Are fractals better categorized as Generative Art?

22 February, 2011 by Tim

Generative Art is simply a machine whose output has artistic qualities.

The Wikipedia page defines Generative Art as:

Generative art is a system oriented art practice where the common denominator is the use of systems as a production method. To meet the definition of generative art, an artwork must be self-contained and operate with some degree of autonomy. The workings of systems in generative art might resemble, or rely on, various scientific theories such as Complexity science and Information theory. The systems of generative artworks have many similarities with systems found in various areas of science. Such systems may exhibit order and/or disorder, as well as a varying degree of complexity, making behavioral prediction difficult.

It’s a contraption that makes neat-looking stuff, I’d say. The important characteristic is that the artwork is generated from the mechanical algorithm, or machine design, and untouched by human hands. The human component comes into play only in the design of the algorithm / choice of the algorithm / set-up of the machine / but the final result is displayed as-is, without alteration.

Graphically creative Java applets without any controls that initialize when the web page loads are the quintessential examples of Generative Art. You can’t get any more autonomous than that. Of course, a good Generative Art machine involves a huge amount of very clever design in order for it to achieve its intended purpose of producing far-out imagery. You could say that Generative Art is all about making beautiful clocks. A little winding and out comes a river of art, pouring forth in endless generations from a single, well-crafted piece of DNA.

Glory Math 1 from Coffeeshopped on Vimeo.

The art is what the machine does. You could photograph Generative Art and then tweak it graphically and display it, but then it’s less generative; derived from a generative art process. Many Generative Artworks are dynamic and produce animated results. The art is the flow of imagery and not just the best looking, and constantly changing images. Generative art is like a sports game: what engages the audience is the play, the way the game changes, develops and ends. Photos from a sports game are really not the same thing, but again, –produced from; –derived.

What I’m suggesting then, is that fractal programs are just like a sports game and what we normally think of as the finished product of fractal art –the saved image– is a derivation of what is actually the most artistic aspect of fractals: exploring parameter combinations within the program itself.

To a considerable degree, much like nature photography itself, saved fractal images are like fishes out of water, removed from their natural environment where they literally (had) a life of their own.

I’ve often wondered why I see so many “dead fish fractals” all over the internet. The reason is they’re the trophies of great fishing expeditions; fractal hunts; odysseys of adventure; rocks from the top of Mt. Everest. What’s missing is the art, but that’s in the process which can’t be captured and displayed; the memories; the experience itself. And that’s the heart of what Generative Art is: a beautiful process.

Naturally, one can also “make” fractal art and process and layer it, but what I’m suggesting is that that sort of thing is the lesser of two fractal art forms.

It’s the more common one, isn’t it? Or is it? How many more fractal “artists” are there out there who mostly play with the programs and spend hours sometimes just surfing the fractal waves of some nice set of parameters they’ve discovered. That sort of Generative Art lives in the machine and requires the machine to experience it. The saved and displayed images may just be the tip of the fractal art iceberg, whose greater bulk is submerged and unseen.

Generative Fractal Art (I just invented the term) requires special programming. The ideal program requires minimal user input and quickly renders graphically interesting imagery. In this context, Steven Ferguson’s programs are the best. I don’t know if Steve intended them to be used this way, but their design makes them very Generative Art friendly. You can make some pretty nice still images with them too, but starting up one of Steve’s fractal programs is like sailing off on a sunny day with no goal but to see what’s over the horizon. If you sail far enough you’ll find the more exotic fish, but even just keeping to the harbor where the sailing students take their lessons is a glorious experience. And I’d add it’s an artistic experience.

Tiera-zon, Sterling-ware, Inkblot Kaos, each one is like an old pirates treasure map or the 8th, 9th and 10th voyage of Sindbad.

Fractal Explorer, like the name suggests, is another good Generative Art fractal program. You don’t have to go to a naval academy to sail this one.

Ultra Fractal? Well, Dan Wills has used it quite a bit and brought back some impressive still images. I called Dan “Fractal Columbus” because I thought he was enjoying the generative qualities of fractals with UF, exploring vast landscapes and saving cool snapshots. But I think you’ll need a little training to get going with UF, unlike Steve’s programs which are much better suited for Generative Fractal Art purposes relying on a program’s operational autonomy and built-in creative design.

Terry Gintz has some good Generative Fractal Art programs too. His fractal landscape renderer is practically a Generative Art genre all it’s own. It’s found in Fractal ViZion and several other programs of his. Gintz’s programs also feature the ultimate Generative item: random parameters. Come to think of it, maybe Gintz’s programs are actually simpler to use than Ferguson’s. But Steve’s are my favorites because experimentation is quick and easy and good coloring is not hard to achieve .

In conclusion then, I think Fractal Art’s greatest artistic strength is realized when it’s seen as a type of Generative Art –a picture machine. I also think there’s many more people enjoying fractal art in this way but that they’ve just been thinking of it as playing around with fractals. It’s more than that, fractal programs are really complex Generative Artworks; some programs more than others. Used simply as tools with which to create still images, the results are often, but not exclusively, the kind of “dead fish fractals” we see having been taken out of the Generative Art context from which they came. In general, I think fractals are best categorized and appreciated firstly as Generative Art and only secondly as still images. The depth of the impression fractals make is greatly reduced when separated from the rich electronic environment that generated them.

