractalbook — even those that were spiteful or juvenile or completely incoherent — because I felt the remarks provided insights into the Fractalbook mindset and environment.

While it would be time-consuming, not to mention time-wasting, to respond to each and every accusation hurled by DA’s “masters,” there are a few charges that get repeated enough to deserve a rebuttal in a series of upcoming OT posts I like to call: Fractals That Suck Redux.

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Part One: The Theft of Copyright

I think the subsequent source of DA masterly ire that surprised me most was the repeated charge that I had somehow illegally and unethically “stolen” the images I used for illustration in my review.  It soon became clear to me that quite a few people at DA Fractals-R-Us Headquarters have considerable misconceptions about what can and what cannot be done, especially in the context of a critical review, with images posted online to an open, public site like deviantART.  Let’s go to the videotape…

Here’s a few remarks made on OT to my review:

dlr4553 says:

I wonder if the artists that you have “featured” in this post are aware that you have used their work. I find it hard to imagine that they would condone the use of their work as examples of what you feel is wrong with fractal art or to assist in your agenda to show art sites like deviantArt as a hotbed for mediocre and non-professional fractal art.

and grinning as ever! exclaims:

Ask if you want to use anything of mine in future..thief!

But the less restrained remarks come from the cold core of ground zero — the dark, quasi-alchemical lair of the fractal “masters” themselves — deviantART.  You can usually tell because of the presence of their many familiars that usually take the form of kitschy smilies:

Here’s dlr4553 again, at home:

What is bothering me is the nagging suspicion that he [“Mr. Animal”] did not obtain the permission of the artists whose copyrighted works he chose to “feature” in his post. I find it hard to believe that these artist are aware that their artwork is being used outside of dA to show examples of what this so called critic thinks is wrong with fractal art.

I don’t know if you have let these artists know about this honor he bestowed upon them, but I certainly intend to send them a note to inform them. I know that I would want to be aware of any unauthorized usage of my artwork, especially when it is being cast in a negative light.

LoonyL has this thought:

I’ve read that post on the Orbit Trap blog. I should probably leave a comment there (at least for pointing out the unauthorized use of my work) but I’ve decided that I really don’t care.

To which silwenka replies:

I was thinking about it either.. but I am pretty sure this person [“Mr. Animal” again, I’d guess] doesn’t care.

In the end, though, and without a doubt, it is Ms. Fire (writing as Iwona Fido) who frets and struts the most over inappropriate appropriation of images.  Here she is on OT — adding a postscript in a comment post that is considerably longer than my initial review:

PS.
Universal rule and courtesy, I hope you obtained the Authors permission to post the thumbnails of their artwork in your article (most Artists on devart, do have copyright protection on their images and that includes blogging, without authorizing the thumbnail of the image, will be posted outside the desired site).

But she really gets her mojo working on this subject after she tracks me down “hiding” in plain sight on my formerly empty DA home page:

Finally – what should I tell my friends, who’s images you posted and names you used in your article – “that I gave you the permission or knew about it” …I don’t think so….

Please DON’T do this again !!!

None of us care for your blog and none us, wishes to be featured by you in any way at any point

When I respond that DA is a public forum, and art that is posted in such places can be critiqued, and that copyright law has clauses allowing for images to be used for review purposes, she rises from her throne, pounds her scepter on the virtual podium, and threatens me with banishment:

I had my images blogged outside without my written permission
and I did ask for them to be deleted – ALL of my artworks are
copyrighted by ME – and you have no say in where and when you
gonna display them.

Read under the deviations you ‘stole’:
©2010 *LoonyL
©2009-2010 `JoelFaber
~depaz
Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
©2008-2010 ~grinagog
©2009-2010 *milleniumsentry
©2010 =Jimpan1973

Those are not public licenses – they bound by law.

I would not be surprised, if you get banned for it, when the devart moderators find out Happened before – since the same excuse was used by people copying and reposting images on ‘wallpaper’ site – DA is not a public domain.

Notice, if you will, that she has confused the distinction between a public web site (like deviantART) and the concept of public domain.

