Sometimes fractal art is just an afterthought.  It’s the snapshots we take not because we want to impress an audience but because we want to remember what we saw.  Snapshots, like the button in any fractal program says, is “saving.”

Saving is recording but before Recording comes finding and before Finding comes just wandering around.

There’s a lot of far-out stuff in Dan Wills’ ultraMeta Picasa gallery.  It’s a reminder that fractal art can be just as much about exploring a fractal world as it is about that strange, fickle and formal thing called “art.”

~Click on any image to view full-size on its original website~

jovaNuliaTwo...moonset_probe_pancake_openclose by Dan Wills

All of Dan’s images here were made with Ultra Fractal which surprised me.  Of course, UF is a widely used fractal program but these are not widely seen fractal images.  But then, I think Dan’s approach to fractals is different; he’s looking to what the formula can make, not we he can make with the formula; the artist as scavenger and collector.  Maybe that’s why his images have a more “natural” look to them; they’re not tweaked all over, they’re found all over.

alanTIsVeryHelpful...tennar_quont_slimap_arge_other by Dan Wills

Glass panes and frost-like invaders.  Note the wild variation in the structures.  This is not the usual sort of fractal with self-similarity.  It’s more like the way frost grows on a window pane or how crystals take shape in natural rock formations.  This formula is very creative –algorithmically creative.  Where would you zoom into next?

alanTIsVeryHelpful...tennar_quont_slimap_smimap_kroma by Dan Wills

“Kroma,” the last word in the (long) working title or rather, simply the filename.  I hesitate to say that this is the best one of all but it sure shows the magnificent unpredictability in these fractals.  One could spend a good deal of time investigating all the places on this “map.”

alanTIsVeryHelpful...tennar_quont_slimap_arge_illness_larque by Dan Wills

What a change from the spectrum-ness of that last one.  But here the monotone environment seems to accentuate the details as much as the various colors of the previous one made them stand out in uniqueness.  In some fractal places you just can’t lose when you’re looking for something that will amaze you.

jovaNuliaTwo...out_tone_blum by Dan Wills

Subtle coloring, like the very first image, but rather than being dull it serves to shine just enough light on the fractal structures to show their natural wonder.  Less is more and here’s a good example.  Why should such a well known fractal structure be this interesting?  Maybe because we never really knew it.

alanTIsVeryHelpful...terminal_deposition_ununique by Dan Wills

From the fiery spirals to caves of ice.  It’s a good thing Dan took all these snapshots, otherwise who would have believed such things existed and how would anyone describe them?  The best way to tell people about fractal art is, as we all know, to show them some.  You’d sound crazy if you had to describe fractals with just words.  Again, notice the intriguing lack of similarity.  That’s algorithmic creativity.

alanTIsVeryHelpful...stonk_let_tennar_quont by Dan Wills

The only one that bears a strong resemblance to any other image, this one looks to me like a bright, starry night sky; frozen, broken, and then put back together creatively.  Look at the very top right corner; doesn’t that look like a puzzle piece from something completely different?  Even fractal formulas make mistakes.

alanTIsVeryHelpful...tennar_quont_slimap_arge_illness by Dan Wills

If you find these images astonishing, then you should view the entire sequence of them in Dan’s ultraMeta Picasa gallery as well as some of this other Voyages of Sindbad galleries.  You may find some of them even better than the one’s I’ve included here, but you will certainly get a better grasp of Dan’s “exploring style.”  Like a series of vacation snapshots or the sequence of photos depicting a volcanic eruption, you feel a story unfolding of which you are only looking at a few selected points along the way.

alanTIsVeryHelpful...tennar_quont_slimap_smimap_pients by Dan Wills

Can you believe this comes from the same group of images?  It’s not just a great image because of the color and apparent sunlight effect; the red structures have wrinkles and veins like real leaves do.  And they recurse into their own little triangular neighborhoods and window frames like they were grown, cell by cell, into this massive sailing ship of a tree.  I’m guessing, but I’d say this image comes from zooming into that “map” (Kroma) we saw in the third image.

If you’re looking to make a New Years resolution how about taking a little time from your busy fractal art routine and just go on a fractal walkabout.  You’ll see fractals and fractal art differently; maybe even for the first time.

From time to time while browsing fractal art on the internet I’ve seen images that greatly impressed me and yet when subjecting them to a second, more critical evaluation, found myself unable to defend them as anything more significant than just eye-candy.  What all of these images had in common was exceptionally good color.