BMFAC: “We Are All Winners Now”

20 February, 2011 by cruelanimal

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 the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) have been released by one of the contest winners. Only the winners received any information about the exhibition. It has taken six months for any photographs to surface on the Internet. The main BMFAC site has not been updated since the winners were announced last year. There has been no publicity about the India exhibition on the main site, nor have any of the previous three shows (two in Spain and one in Argentina) been mentioned at all.

The two released photographs are fairly long shots of the show. I’m sure this was deliberately done, for I doubt the organizers want anyone to have a clear view.

There is no discernible reason why photographs of the exhibition had to be limited to the winners. Why was no one else in the fractal community allowed to see them? Information is power, I suppose — or, perhaps, the lack of information maintains power. With the release of the photographs, we are all "winners" now. We can make up our own minds about the show based upon what we can actually see.

Two things are immediately evident in the photographs. The first is that the size of the prints is considerably smaller than a reasonable person would have inferred from reading the contest page’s exhibition description. Moreover, the prints in India are indisputably more minuscule than the prints displayed in the earlier exhibitions in Spain. Here is a look at the BMFAC show last May in San Sebastián:

This does look like an art exhibition.

An exhibition of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest in San Sebastián, Spain, 2010.
Photograph by Javier Barrallo. Seen on C82.

The contrasts between the two shows are striking. The large prints featured in Spain are obviously made using canvas. Doing otherwise would have made them far too heavy to display. The prints hung in India are noticeably smaller. They are paper prints that have been matted and placed under very not-glare-free glass.

Here’s the problem. The payoff for winning contestants was to have their work exhibited in India at the International Congress of Mathematicians. No reference to any other exhibition was made (and still hasn’t been mentioned). To be eligible to enter, participants had to have the capability of submitting images at unusually large sizes. According to the BMFAC rules page:

Size: Artwork that is selected must then be provided in high-resolution format, sized so that the largest dimension is 8000 pixels. If a high-resolution version of the artwork cannot be produced, it should not be entered. Some images may be selected for printing at even larger size (12000 pixels in the largest dimension) so entrants would do well to be aware of the size requirements. This is particularly important for certain types of fractals (e.g. flames) which are difficult to render at large sizes.

The only logical reason to insist upon such gargantuan image sizes is that the organizers planned to display very large prints — much like those shown at the unmentioned San Sebastián show. But the small prints used in India could have easily been made from image sizes 1/10th of what was required for entry.

What went wrong? It seems to me there are only two possibilities. One could be chalked up to a failure of planning. The other would be deliberate deception to achieve an ulterior motive.

BMFAC defenders are probably assuming the venue changed unexpectedly. The conference altered its plans at the last moment, and the exhibition had to relocate to a more limited space. But none of this is likely. Any attentive exhibition organizer will pre-plan and be familiar with the exact dimensions of every exhibition space. In other words, the organizer would know far in advance (and, in this case, BMFAC directors had over a year to get ready) whether the show(s) would be placed in a hall or in a hallway. The conference facility in India has an exhibition hall; BMFAC was not booked into it. And a sudden switcheroo couldn’t have been all that last minute. Realistically, it would take a fair amount of time to have all exhibition images re-printed, mounted, matted, and framed. In the end, the most reasonable assumption here is those running BMFAC knew all along exactly what space would be available and what size prints would fit that space.

As I have systematically argued, the likely explanation for insisting on such huge file sizes was to privilege Ultra Fractal. It is the software of choice for the two co-directors and for every BMFAC artist-judge. One co-director writes openly of his UF preference. Most tellingly, the author of Ultra Fractal, which is commercial software, openly served as a BMFAC judge — which is a conflict of interest so ethically staggering that it brings into question the validity of the entire enterprise.

Ultra Fractal, of course, is the only scalable fractal software that can easily handle BMFAC’s specifications — and everyone involved with the contest knows this to be a fact. And that’s why they did it — because they wanted UF to look good by weeding out artists using other programs. Tim clarified in his last post why the selection field was already inherently narrow:

[BMFAC is] limited in what it shows: 25 works chosen not from all that the fractal art world has to offer but from what those who cared to enter the contest thought would impress the eclectic (dream team) of judges. Right off the bat the exhibition is behind the eight ball because, by design, they must passively attend to only what the contestants give them.

Then comes the pièce de résistance. Hatch a scheme to limit what can be submitted by throttling any fractal artist not using UF. And, sure enough, as we documented last year, the overwhelming majority of winning images were made with UF. That was not a coincidence. It was a foregone conclusion. No, even worse, it was a deliberate strategy to give the general impression that most of the "best fractal artists in the world" use Ultra Fractal — just like their mentors — the "esteemed" (and self-appointed) BMFAC contest artist-judges.

And now we get the ironic kicker. Any fractal program could easily have made images large enough to make prints of the size used in the India exhibition. As it turns out, there was no need for insisting upon such absurdly vast size requirements. How many more artists could and should have been allowed to enter the competition? And how much more representative should and would the pool have been to show the true diversity of our art form and a wider variety of artists?

Apophysis’ users should be especially furious because that particular program does not scale images well — as the BMFAC rules page even indirectly notes. The size restriction ploy pretty much killed off any fractal artist who post-processes, too — unless he or she has a powerful computer at their disposal.