So, in response, I posted the following reply to her.  It’s worth including in its entirety here as an open rebuttal to everyone immediately above who thinks I’m engaging in some kind of despicable thievery:

Notice that the license says “some rights reserved” — not all rights. I am not denying the images are copyrighted, nor am I using them in any commercial manner. I’m not stealing them and claiming they are mine, as perhaps the wallpaper site you mention may have done. In fact, in my post, I clearly identify the artists and provide a link to each of their galleries, which, I suspect, likely brings more traffic to DA.

I did not lift all of your article, nor did I put up all of the images used in the article. Even the few images I used were not posted at full size.

Orbit Trap writes reviews of fractal art. I reviewed your article and reproduced selected works of art that appeared in the article. Such action is legal and explicitly spelled out under the “fair use” provisions of copyright law, which allows copyrighted material to be reproduced for the purposes of critiques and reviews.

This is no different than quoting an excerpt from a book when writing a book review. Have you ever watched a movie review program where a clip from a film being reviewed is played? The film is copyrighted, but “fair use” maintains the clip can be used because such use is in the context of a review. What I have done is similar and certainly a common practice among people who write art criticism.

It seems clear why the law makes an exception in cases involving “fair use.” Without the protection of the fair use clause, all artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers could keep anyone from ever reviewing their work — whether the critiques were good or bad. The law recognizes that such an arrangement is not in the public interest.

Of course, you could have looked all of this up yourself, Iwona, instead of immediately jumping to conclusions and accusing me of theft. If the DA mods want to talk with me calmly and rationally about “fair use” and how it pertains to external reviews of art posted on a public site like this one, I would be happy to speak with them.

By the way, for the record, Orbit Trap is the only independent blog currently dedicated to reviews of fractal art. I have, in the past, also favorably reviewed (and linked to) a number of images housed on both DA and Renderosity.

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This concludes the first part of “Fractals That Suck Redux.”  But don’t change that blogging dial, gentle readers   I’ll be back quicker than you can say self-similarity with yet another fun-filled episode with limited commercial interruptions and once more starring that wacky family of dysfunctional fractal art “masters and wizards” from your favorite Fractalbook mini-series.

So program your DVR to record Part Two entitled: Kill the Messenger.  Now, to tide you over, here’s a scene from our next exciting episode — in which dizzy dlr4553 quips:

Okay, I read that Orbit “Crap” post and I am just seething , but not for the obvious reasons.

And to which zany Iwona retorts:

They didn’t notify anybody about anything nor they asked anybody about their image rights, that part upsets me as well They used ‘copy image location’ and decided DA is a public domain and they allowed to do this

That’s right, kids.  And it’s all only on (cue reverb-heavy circa Space Angel announcer) OOORRRbit Trappp…

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Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractalbook, fractals that suck, deviantart, fiery-fire, iwona fido, dlr4553, mr animal goes to town, do you suck or do you rock, cruelanimal, orbit trap

We by silwenka

Happy Valentine’s Day.  By the way, as fractal art, this piece, allegedly, sucks.

There’s an oddly fascinating feature currently on display on deviantART called “People Who’s [sic] Fractals SUCKED!”  I’ll let the author, =Fiery-Fire, self-proclaimed “Fractal Gangsta’,” explain the general idea:

In fractal ‘world’ we have a lot of names which are well known, established, the images from those ‘masters’ or ‘wizards’ leave us in awe and amazement. But did you ever wonder, how did they do, when they first opened their fractal program …whatever it was apo or ultra fractal.

So, there’s the basic set-up.  Ms. Fire selects early and recent works by assorted DA fractalists she considers “masters” and posts samples for before/after comparisons.  What’s supposed to be self-evident, I guess, is that the early renderings are unquestionably amateurish, while the more recent postings are irreproachably masterpieces.

Ms. Fire says she wrote the article to “promote a lot of laughter and amusement,” and, indeed, it does, although perhaps not in the manner she intended.  The feature is worth examining because it serves as a vivid, concrete encapsulation for much of what Tim and I have been observing for years about the fractal art scene.

A helpful beginning might be to look at a few comparisons — even as we wonder if “suckiness” is in the eye of the beholder.