Upon reflection, over numerous years, I’ve come to the conclusion that color is an element of visual imagery that is best described as a fourth dimension because I think the role that color plays in the “architecture” of an image can be just as great as all the other fundamental parameters that, taken together, constitute the “length, width and depth” of an image.

There are artists who consistently make images that draw heavily on the subtle but effective properties of color.  Artists who concentrate on color are what I would describe as “visual musicians”.  I call them that because I don’t know how to relate what they do to what other artists do and like a great tune, it’s an undeniably pleasant thing.  It’s a wonderful thing, even if I don’t understand it.  Call it beauty, but I think  the term, beauty, is often just a word for when we run out of words.

In the digital realm color can easily seen as an independent aspect of an image because we can easily change it independently of everything else in the image.  Color is a global property and those are the kinds of properties that are most easily manipulated in computer graphics programs.  The little, detailed kinds of things you still have to work with by hand.  But you can change the entire color gradient or palette of a fractal or rotate it’s hue with just a few clicks in a graphics program.  It’s no wonder then that some artists chose to put the emphasis on color: digital tools give them “color-powers”.

Anyhow, nothing talks about color better than color itself; here’s a few images to illustrate the point:

~Click images to view full-size on original site~

Super Color from FractalWorks

Indescribable by Schimkent (Flickr)

What better example could there be of the effect of color in fractal art than a super-rich color spiral like this.  Made by Schimkent (Flickr screen name for Kent Schimke) using Duncan Champney’s Mac program, FractalWorks.  The turning of the spiral places colors that would otherwise be farther apart in the gradient/palette right beside each other.

How is this spiral different from the many Fractal Universe calendar spirals which I think I once said reminded me of patterns on disposable party plates?  Well, that’s the challenge of evaluating works “of the fourth dimension;” you just have to look at the image and see for yourself what the difference is.

3D view of Apr02wma1b by Schimkent

It’s all about that Blue in the top left corner.  The colored loops come close to it and challenge it, even holding Blue in their center.  The outcome is harmonious yet that subtle gray window screen texture shows that there’s more to Blue than they realize.

What I’ve chosen here are images whose color properties contribute enormously to the overall impression of the image; they’re examples of the effect of color.  They’re not just “nicely colored,” the coloring has a powerful effect on the rest of the image and magnifies the  it.

Subdued and Sophisticated Color

20090716-1 by Samuel Monnier

It’s not all about saturated color.  This one here by Samuel Monnier from his website, Algorithmic Worlds, shows how a less saturated, more subdued color can be just as expressive.  Of course there’s more to this image than just it’s subtle coloring, but the coloring compliments the quiet, ancient and weathered patterns in the ground and sky.  Every time I look at this I think of ancient Egypt and the Pyramids.  The wind carries away the sand, filling the sky with yellow dust and leaving bare the ancient workings underground.

20090715-1 by Samuel Monnier

Such colored details.  Details are the hallmark of Samuel Monnier’s images which is why almost all of them are presented in zoomable fashion via a flash applet on his Algorithmic Worlds site, as we’ll see in the next one.

20100924-1 by Samuel Monnier

See the top left “planet?”.  In the image below I zoom into there and take a screenshot of the resulting detail.  This is a fabulous example of color as well as algorithmic color (he didn’t paint this by hand).  Every planet is different and even in the deepest zooms there’s still more planets below.  It’s a bit like real astronomy: the more closely you look at one thing, the more things you notice around it.

20100924-1 (detail) by Samuel Monnier

The colors are not so subdued in this detail as they are in the other images.  Compare this detail view with Kent Schimke’s spiral image shown at the very beginning.  They are quite different and yet each one thrives on color.  Monnier’s is a very detailed color while Schimke’s is broader, thicker, smoother color.  Of course, they’re made differently: Monnier’s uses his trademark “pattern-piling” while Schimke is using, I assume, a fractal formula rendered in FractalWorks with it’s exceptional, and very smooth, 3D rendering features.

Spherical Feedback by Syntopia (Flickr)

Another fine example of subdued coloring.  The structures in the image are quite plain and as the title suggests, are repetitive like feedback.  It’s color that takes the lead role in this image turning what would otherwise be a mere technical example of the features of the program Structure Synth into something much more creative and noteworthy.