When all is said and done, this whole cynical business was about business. BMFAC was never about "choosing art that represents our art form to a world that largely does not know it." It was about selling product and promoting personal interests. It was, as Orbit Trap has consistently pointed out, a publicity scheme to promote the careers of those staging a competition in which they twice placed their own work.

They should be ashamed of themselves for furthering their careers on the backs of other artists.

But they are not, and they’ll be back again soon to re-run the whole phony contest intrigue again — if they think they can get away with it.

The question for our community is: Can they?

~/~

I almost forgot. I said the released BMFAC photos reveal two things.

The second is that what’s presented in the photos from India is not what I imagine an "international art exhibition" should look like. Does the "information hallway," as Tim describes it, match the picture in your head of a prestigious art exhibit?

I’ll say it because no one else will. What the photos show looks like something you’d see in a shoddy cafeteria — or in the waiting room of a dentist’s office.

presenting… The Information Hallway!

20 February, 2011 by Tim

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 what I’ve been saying for years: no offline anything can compare with the internet for introducing people to fractal art and showcasing the best examples.

BMFAC exhibition, Hyderabad, India, 2010, (photo published by Esin Turkakin)

And the photos also emphasise something I’ve been saying: offline exhibitions are always tied to the personal agendas of the organizers and sponsors and the artwork (and the audience) suffers for it. At least they suffer until they go home and start searching the information highway.

The Information Hallway, on the other hand, as expensive and complicated as it is to bring about , is so ineffective in every way. It’s limited in what it shows: 25 works chosen not from all that the fractal art world has to offer but from what those who cared to enter the contest thought would impress the eclectic (dream team) of judges. Right off the bat the exhibition is behind the eight ball because, by design, they must passively attend to only what the contestants give them.

And who’s walking down The Information Hallway anyhow? Math professors and other greats of this highly esteemed and highly un-artistic group of professionals. And as I mentioned once before, these people don’t have internet access or haven’t seen any fractal graphics before? They’re hardly the type of people an advertising campaign would target to promote fractal art, or any other art genre. Benoit Mandelbrot might have had a (passing) interest in the artistic application of fractal geometry, but that was years ago when fractals were fresh and revolutionary. The world of mathematics professionals is not the place to sow the seeds of fractal art –the art world is! Should that surprise you?

Jeremie Brunet (aka “bib”) recently had a (somewhat low-key) exhibition of his fractal artwork in a gallery in Paris and I think his approach was categorically better and about as effective as any offline fractal art event could be.

Jeremie displayed:

a whole bunch of his own work
to an artsy crowd
in an artsy venue
without distraction
got on television
shared photos and video online
and didn’t present himself as the best and the greatest (or wear a beret and speak with a French accent)

Compared the the great BMFAC with all it’s pomp, ceremony, famous selection committee and big sponsors, Jeremie Brunet’s low profile, one-man exhibition was a much smaller stone to drop in the ocean and yet it produced an much larger splash than the near-secret BMFAC did. Why? Because he presented artwork to an artwork loving crowd. Mathematicians are boneheads when it comes to art. That’s why they aren’t in an arsty profession, they’re mathematicians –academics and theorists.

A small television crew even came to interview Jeremie in the gallery with his work and he posted it on Fractalforums.com for all to see. The BMFAC? We had to beg the winners to show us some photos just to verify the exhibition actually happened (six months after).

Anyhow, the way other people are going to discover fractal art is probably the same way almost every fractal artist discovered it: on the internet. Go ahead and have offline exhibitions if the idea excites you. But just remember that while you’re planning (and spending your money) for that offline event, more people are stumbling across fractal art for the first time on the internet than will ever attend your offline exhibition even if it was held for a year and advertised on billboards.

The Information Hallway, as we’ve seen from all the publicity surrounding the BMFAC 2010 exhibition (that’s sarcasm) is a good place to hide fractal art and an excellent choice of an audience if what you want is exuberant secrecy. Meanwhile, the good old information highway keeps on rolling, 24/7, 365 days of the year. Fractal artists ought to think about that venue.

The Roots of BMFAC

16 February, 2011 by cruelanimal

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 a publicity stunt to feather the nests of its organizers and judges. These critics argue the competition is being unfairly maligned and is altruistic at its core. It’s not about self-promotion, claim our detractors. Rather, the contest’s organizers have selflessly volunteered their time and energy for the betterment of our discipline.

If you’re still sitting on the fence about this issue, or you believe our BMFAC critiques have been unfairly exaggerated, please consider the following.

The partial screencap above is taken from a page describing a fractal art exhibition that made some rounds in 2000. It was called "The Frontier Between Science and Art." Nearly one-half of the participants later went on to serve as BMFAC judges. Like BMFAC, the exhibition had a heavy touring rotation in Spain. Like BMFAC, it was produced by the same two co-directors.

In other words, this non-juried, by invitation only, vanity project eventually evolved into BMFAC.

Why? Because, like self-publishing, self-produced art exhibitions of yourself and your friends tend to be less respected and even frowned upon in most professional circles. After all, it’s not an objective peer review guiding the content of the exhibition; it’s subjective self-financing. You pay and you pick — and thus you can become both artist and curator simultaneously.