The sucky before:

Purplerain by =Jimpan1973

The masterpiece after:

Monster Julia by =Jimpan1973

What’s the main difference between the two images? Can’t see it yet?  Try again:

The sucky before:

Cosmosis by *milleniumsentry

The masterpiece after:

Smile by *milleniumsentry

Personally, I don’t much care for most of the featured art work Ms. Fire has chosen.  Nevertheless, there does seem to be qualitative differences between the early fractals that supposedly suck and later fractals that supposedly rock.  In nearly every instance, the later “masterpieces” are more slick, more busy, and much more decorative.  In fact, nearly every available space within each later frame is filled (padded?) with eye-popping ornamentation.  The earlier images, by contrast, are rawer, make better use of absence, and sometimes seem better composed — probably just because they are not crammed to the threshold of overspill with visual information.  Consequently, although the later images are better crafted and surely more technically proficient, the earlier images seem to better utilize artistic principles and design elements.

In short, these “wizards” might be going backward.  One could argue that the more the “masters” master their software and polish their craft, the less successful they are in their attempts to be artists.

What happens when priorities are out of whack?  Like when emphasis is placed on “mastering one’s tools,” as Keith Mackay likes to say, rather than on producing fine art?   Isn’t it evident?  As long as what can be done with software is prized over what fine art can be made, the trend shown above will continue.  Fractalbook, truth be told, institutionalizes such thinking with its “challenges” to adjust existing images and par file tweaking games popular on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List and elsewhere.  The priority is to see what the software can do — not what individuals can create as artists.  As long as this is the ruling aesthetic in our community, our “masters” may eventually conquer craft but will rarely produce fine art.

As long as one thinks of tools as toys, one’s work will remain more childishly playful rather than masterfully artistic.  I suppose only in the realm of Fractalbook can some of these featured “artists,” like LoonyL, rise from being a totally sucking noob to an accomplished grandmaster in just a little over two years.

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Worse, the “art” being produced, especially in Fractalbook, nearly always must conform to an overriding, popular rubric of what constitutes fine fractal art in order to receive the longest choral threads of instantaneous praise.  Surfing through DA’s fractal gallery is like taking a trip out to some suburban fractal ticky-tacky.  Look at the less-than-subtle similarities in some of Ms. Fire’s chosen masterworks:

Overflow by JoelFaber

mind reading by *LoonyL

Starry Circuit by ~depaz

the red dragon by ~grinagog

Clearly, a certain look is necessary in order to be proclaimed a “master” in the DA fractal community.  The images above are so, forgive the pun, self-similar and spiral-grounded that I wondered if the Fractal Universe Calendar had been resuscitated.  It’s no surprise that some people feel let down and experience cognitive dissonance when perusing Fractalbook.  This is what is considered the best we have to offer?  And the more it is held up to be so, the more the fractal assembly lines will crank out similar replications.  After all, who wants to run the risk of their praise-packed comment thread shrinking by living up to the site’s name and actually “deviating” from the agreed-upon by-popular-demand template for fractal wizardry and excellence?

It’s a hopeful sign, I suppose, that an occasional, lone voice questions the worth of Fractalbook’s ruling hierarchy. Case in point?  This astute comment from *Aspartam:

I dont get the point at all…Some nice fractals in both categories “before” and “after”. The one thing I see is a tendency to be less mainstream ( less overdone, with more use of space and not so many spirals) in the before category. Is it a way to point out a growing conformity in fractal making?

It certainly looks like a cancerous conformity to me, but Ms. Fire disagrees:

[S]ome of the first fractals are unique …I wouldn’t call them masterpieces not due to shape, but a basic lack of skill of the owner at the time of creation, and yes making the fractals more proper….isn’t main stream, it really requires full understanding of what each variation is doing.

There’s a manifesto to rally around:  Make your art more proper! Exploration has no place in creative acts.  Stifle such impropriety.  And don’t feel bad about grazing with the herd.  You aren’t going mainstream.  You’re just honing your craft and overcoming a “basic lack of skill.”  That way, you’ll avoid the stink of serendipity and never have any cumbersome accidents while making algorithmic art — which, as we all know, is grounded in absolutes and demands precise programming and complete technical comprehension.