Kleinian Kolors

indra611a by Jos Leys

If you’re at all interested in color you could not possibly have missed the Kleinian images by Jos Leys, some of which are almost seven years old now.  It’s hard to imagine these things rendered in grayscale.  The above one is a special example, although typical of the way Jos uses color to compliment the Kleinian structures: it’s been designed in Ultra Fractal and then rendered in POV-Ray, a very sophisticated ray-tracing program.  The result looks like a photo of a real sculpture but is in fact just a very sophisticated digital rendering.

indra277 by Jos Leys

Here’s a perfect example of Jos Leys’ exquisite, jewellery-like, Indra’s Pearls images.  The color seems so natural and inseparable from the underlying mathematical “architecture.”  Could you adequately describe this image in words only without referring to the color?

Color World

The Junkyard, by primitive mind (Deviant Art)

Keeping with my theme of the power of color, here’s something similar and yet quite different, too.  This image, I’m going to make a guess, was created by some very careful layering of a number of 3D mandelbulb/mandelbox images.  The result is not just a blending of the 3D structures but also a blending of the colors.  With the possible exception of Samuel Monnier’s “planet” image, these images by primitive mind (Deviant Art screen name) have what I’d say is the most sophisticated range of colors both in hue and saturation.  Look at the bottom of the one above and you’ll see in that little patch of “sunlight” in the bottom left saturated color while in the rest of the image it’s mostly more subdued colors and a very wide range of them.

Under the sea by primitive mind (Deviant Art)

Images like these could not be saved as 256 color indexed pngs without changing them enormously or using complex dithering.  They simply have too many colors to do that very well.  They almost look like paintings, really.  And from a technical perspective, I’ve never seen mandelbulb/mandelbox images with such creative color.  Like all the others, if you click these you’ll see the larger size image on the site where I found it.

Seriously, just color?

Is color a serious thing?  I guess it depends on what you think is serious.  Some think the life and death world of social and political issues is serious subject matter while others might find that a painful distraction from their study of water lilies. The work of some famous artists seems to revolve around careful choices of color.  Andy Warhol, in his famous silk-screen images experimented with unique color combinations.  Silk screening allows for this kind of experimentation just like computer graphics programs do; you can quickly see what different inks look like by switching them and making a new print.

Marilyn, by Andy Warhol, who for many years could not walk without the aid of Color Crutches

Is there an art form that is nothing more than a language of shape and color?  Should we call it “Lego-land” or “Visual Philosophy?”  The graphically simple things like shape and color I believe can sometimes leave a very sophisticated impression in our mind.  Stephen Ferguson, the well-known fractal programmer, once made a profound statement –about a sphere– that it had infinite points of reflection.  The ultimate mirror.  Something to think about next time you look at “a shiny ball.”  Seriously.

He's angry because he can't cross his eyes like we can and he feels left out

3D-art freaks (circa 1860) groovin' to the third dimension. Detail from a painting by Jacob Spoel (1820-1868)

How old is 3D imagery?

In case you’re wondering, and you’re also stupid, 3D imagery has been around as long as humans have had two eyes.  It’s pretty common actually and goes under the generic title: see-ing.

In fact, if you think about it, the usual flat, 2D kind of imagery seen in most artwork, like the two above, is actually something of an abstraction and employs all sorts of technical tricks to give the impression of natural depth in an unnaturally flat medium; 3D imagery is natural imagery.

Natural?  Yes, that’s what I’d say is the impression I get when I look at 3D stereograms and other 3D imagery: I feel like a doorway to a little world has opened up on my computer screen.  3D is more than just a cool trick, it’s virtual sculpture and a visual reality –it’s as real as real can look.

I mention this because you may have noticed that people who make this sort of artwork often become obsessed with it.  I think it’s that “little world” effect that fascinates them.  Even apparently mediocre images still contain that exciting substance that transforms anything flat into an eternally effervescing wonder.

My first encounter with artificial 3D imagery was the View-Master.  Peering into it’s tiny worlds, no matter how dumb or childish the subject matter, was intoxicating.  I remember that not everyone was like that when it came to the View-Master and so I suspect not everyone experiences the same thrill intensity when it comes to 3D stereo fractal art.

Rathinagiri Rules!

There’s a number of people making 3D stereo fractal images but the most prolific one I know of goes by the name Rathinagiri on Fractalforums.com.  According to his Flickr page, his full name is Subbiah Rathinagiri and he lives in southern India.  I first came across his work on Fractalforums.com (FFs) the place where true enthusiasts gather these days.