What suffers in such arrangements, though, is that artistic standards become irrelevant. Who among us really believes that the best artists are inherently those who are the most willing to pay to promote themselves?

But there was one way to bring instant respectability to this pay-for-view venture. Concoct a scheme to turn it into an "international fractal art contest." Set up yourself and your friends as the panel of judges. Rig the submission requirements to favor a particular scalable fractal software program favorable to your work and that of your friends. And, best of all, include the work of "panel members" (that’s you and yours, of course) in the "contest" exhibition in a manner that makes your self-selected, unjuried work indistinguishable from the work of the competition’s winners.

Presto. Suddenly your vanity project has instant professional integrity.

Except, of course, that it does not. The cheap theatrics should fool no one. It did not fool us. We called out BMFAC for what it was. A craven, self-evident, publicity stunt.

Recently, we’ve written several posts trying to figure out why there was virtually no publicity for BMFAC’s showcase exhibition in India last summer. Earlier BMFAC exhibitions featured press reports and photo layouts. I remember one picture in particular featuring a co-director and his grandfathered-in panel-selected art situated in a smiling photo with the late Benoit Mandelbrot. So, what was different this last go around?

I can only think of one thing. The directors and their judges elected not to include their own work in the last exhibition.

Do you see the connection to the lack of publicity now? As long as the exhibition furthered their own reputations and pushed their own careers, open the curtain and turn on the lights. But once the self-promoters exit the stage, close the curtain and fade to black.

And, so, only the BMFAC contest winners (supposedly) received PR packets about the India exhibition. I hope the competition’s winners, both past and present, feel the prestige of being recognized by BMFAC offsets that lingering, nagging back pain…

…the back pain from being forced to give the contest’s organizers and judges all those piggyback rides.

~/~

Speaking of the BMFAC India exhibition, I’ll remind our readers once again that the whole enterprise still falls under the definition of an alleged art show. To date, nothing concrete has surfaced on the Internet to demonstrate the show actually occurred.

Yes, several winners came forth and chided us for being so absurd to insist on what Othello once called "the ocular proof." One winner even admitted having photographs that he’d be willing to share — assuming we signed some kind of pre-nuptial agreement or something. Of course, he could have just as easily posted them to any one of his multiple web sites — but, to date, has not done so.

Why one would almost think revealing the photos would lead to some kind of shocking revelation. It’s safer, then, to dole them out in hush-hush tones to the winners only and blame the whole PR vacuum on a "press blackout" by Indian authorities.

What new wrinkle can’t be revealed to the rest of us? There were plenty of photos from the ICM conference. And those fractal prints were BIG, remember. They had to be printed huge to reveal plenty of "fractal detail." Yet, each print remains hidden from cyberspace. The show turns up nowhere on any search of the ICM site. It wasn’t in the main exhibition hall. Was it tucked away somewhere in a dark back hallway? Was space at a premium, so the whole exhibition had to be reprinted at a much smaller size? That would lend truth to the claim that the size restrictions were indeed designed solely for the expressed purpose of promoting Ultra Fractal…as if having the software’s author as a judge wasn’t enough of an unfair advantage already.

I guess we’ll never know the answers to these and other questions until one of the inner circle of winners decides to make photos of the exhibition public. After all, apparently, the winners are the only people on earth who’ve been given such materials.

I suppose the contest director and maybe a few judges have some photos, too. But I don’t think we can count on them for any shared publicity — especially now that there’s nothing in such a gesture for them. As far as they’re concerned, the show closed the moment the whole production stopped centering on their stealing every scene.

2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fractal Art Blogging

8 February, 2011 by Tim

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 art world which he’s observed over the years to have plagued and besieged Orbit Trap, the blog that inspires him. I think he’d prefer we not link to him or use his name. We’d sure like to so he could reach a bigger audience and inspire others out in the same way he says he’s been inspired by Orbit Trap. Naturally, if he’d like formal recognition, we’d be happy to give it to him.

The award was an easy decision to make because there’s really only two fractal art blogs on the internet and we couldn’t give ourselves an award; it’s not like we’re a fractal art calendar or contest.

Here’s a few choice excerpts from the prize winning journalist’s recent work in the area of fractal art criticism and editorial commentary that caught Orbit Trap’s eye and earned him the very first Pulitzer Prize for Fractal Art Blogging.

On the Fractal Universe Calendar

I hope this post doesn’t bring any negativity or haters. I’ve seen this happen when the subject was so delicate (to some people) like this. But here we go.

I had read in another blog – which I won’t mention here which one it is just because of these fights and haters, but it has been mentioned here a couple times and I do share many of their thoughts about how and where the fractal art is going – about how the Fractal Calendar was becoming sort of a… how to put it lightly… commercial product supposedly open to the fractal artists community to participate, but a project where just a few people had the chance to participate.

Today, when I was going to the Fractal Forums website to get the latest Mandelbulb version for my other computer, I typed a wrong address that took me apparently to the official site for the Fractal Calendar. And they had 3 galleries for the 2009, 2010 and 2011 editions with the images. And now I could see with my own eyes that this was very much true, the images are indeed boring and repetitive. They aren’t ugly, though. But 12 images of common spirals and Doodads? I can do that too. Sometimes better. Many others can do that as well.