Picasso.  Matisse.  Gauguin.  Miro.  Basquiat.  Serrano.  Ofili.  How much more famous would they all have been — if only — they’d made their art — more — proper?

As long as our community embraces prevailing mindsets like

–only programs like UF and Apo can help one become a “master”
–only decorative, spirally, layer-laden eyecandy — like that found in BMFAC exhibitions, the defunct FUC, and this DA collection of “masterpieces” — is “proper” enough to count as legitimate, worthwhile fractal art
–mastering the capabilities of fractal software is equivalent to creative acts of self-expression
–placing work in insular and isolated Fractalbook hidey-holes where social expectations define success based on behavior patterns of false flattery and mass conformity to limited artistic models is comparable to a stratagem of placing work in fairs, galleries, museums, and non-community web sites to be openly seen and widely reviewed

then the general fine arts world will continue to see fractal art and artists as, at best, non-professional — and, at worst, as completely mediocre.

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Perhaps the last word on this whole fractal sucking matter can be found in the signature line from this comment from Jimpan1973:

Awsome news article!

—
Real friends are those you can fart with!

Yes, if nothing else, there seems to be plenty of that going on here.

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Note: Edited to correct a misspelling and to add missing italics.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, fractals that suck, fiery-fire, jimpan1973, milleniumsentry, joelfaber, loonyl, depaz, grinagog, aspartam, make your art more proper, cruelanimal, orbit trap

Lightning Fields 128 by Hiroshi Sugimoto

I learned to capture the lightning shock…
—Roger McGuinn, “Lover of the Bayou”

The fractal properties of lightning have long been evident in dramatic photographs of self-similar jagged bolts caught in a split-second of illumination.  But few have pursued lightning so deeply “to its hiding place,” as Victor Frankenstein once put it, than Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Armed with a camera, a metal table, and hundreds of thousands of volts, Sugimoto freeze-frames the fractal zing of electrical charges in his “Lightning Fields” series.

Lightning Fields 138

Wired outlines Sugimoto’s process:

He wields a Van de Graaff generator to send up to 400,000 volts through film to a metal table. The resulting fractal branching, subtle feathering, and furry whorls call to mind vascular systems, geologic features, and trees. “I see the spark of life itself, the lightning that struck the primordial ooze,” Sugimoto says.

Lightning Fields 147

In describing his work, Sugimoto reminds us of of the historical connectedness between scientific experimentation with electricity and photography:

In 1831, Michael Faraday’s formulation of the law of electromagnetic induction led to the invention of electric generators and transformers, which dramatically changed the quality of human life. Far less well-known is that Faraday’s colleague, William Fox Talbot, was the father of calotype photography. Fox Talbot’s momentous discovery of the photosensitive properties of silver alloys led to the development of positive-negative photographic imaging. The idea of observing the effects of electrical discharges on photographic dry plates reflects my desire to re-create the major discoveries of these scientific pioneers in the darkroom and verify them with my own eyes.

Lightning Fields 119

The romantic notion of suffering for one’s art appears to literally be true in Sugimoto’s case.  ArtInfo reports that Sugimoto’s creative process can be, well, shocking at times:

The practice is not without its risks (the generator is ominously labeled “Danger High Voltage”). When I ask if he’s ever electrocuted himself, Sugimoto chuckles. “Quite often. Sometimes the spark comes to my belly. It hurts. It’s hard to describe — it’s just shock, it’s like cutting yourself, twisting.”

Self-Portrait by Hiroshi Sugimoto

Genevieve Quick, writing in Shotgun Review, sums up Sugimoto’s achievement as follows:

By essentially establishing a micro-environment in the dark room akin to the conditions of an electrical storm, Sugimoto creates lush large-scale black and white prints that resemble botanical and biological images, landscapes, high-power microscopic magnifications, and lightning itself. This richly layered process creates works that, in the tradition of Talbot before him, elegantly blur the boundary between science and photography.

The fractal properties evident in Sugimoto’s work are simply stunning.  If I didn’t know better, I’d swear these images were rendered in a program like Tierazon.

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Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, digital art, hiroshi sugimoto, lightning fields, art that shocks, cruelanimal, orbit trap