~Click on images to view full-size on original site~

fractal20100701 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

fractal20101020 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

FractalWorks

Duncan Champney, author of the free Mac fractal program, FractalWorks, gives these instructions for viewing “cross-eyed” 3D images on a site displaying several examples:

To view it, sit at a comfortable distance from your monitor and look at the dividing line between the images. Then hold your finger about halfway between your eyes and the screen so it appears just at the bottom of the image. Then look at your finger and slowly move it closer to your nose. This will cause you to cross your eyes. As your finger gets closer to your eyes, the left and right images will cross over and at some point you should see a stereoscopic view in your field of vision between the two images on the screen. It takes a little practice. Once you are able to see the stereo image, you should be able to hold your eyes in position and remove your finger.

Here’s an excellent image by Duncan using his own program, FractalWorks:

Mandelscape cross-eyed stereogram by Duncan Champney

Note how natural the 3D effect is:  once you’ve got the image focused properly, cross-eyed, you can look all around in the image and the 3D effect never falters or is diminished.  Duncan says he prefers to make the red/cyan”anaglyph” type images as the cross-eyed ones tend to give him a headache.  But you need the special red/cyan 3D movie glasses to view those.  FractalWorks makes both and as you can see, it does it well.

If, however, you do have a set of red/cyan glasses, here’s a great one by Don Whitaker:

4657682138_d4c1a8a605 by Don Whitaker

In case you can’t view it properly, it looks like glowing mandelbulb planet floating in sinister light in hole on your computer screen in a vintage 50s sci-fi style (where everything was glowing and sinister).  You know, if you’re really serious about fractal art these days you should have a set of 3D glasses beside your computer at all times.  Amazon.com sells them for a couple bucks.  “Tools of the trade” as they say in bankruptcy court.

How is it made?  Aircraft cameras create “stereo-pairs” by taking a picture of the ground below them with a single camera.  They then take a second picture just a few hundred feet afterwards.  The two images taken with a single camera from slightly different positions imitates the offsetting of your two eyes and the two aircraft positions become the left and right eyes you see with (Godzilla-vision).  The use of stereo glasses just makes it easier for each of your eyes to look exclusively at the single photo directly in front of them instead of doing the natural thing your eyes do, which is to intersect on a single point ahead of them and just look at one photo together.  Cross-eyed images are the same thing, just with a different name.  (Stereoscopy on the Wikipedia.)

Designed for a Stereoscope but works as a Cross-eye image: Boston Common (date uncertain) by John P. Soule (1827-1904)

More of Rathinagiri’s work

fractal20101023 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

He’s got so many of these stereo images, and not just fractal ones, either, that I’m just showing a few that cover the range of imagery he has.  This one is a great example of a soft metallic texture.  It’s so much more impressive as a stereo image than a “one-eyed” one.  It looks as if the program (Jesse Dierk’s Mandelbulb 3D, I think) has actually made something real  and tangible.

fractal20101019 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

Carved plaster or stone is what I see in this one.  If there was a fractal temple, this is how it would look.  Watch out that you don’t poke your eye on the needle-like thing in the middle.

fractal20101017 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

I like this one even as just a 2D image; the color, symmetry and design elements.  But of course, as a stereo image we can do more than just look at it, we can go there.  I find the mandelbox takes on a whole new dimension, no pun intended, when viewed in stereo vision.  Things that simply merged into the background are now floating and quite distinct.  I think we perceive the image differently when it’s a stereo pair.  Perhaps the effect is somewhat distracting and we want to go, “Wow!” at everything.  It’s certainly a whole new way of looking at fractal art, or any kind of art.  The stereo pair of Boston Common, above, has a life to it that it’s “one-eyed” version alone doesn’t have, although obviously good photography doesn’t have to be 3D.

fractal20100923 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

Every wonder what it would look like to go visit these “egg” covered mandelbox places?  Now you can.  Leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back.

One last one…

fractal20100919 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

This one’s another cool image even in just 2D.  In it is displayed the great range of imagery produced by the mandelbox.  This really reminds me of the old ViewMaster panoramas where you could come back again and again to walk your eyes around in a little world.  3D stereo imagery can be a powerful medium when the subject matter is as interesting as it is here.

More (much more) of Rathinagiri’s 3D stereo work can be seen here on his Flickr page.

Just one more:

fractal20101015 by Subbiah Rathinagiri

And a video!  A cross-eyed video.  You can do it.  Get cross-eyed first and then hit play.  [update: you might have to alter the “3D” settings that YouTube displays with to get “side by side” instead of “colored glasses” and a few other things…]

Illusion is the final frontier and nothing does it better than 3D stereo imagery.  My head is a spaceship and I go places.  At least that’s how it feels when viewing 3D stereo fractal art.  Sometimes it feels that way just walking around with two eyes.