I think that the last time I had checked for the images in that calendar was around 2003, when I even submitted some images (silly me…). The same group of people seemed to dominate the choices of approved images back then, but the images were much more better and diverse. Now, they’re just as I’ve said, common spirals and Doodads. Sad, really.

…the images are far from being fresh, creative and daunting or even “updated”, they are just something that seem to have been done to fit a certain commitment, “we must do the calendar, you are the chosen artists, just send me anything in time and that’s fine”.

…it’s sad to see that they have chosen just common spirals done in Ultra Fractal. No Apophysis, no old-school Fractint images, no new styles like the Mandelbulbs. And just spirals. While the time in the calendar goes on for all of us, the quality of its images seem to be going back in time. Or the clock seems to have stopped in 2002 for the people that are responsible to choose the images.

…and this wasn’t a personal attack on anyone (before any of these haters that like to keep starting flame wars in the aforementioned blog find an excuse in this post to start some more of these wars), this was just my personal opinion on the Fractal Calendar (to which you are entitled to disagree) and my comments are mostly made about the way it’s made and conceived and how its images are chosen, not about the talent or the quality of any of these fractal artists involved.

On Orbit Trap’s Influence

Many thanks to the guys at Orbit Trap to have quoted my opinions, to slightly discuss them and more, to understood them perfectly. I’m more than anything learning to be honest with my own feelings (artistically and in everything else) so whatever I’ve said here about my disappointments with fractal stuff in general that was repercuted by Orbit Trap is absolutely true. Whenever I say I am hating Apophysis for example, I really do. But I’m hating the Deviant kind of Apophysis – the mass-produced, randomized thing.

And I think I could only understand what was going on when I read these posts at Orbit trap pointing me to some obvious things that most people (comfortably) refuse to see, better still have your comment box filled with friends pats on the back than making something you’re enjoying.

On the Random Batch Apophysis Gallery

Pretty isn’t it? But guess what was my involvement in all this? A few clicks. To be precise, just 3. One to open Apophysis, other in the menu to select “Scripts”, and the last one to select a script. (OK, there was another one, to run the script, it’s 4 clicks actually, sorry!). There were a few more clicks required to render the images, but these aren’t related to the actual creation of the images. And these images look quite similar not only to each other but to most of these so-popular “amazing-whatever” batches of fractal “art” spread all over the internet. So sad.

I decided to do this after reading so many of these “this is my fractal wallpaper for today” posts (and all these links to “amazing” galleries with 100 images as well) and being disappointed with most of the images I see there…

[…]

When you say “for today” I think it implies you’re doing one of these images every day. After some time, even if you used to have any involvement and care while publishing one single image a day (you always did, didn’t you?), it gets lost eventually, because even if you don’t have any motivation to make a good image that day for whatever reason, you must publish one, to keep the commitment to have the “fractal of the day” posted in time. Then or you’ll make something sub-par to keep it going…

[…]…My problem is with these other, sub-par, common images, that are still labeled as “amazing” and that are being delivered daily like rabbits or mice. Images that have a lot of self-similarity – within themselves and with every other low-quality fractal art available, the 3-click batches. A very good example of self-similarity (a basic characteristic of a fractal), but in an opposite way.

[…]…Instead it’s mostly people just running some batch script just to not be forgotten, if they don’t post their “fractal of the day” at that specific hour they will be ignored and people will start paying attention to other “artists”.

I could have kept my site going and with daily updates like that forever, and probably by now I would have around 10,000 images… If you don’t have anything meaningful to say, shut up, it’s simple as that. If it’s not working and you can’t make images that YOU think are worth showing to anyone, don’t do it. For today.

PS. I hope nobody thinks that this “special” gallery was really meant to be called “amazing”. It was done just to illustrate the content of this post. The only amazing thing there was the amount of time spent to render them. If you can’t understand irony and/or sarcasm, I’m really sorry.

Irony, social commentary and inspirational sources; that’s Pulitzer Prize winning material. And now we’ve got our own Pulitzer Prize winner in the area of Fractal Art Blogging. Well, maybe not your Pulitzer Prize winner, but, to quote the recent 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fractal Art Blogging, “If you can’t understand irony and/or sarcasm, I’m really sorry.”

On Style 2

7 February, 2011 by cruelanimal

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 Calendar (FUC) — the long-running staple of fractal art mass marketing. Her work made with early iterations of Ultra Fractal established a touchstone in the public mind for what a fractal was supposed to be — swirly and decorative ornamentation filled with light. Subsequently, the production of fractal art took on guild qualities, as Tim laid out earlier in a series of posts on Orbit Trap, and imitators swelled Fractalbook to churn out self-similar kudzu while social networking.

I’ve been hard on the FUC and its rigid notions of fractal imagery, so some readers might think I am being snarky here. I am not. To have had such a profound effect on any artistic discipline is a considerable achievement.

Not that Allison necessarily ripped her style from whole cloth. More likely, it was indirectly appropriated. Early on, Ultra Fractal built its commercial software to take advantage of Fractint’s open source graciousness. By annexing Fractint formulae, Allison was able to build on established pattern recognition and use the additional graphic firepower of UF to launch her own vogue.