3D stereo fractals are a natural extension of the new 3D fractal software.  I’ve just presented here some of the best examples that I’ve been able to find by Subbiah Rathinagiri, Duncan Champney and Don Whitaker.  I’m sure this is just the beginning, because as Rathinagiri’s work has showed, the results magnify and multiply the effect of the mandelbox imagery by allowing us to perceive it, literally, in a deeper and more profound way.

Fractal Art (Jean Marais) becomes famous in the film Orpheus (1950) by Jean Cocteau

In addition to the fractal art world, I also try to follow events in the Linux desktop world.  I’ve noticed some similarities, particularly with respect to the perennial question asked by both fractalists and Linux-ists:  When will the rest of the world discover what we’ve discovered?

You all know something about Linux; probably as much about Linux as the “rest of the world” knows about fractals.  I am not about to start ranting about why you should “switch to Linux” because you don’t care what operating system you use and I don’t either.

But the Linux zealots care and they feel (strongly) that if only the “restoftheworld” could just find out how great Linux is and how easy it is to use, then Linux adoption would take off and this year… would be… The Year of the Linux Desktop!

Lately, for the last year or so, there have been rumblings (minor blog posts) suggesting that maybe there will never be a Year of the Linux Desktop.  The reasons are simple: Windows works just fine now (it has ever since Xp arrived); and “therestoftheworld” doesn’t care about the things that Linux people care about.

The fractal art world is much smaller than the Linux world; it also lacks the social activism upon which Linux (Gnu project) was founded.  For those reasons there are much fewer rumblings in the fractal world because there are much fewer commentators and bloggers in it.

There isn’t going to be a “Great Fractal Awakening” in the “restoftheworld”.  Neither 2011 nor any other year will be the year of the Linux or “fractal desktop”.  This is it.  It’s just us and the little trickle of newcomers who wander into town every now and then.

Why will there be no year of the fractal desktop?  As it is with the Linux desktop, the reasons are simple: While most people may go, “Wow!” when they first see a fractal, it doesn’t resonate in the very core of their being like it does with fractal enthusiasts.  It’s not the sort of thing “therestoftheworld” goes for.

There’s nothing wrong with fractal art or how it’s being “presented to the world”.  The restoftheworld is a bunch of losers and fractal art just isn’t for them.

Consider how much the restoftheworld is a “bunchoflosers”:

• The Mona Lisa is the most popular art item in the Louvre
• Jean Cocteau is not a household name

Is it any wonder that those kind of people aren’t as excited about fractal art as we are?

Or is it because they just haven’t been “exposed” to it like we have?  Or they haven’t been “exposed” to it in a real art gallery in some other mainstream (i.e. loser) venue?

How about fractals on footballs?  At the Olympics?

I don’t think we need any more contests, exhibitions, press coverage or celebrity endorsements to get the fractal message out there to the masses.  The masses really do know what they like and it’s not fractal art.  (And it’s not a whole lot of other really cool things, too.)

The internet gives more exposure to fractal art than any offline medium could ever hope to.  Presenting fractal art offline is a great way to hide it from the restoftheworld.

Fractal Art (Jean Marais) is caught in a computer monitor: Orpheus (1950) by Jean Cocteau

My advice is, and I actually have heard rumblings of this in the fractal world:  make artwork that genuinely appeals to you and declare your audience to be people who like what you like.  When scoring your work, people who don’t like it don’t count (unless you’re one of them).

Do that and 2011 will be: The Year We Stop Expecting Mass Insanity.

Add the following two links to your bookmarks/favorites and visit them every day and you will stay up to date with 80% of all that’s interesting in the fractal art world today.  Recent Uploads to the gallery and Recent Posts to the forum at Fractalforums.com:

Recent uploads

Recent Posts

One of my favorite posting themes here on Orbit Trap is directing the attention of readers to what I think is the more interesting and more significant fractal art works out there on the internet  –a fractal art “digest”.

Contests don’t “work”

My main criticism of fractal art contests is that they seem to do very little in the way of presenting what is really the best of fractal art.  Contests are:

1. too small
2. too infrequent
3. too narrow in scope
4. disappointing
5. all of the above plus poorly judged

What the fractal art world needs, or what every other area of interest in the world needs for that matter, are a few critical venues unconstrained by the characteristics of contests that I’ve just mentioned and which in my mind condemns them to be trivial, over-hyped events .

Blogs are a good way to do this, but since early 2010 most of what I consider to be the more interesting fractal artwork has been gleaned from just following those two links on Fractalforums.com.  It’s gotten to the point that I sometimes feel readers would be better off just keeping an eye on those two pages of updates to Fractalforums; that’s all I’ve been doing lately.  The more interesting stuff is easier to find now and that’s all due to the crystallizing effect that Fractalforums.com has had in this new area of 3D fractals.

Just stay tuned to Fractalforums.com

I mention all this because I’ve found that this year, unlike all of the previous years I’ve been observing fractal art online (since 2002), there is just too much good artwork around to deal with.  I have about 200 links to good stuff that I’m just never going to get around to posting about along with keeping up with the daily increasing output resulting from more practitioners moving into the realm of 3D mandelbulb/mandelbox fractals.  When I see something really interesting I just have this natural urge to talk about it and generally share it with a few other like-minded true enthusiasts but there’s just too much of it.

But you can find most of it via those two links.  Not only that, but both those pages have rss/atom feeds which practically makes them websites or blogs on their own.

~Click on images to view full-size on original site~

Zongo!

hd_2010_013 by zzzzra (on Deviant Art)

Zongo is his FFs screen name.  His real name, according to his Deviant Art page is Alexandre Lehmann (France).  He makes this comment about the image:

You HAVE to see this in full definition !

He’s right; in full definition it’s even more vivid and the lighting is much more impressive, too.  Nicely rendered; I’ll bet it took some time to produce something this large and smoothly finished.

This is not just another amazing mandelbox, although technically it may be; I’ve never seen these sorts of shapes and polished silver rendering before.

Madman!

The Castle of Erignea by Madman (on Fractalforums.com)

Lately there’s been something called a “hybrid” mandelbox which seems to incorporate new formulaic structures and producing images, like this one, that have so much variety in their details that it’s hard to believe anything as mechanical as a fractal formula created them.

The  title immediately made me think of Montezuma’s Castle, a cliff dwelling in Arizona:

Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona, USA

Interestingly, Madman himself started a very thought-provoking thread on Fractalforums entitled, “Is there a limit in exploring 3D fractals? “.  In it he asks the question:

Do you think that there will be a time when every new picture will look like one that has been rendered previously or at least has the same “feel” as something rendered previously?

To avoid the possibility of misquoting him…

Rereading my post, I guess you could interpret it as a (rather pathetic ;-)) call for help, but that’s not what I intended. So let me try to rephrase and see if I can synchronise my writing with my thinking . I guess that from a mathematical point of view, there’s no end to the variety you can achieve by zooming more into either mandelbrots, -bulbs or -boxes, but if you look from a more artistical view I tend to find that at a certain point you get to a level where “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. Am I making sense here?

Let me put it another way: If you google “fractal art”, you ‘ll find that 95% of the hits show spirally thingies. Some of them are quite beautiful and have probably taken hours to render, but you know that with a little work, you can make something close to it yourself or at least something with the same “feel”.

So let me rephrase my question: Do you think that there will be a time when every new picture will look like one that has been rendered previously or at least has the same “feel” as something rendered previously? Something that you will immediately recognise as, say, a scale -1.34 Mandelbox, rotated x,y and z degrees, scaled and then sphere folded? Something that can no longer surprise you?

Hmmn… Isn’t that the ultimate question in fractal art?  I would reword it as, “Don’t fractals eventually become just fractals?” and, “How do you produce new and interesting work from a medium that has ceased to be new and interesting?  Madman’s responders naturally assume he’s run out of technical options and provide him with many more and also with the observation that there are even more than that yet to be discovered as folks explore all the remaining combinations and permutations of 3D fractal formulas and rendering methods.

But what I think Madman is getting at is that he feels close to running out of creative options, of which more formulas and rendering methods will only delay the inevitable creative collapse and infinite entropy “when every new picture will look like one that has been rendered previously or at least has the same ‘feel’ “

How to stay creative?

Here’s one of my many links I thought I’d never get a chance to post.  I think it fits in very well with the question of pursuing creativity within a well-trodden and heavily picked-over medium.

Dragonfly by The Rev (on Fractalforums)

What could be a more uninspiring subject than a Newton fractal?  (I think that’s what it is.)  And yet, I have never seen a Newton like this.  This looks like a hand-drawn image from one of those very classy full color graphic novels, those thinking-man’s comic books.