Sp035 by O

The image above by prodigious Fractint artist O shows the foundation for what would become the early-UF Allison-influenced style. The spiral image is crisp and clear; its composition unfolds in dark tones with hard, defined lines. Although O’s gender is unknown (to me, anyway), and stereotypes aside, a differentiation between masculine and feminine styles might be in order here. From A Little Design:

Typically in design the stereotype for “masculine” follows with angularity, straight lines, phallic forms, squares, roughness, etc. And for the “feminine” the standard is: curvy, rounded, smooth, organic, soft, floral, flourishes, motherly, nurturing… etc. But one doesn’t have to look far in our modern world to find nurturing men, who care for their children and aggressive women who climb mountains.

Allison took Fractint forms and ran them through her own UF filter — more curves, more saturation, more light. Softer, natural shapes replaced harder-edged geometric forms and angles.

Morning Magic by Linda Allison

Her images are elegant flourishes of light — highly decorative. At their best, they transcend a beauty-is-all aesthetics and reach to be about something — to express ideas or suggest connections to the natural world.

The Avalanche by Linda Allison

Over time, Allison’s style, coupled with the popularity of UF, became the dictionary photograph for the word fractal. Before long, the compliment engines of Fractalbook were mass-producing such images on a scale dwarfing greeting cards. This "UF Look" became the status quo — became the gateway style to "success" in the Fractal Universe Calendar and settled into the prevailing (but not exclusive) aesthetic of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC).

Ironically, such imagery somehow enjoyed a kind of anointed status as being more purely fractal — even though such works were significantly processed within UF and eventually became precursors for the masked and layered pictorials generated by artists using more recent versions of the software.

Garden Clippers by Linda Allison

But any artistic movement — especially one awash in decoration — once safely boxed into the foundation of the status quo will be stifling to some — some who envision a new wave. In short, Allison’s style gave the fractal underground something to rebel against, to "kick against the pricks" in the medieval sense. More than a few fractal artists actively worked against the grain of the prevailing aesthetic for years, and, more recently, Guido Cavalcante sounded a clarion call on Orbit Trap:

I believe that algorithmic art must now engage in activities that have been "not appropriate" for the medium until now, during those times when it was still trying to find its own aesthetic. But now algorithmic art is finally ready to serve "non-artistic" purposes. It’s not a problem, of course, if some prefer to continue on creating purely aesthetic and visually intriguing objects. There is nothing wrong in doing that, although doing so does not constitute the same "heroic" accomplishment that it once did when algorithmic artists were struggling to break away, and give birth to a new medium. That was the challenge of the last 20 years. But now those early steps belong to history.

For those of us who prefer our fractal art with more cultural-social-political bite, it’s tempting to think the cosmetics of the fractal craft guild are historical memories buried neck-deep in nostalgia. But old habits hang on and on. Just two weeks ago, look who made the cut on Renderosity’s Fractal Windows Weekly:

Banana…Bush??? by Linda Allison

Don’t topple those weathered statues yet. The status quo is indeed the revolution that’s not only televised but still mass produced online in Fractabook. Over on deviantART, a Fractalbook realm pigged out with imitators, open the fractal splash page at any given moment, and you’ll find an assortment of today’s daily deviation of Allison wannabes. And are you one who thinks the next wave of 3D fractal renders will wipe away the old, stale aesthetics? Not if practitioners using programs like Mandelbulb3D continue to simulate the Allison style and believe ornamentation best fulfills fractal art expression:

Getting Loopy by Dsynegrafix

I guess the status quo style can still eat its young — even some of those armed with new tools. The lengthy threads of gushing Fractalbook virtual hugs and kisses under the last two images above show how much the Allison style aims to (still) please. I guess an open slot (or grave?) remains in calendars and contests for 3D fractal renders that are properly tweaked with acceptable embellishment. I guess, too, the first clue of establishment leanings was when, completely without irony, Dsynegrafix thanked an artist for use of his parameters. That artist calls himself McImages.

~/~

Next in the series: A look at Jock Cooper’s "Mechanicals." One sentence revised for clarity.

The Art of the Strange Place

7 February, 2011 by Tim

~ Click on any image to view full-size on original site ~

Spiny Newton Julia Disc by Erisian

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 of this, I think it’s only appropriate to examine more closely this reinvigorated sub-genre of fractal art.

Fractal art? Actually, Strange Places often feature what could be called foreign objects and elements, producing what in traditional art circles is vaguely referred to as Mixed Media. Erisian’s image above, which the author says was made with Bryce and Tiera-Zon is a good example of this.

Bryce is a well established 3D graphics program that gave birth to the computer graphics “artform” of fairy tale landscapes encased in shiny glass balls, floating on beautiful oceans at sunset. Erisian’s parched landscape and departure from “glass-ball-ism” is a refreshing thing to see associated with Bryce. The use of Tiera-Zon, a classic 2D fractal program by Stephen Ferguson, on the other hand, was a genuine surprise to me. I thought it had to be something made in one of the Mandelbox programs. But no, Tierazon has entered the 3D universe (via Bryce, I assume).

MandelForest 1 by MarkJayBee

This one here by MarkJayBee (on Fractalforums.com) is pretty old by mandelbox standards, dated at May 4, 2010 (seems like a decade ago). Mark specializes in sci-fi mandelbox panoramas so it’s not surprising he’s captured what I would call a Strange Place. What could be a better use of Strange Places than sci-fi environments? It looks just like a scene out of the movie, Avatar, with its floating pinacles and dangling vines. What makes for a Strange Place is such an alien panorama as this: realistic, and yet unreal. You feel like you’ve been someplace. A Strange Place.

Sierpinsk Temple detail by MakinMagic (Dave Makin)

Did I say MarkJayBee’s mandelbox was old? This Sierpinski Temple by Dave Makin actually predates the 3D Mandelbulb/Mandelbox arrival. Of course, you can see that in Dave’s conveniently located watermark in the bottom left corner. Someday, perhaps, the only digital artists that will ever be remembered are those who wrote their names on their work.

This is a real sci-fi city Dave has created. Richly detailed, majestically lit, it’s a city of Empire State buildings, each one half statue and half office building. Actually, they’re nicer than the Empire State building. And here we are, perched like eagles, looking into these crowded canyons of sacred architecture. That counts as a Strange Place.

Museum Secret Passageway by janetino

Janetino (Deviant Art ID) creates some of the most vivid mandelbox renderings I’ve ever seen. If this was a high resolution, professionally taken photograph of the real thing it wouldn’t look as good as this. Most of the time perfect renderings like this look plastic-y and lifeless but not here. These are heavily ornamented metal doors leading to some of the greatest rooms in the king’s palace. Or are they the lavishly crafted doors of the king’s treasure vault? This is as close as we’ll get, but we’ve been there. We’ve been to this Strange Place.

Grotto by The Rev (Fractalforums.com)

Here’s a slightly different one but nonetheless characterized by the quality of an alien view, The Strange Place. The Rev really shows some style here in this one: nice composition, coloring and that special something that you just can’t describe but can see so well –style. This looks very mandelbulbish; I see those round fuzzy things on the walls. It’s always a minor triumph to make something this appealing from that old pollen spore, the mandelbulb.

We’re crouched in a cave and looking out onto the golden rockwalls of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt or maybe one of the many niches and cavities surrounding Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Ancient and alive forever looking into the Sun. Or is that just me? I’m a million words rolled up on papyrus and a I don’t ever want to be found. The world is not worthy of my secrets. This is a fine Strange Place if there ever was one. I’m going to hang out here for a while; you can head off to YouTube if you like.

The Lair of Ananta-Boga by Lenord (2011)

Are they hoops, tunnels, giant wicker honeycombs? There’s a Victorian, Steampunk look to it; wrought iron or Eiffel Tower-esque? And I keep thinking what a cool racecourse this would be for the video game, MX Unleashed or Off-Road Fury because there’s something in this that says roadway. How’s that for a Strange Place? Driving is believing.

Lenord likes symmetry and I’d say this is his best symmetrical work, yet. Strong design and rich depth and detail to the imagery. Dream-like and surreal. Made with the Mandelbulb 3D. Hey, he’s included the parameter file along with it on the gallery page at Fractalforums…

Strange Place is type of artwork that expresses wonder and mystery via a language of physical environment –scenery. You could say it’s the computer version of landscape art, but that’s putting it mildly. There’s commonly a surreal tone to Strange Places because computer algorithms, like fractal formulas, don’t create wall calendar nature scenes, they make freaky stuff. In fact, the parameters that render a Strange Place image might just as easily render something entirely different with a few minor adjustments. That’s the magic of fractal algorithms: you don’t know what’s around the corner until you go there.

Strange Places are vacation snapshots of digital places. They’re as real as any other place you can take of photograph of, and now with the current 3D fractal developments including actual stereo video rendering (3D glasses), they’re almost as real as it gets without actually being in the picture. Rathinagiri’s cross-eyed stereograms that I posted about before, show how vivid the digital world can be. The digital world is the Strange Place I’m talking about, I guess.

$fractal20110127 by Rathinagiri$

fractal20110127 by Rathinagiri

3D stereo fractal imagery just might be the ultimate level to the art of the Strange Place. When I look at Rathinagiri’s image in cross-eyed mode, it’s like these swirly clay shapes are right in front of me and I could reach out and touch them. I’m practically in the picture, the illusion is so strong. Rathinagiri hasn’t just given us an image of something to look at, he’s given us the real object itself. You just can’t touch it; no different than being in real world museum or art gallery. I’ll bet it’s that intense reality that motivates him to keep creating stereograms.

Anyhow, that’s the art of the Strange Place and I think it’s a sub-genre that will only grow and develop the way things seem to be going in fractal art these days. So if you find there’s something powerful and compelling about a fractal image but you just can’t fit it into the regular categories of visual art or find the words to explain what’s so good about it, it’s probably this Strange Place thing I’ve been talking about here. A fresh wind of surrealism. For the true eye-ball enthusiast.

Parameter File Sharing For Dummies

4 February, 2011 by Tim

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 “discussion” about parameter file sharing on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List has reminded me how deep the wheel ruts are when it comes to fractal artists talking about copyright and ownership. Most fractal artists subscribe to notions about copyright that are the law only in their own private, mental kingdoms. Answers to almost all their questions about copyright are available –from official government sources– on the internet, but oddly, very few fractal artists seem to be interested in actually resolving these questions. Why consult the US Copyright Office when you know more about their copyright legislation than they do?