The Rev is clearly thinking outside the box, that is, the creative box.  Technically, he’s working with what would be considered ancient artifacts in the fractal world.  But I think the Rev has grasped the fact that fractal art is more than just fractals –it’s art.  And art is what you see, meaning, an image.  There are technical parameters to be be explored in fractal art and there are artistic parameters to be explored.  Fractal art is the combination of these two visual forces.

Sierpinski's Planet by Buddhi (on Fractalforums.com)

Sierpinski pyramids made of bricks?  What could be more technically uninteresting than a Sierpinski-anything?  And yet, I’ve come back to this one so many times just to:

1. Look at
2. Look through
3. See the shadows
4. At the top of a swaying Sierpinski pine

I think the advent of 3D fractals has marked the beginning of a new era in fractal art and Fractalforums.com is the place where it all started –and continues to start.  It’s the place to watch and read for the true enthusiast.

Deviant Art is just an image hosting service now and  I have no idea what happened to that Rendercity place.  The contests come out once a year to look at their shadow…  Most of the traffic on the web rings is just members checking their stats cause they thought they heard someone at the door this morning… the Googlebot is the only thing that drives down the road these days… Spirally thingies turn in the wind… looks like weather’s on the way… winter’s comin’…

We recently received an inquiry here at Orbit Trap; an email requesting where the Fractal Universe calendar featuring the work of Cornelia Yoder could be bought.

I was flabbergasted…

But I Googled the title, found it on Amazon.com and sent off a reply anyway.  Strange, I thought, but many people find hunting for things on the internet to be a challenge, and add to that the Christmas shopping season, and many of us are busy, so I just shrugged it off.

…And decided to take a second look at fractal calendars.

There’s more than one calendar out there using the title “Fractal Universe” so here’s the one made by Cornelia Yoder:

• Printed by Avalanche;
• Owned by Perfect Timing;
• Listed on Amazon;
• Sold by GrandmasGiftware.

~Click images to view on original site~

Fractal Universe calendar by Cornelia Yoder on Amazon.com

Backside of Fractal Universe calendar by Cornelia Yoder from Amazon.com

You can see clearly on the back the Avalanche logo and on the front “by Cornelia Yoder”.  Cornelia previously referred to Perfect Timing Inc. as the company behind this calendar and that’s probably because Perfect Timing owns Avalanche Publishing now.  She also mentioned she had a two-year deal with them to produce the artwork for the calendar.

I’d say Cornelia has done an excellent job maintaining that Fractal Universe style we’ve all come to know.  This could in fact be considered a “Tribute” album for the old Fractal Universe days.  Let’s change the subject…

Fractal Universe Calendar 2009 –a runaway cult classic!!!!

Well, what would you say if back issues of your wall calendar were selling for almost $1,500.00.  And that’s used copies!

I have a screenshot in case you think I’m making this up:

From Amazon.ca (Canadian site) Click to see if it's still there

No way?  Yes way!

(Notice that you still have to pay $6.49 for shipping)

Vintage fractal art calendars are becoming hot collectible items.  Alice Kelly’s Fractal Cosmos back issues are skyrocketing too!

Search results from Amazon.ca for Fractal Calendars

I am not a Lawyer and I am not an Investment Counselor, but if the tingling sensation in my funny bone means anything I’d say we all ought to go out there and buy up every copy of the 2011 Fractal Universe calendar we can because next year, or the next, they might be worth hundreds, if not thousands of dollars!

But which one?

The stock on the left is worth more, but you'll be able to buy twice as many shares if you buy the cheaper one on the right

Even you diehard supporters of the Fractal Universe calendar (either one) will have to agree that when a calendar can’t even come up with a new name that it’s not surprising it can’t come up with new artwork either.  But then, diehard supporters of these two calendars probably think the artwork is new.

But now how about this one by Orange Circle, which apparently is where the original Avalanche Fractal Universe editors (not the “editors”) went and started up their own version of the Fractal Universe style of calendar.

Infinite Creations, a fractal wall calendar by Orange Circle

Backside of Infinite Creations, a fractal calendar by Orange Circle

Note how well Infinite Creations has mastered the original (classic?) Fractal Universe style of kitchen (not kitsch) fractal art.  And what’s that?  Zoomin’ Mandelbrots!  Used copies are already selling for almost 3x their original public offering price!  $34.17 –Used!

How come no one told me about this one?

By any chance did you catch the odd thing my search results screen from Amazon.ca brought up when searching for Fractal Calendars?  I’m referring to the “Fractal Spirit Wall Calendar” whose title doesn’t mention “fractal” at all and instead says, “Our Lady of Guadalupe”.

Fractal Spirit Wall Calendar as seen on Amazon.ca; Click to view listing

Here’s a few images that might help you spot the apparent fractal connection:

From Amazon.ca

From Amazon.ca

From Amazon.ca

An interesting use of fractals: religious ornamentation.  What’s even more interesting is that there has been no attempt on the packaging (i.e. front cover) to market it as fractal or even as a special kind of graphical calendar; it’s just several ornamented versions of the Mexican madonna.  The front cover art doesn’t appear to have any fractal ornamentation at all.

Oh.  I just looked at the back cover again and saw the name “Fractal Spirit”.  I guess that’s the company that produced the artwork.  Here’s a slightly larger version of the front cover.

More Googling… I found this gallery of Our Lady of Guadalupe images which appear to be the ones from the calendar.  That would make “Fractal Spirit” Timothy Helgeson from northern California, USA.

Step into the Cosmic

There’s still one of the “pro-calendars” left to talk about and that’s the venerable (since 2000!) Fractal Cosmos published by Amber Lotus and featuring the art of Alice Kelley (not to be confused with Linda Allison).

Fractal Cosmos 2011 by Alice Kelley, Published by Amber Lotus

I’m sorry to say this, but there’s absolutely nothing weird or scandalous about Alice’s Fractal Cosmos calendar, although you will see in the Amazon.ca search screen up the page that a 2009 edition is selling for $158.34 in that Bermuda Triangle of used calendars (maybe Alice autographed that one?).

There’s a wider range of imagery in Fractal Cosmos and even more than one piece of software was used.  I think I saw an Incendia image in there.  For those who hold that commercial, wall calendar fractal art has to follow the Fractal Universe kitchen-ware style, Fractal Cosmos is a real challenge to explain.  Or perhaps it isn’t?  Amber Lotus, if you take a look around their site, is clearly not the same sort of outfit as Avalanche publishing is.  I found this on their About Us page:

Amber Lotus Publishing was founded in 1988 by students of a Tibetan Lama living in exile in Berkeley California.

For those of you who prefer to make your own gifts, I would like to remind you that although the titles Fractal Universe and Fractal Cosmos have been taken, Fractal Galaxy is still up for grabs.  In fact, Fractal Galaxy is feeling lonely and ignored, having been passed over by Avalanche Team A and Avalanche Team B and the unofficial Avalanche Team C who have set their sights much lower and decided to simply become “A fractal world” albeit one of “Infinite” creativity.

But since there’s already two Fractal Universes out there (parallel universes?) maybe we can all use that title, too.  Or at least a few more times.  Just don’t copy the dixie-cup style.  Fractal wall calendars can be creative and still be commercially successful.  A handful of harmonious humans in Oregon have been proving that since the year 2000.

Yep.  They sure are!

See if you can guess what fractal program made this one:

U.S. shot MIKE of Operation Ivy, 31 Oct 1952

Oh.  You guessed wrong.  But that’s understandable.  You see, the entire fractal generator that made the explosion was destroyed in the making.  Fast rendering time!  –but it only works once!

The Ivy Mike "Sausage" device before detonation.

I think they called it “Ivy Mike” because they weren’t sure if it was going to be a boy or a girl.

Sunsets are a cliche, aren’t they?  It’s the sort of art that beginner painters and beginner photographers make on their summer vacations.  Well, at the beginning of the Atomic Age, we were all beginners.  Here’s a nuclear sunset:

U.S. shot KING of Operation Ivy, November 15, 1952

This one reminds me of Monet.  Maybe it’s better than Monet.  It could sure blow Monet’s lilies right out of the water!

So hot and yet so cool!

Painted on black velvet; I love it! This one's going in the living room.

We don’t think of atomic weapons testing as fractal art because it’s not made with a computer.  But there’s been as much tweaking done to them as anything on the Ultra Fractal mailing list.  The early artists wouldn’t recognize today’s nuclear weapons.  They don’t look anything like the fractals made on the old Amigas.  Things have really changed.

The Past is sending signals

I like to go back to the old days and ask, “What if?”

What if… the biggest fractal ever made left a radioactive hole so deadly that even today we can only look at it from Space?

What if… I showed you a sunset so huge and fiery that it just blew you away?

...bet you'd say, "Wow!"

~photos from Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons Operation Ivy