Copyright is neither a moral or ethical issue: it’s a legal one. Consult the law, not your personal feelings or that of your online buddies.

Putting copyright issues aside, for the moment, what is the best way to share fractal parameter files?

Firstly, do you really want to help others build on your fractal discoveries? or do you just want to fish for applause with your parameter file? Unless you really want to pool your knowledge with other fractalists, you shouldn’t be giving out your parameter files to start with. You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment because you can’t take back what you’ve given out on the internet. It works that way with posting embarrassing party photos, and so it does with anything else uploaded to the… World Wide Web.

The best solution I can think of for most artists that will enable artistic collaboration and minimize feelings of regret, is to:

share parameters only with other artists who approach you personally.

Posting parameters to the Ultra Fractal Mailing List is effectively giving them out to a huge, anonymous crowd. You have no rapport with an anonymous crowd and they have none with you; any restrictions you place on the use of your parameters are about as meaningless as your name that goes with them. It doesn’t matter what your legal rights are, you won’t even be able to enforce copyright restrictions over something which is only the source code of a fractal image unless those “infringers” help you out by posting their parameter file for you to compare. (Or unless they only minimally alter your parameters and post an image which is almost identical to yours.)

Think about it: sharing parameters only on a personal level is a good policy because it also allows the recipients to give back to you and builds up professional connections that could easily become a source for mentoring or other kinds of professional development.

Furthermore, fractal art is such a small genre that once you exclude everyone except the dedicated enthusiasts, you could share your parameters for the latest hybrid mandelbox with five other artists like yourself and have reached 80% of everyone who’s making regular, meaningful contributions to that area of fractal art.

Besides, there’s an enormous amount of imitation in fractal art today; widespread parameter file sharing probably makes that worse. When artists should be experimenting with new things and discovering new types of imagery having other artists (good artists) give them a short cut probably doesn’t help them much in the long run. The only good use of parameter file sharing is to spur further innovation, not easy imitation. Share your innovations with other innovators.

Most people love to share their skills and knowledge with others who share their interests. Not all; some artists are different, competitive and that sort of thing, but I believe most will find these professional exchanges quite inspiring as well as equally satisfying.

Throwing their pearls before swine, on the other hand, has been a regretful thing for artists, intellectuals and just about everyone else, ever since biblical times.

Ultra Poetry

3 February, 2011 by Tim

Westdale Coffee Shops / Thursday Night - My Dog Joe (photo by Kenneth Moyle)

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 ne sais quoi” (bongo roll!) of true poetry lingo. A little extra push to bring this baby out into the world of sunshine and stanza-i-zation (another bongo roll!). Well, I guess it’s satire, too, but I just dig this cat’s passion and choice of words. Hey man, I just thought it needed a little Robert De-Frost-ing and a few turns on the old charcoal language grill to make this the perfect Allen Gins-burger of our time.

Zooreka, speak thy words, daddy-o!

[ultrafractal] ENOUGH IS ENOUGH—

Thats the final straw..
ANYONE here who is currently
a friend of mine
on Facebook
is invited to view
the entire problem…
if that is you
are unable
or unwilling
to read!

I will not consort
with
or share anything
with
a den of Art thieves
or those of you
who obviously support them

What part of the following statement have you all got a problem with,
eh?

Full copyright for this piece
Made available for educative purrposes
and Examination
only,
exclusively to
February 2011

It’s plain and simple,,,
Nowhere
were tweaks
invited
or even suggested!

Not only did
aka Art Thief…
go
against my express wishes
but also took it
off-list
and published my work
under his
(or her)
name.

What is wrong with you people?

Wait til it happens
to you
and I’m sure
you’ll all know about it!

HOW DARE people
for example
attack me for defending
my work…
maybe you see
art
as a joke
and its okay
to steal!

Anyone here
as previously mentioned…
on my friends list
at
FaceBook,
Redbubble,
DeviantArt
etc
that shares the point
of view of anyone supporting
this is asked
to immediately remove themselves as such.
I have nothing
to say to
vermin
and believe me
it will get
ugly.

I am thankful that this is only one piece….
and I will not obviously
be pursuing the matter
legally
due to costs…
but believe me
if I had the money I
wouldn’t think
twice about it…
as a matter of principle.

Who’s talking war here?
No different to the themes
of the last week
as far as I can see…
Lots of posts
about stolen parameters
attributed to
who some of you
yet again
suggested wrongly
that she might be the art thief.
Then publishing work
without express
permission.

There is absolutely No freaking difference here!

Only takes one facebook
friend
here to stop by my
account confirm the findings
and post
back here!
The misuse of parameters
is plainly evident
from yesterdays list!

Choose to ignore
it if you wish but I
will not tolerate
either the
theft of my work
or
the insults that followed….
I have refrained from replying
in kind thus far!

It is rare at all
I post here anymore
and when I do
it is often
to be helpful to others,
examine technique
and sometimes tweak…

Thats how it has always been
since I joined here.
Instead I find rubbish
and often off-topic
stuff
posted
here,,,,
Like.. another fine day, isn’t it?

I find announcements of uploaded
work to other sites,,,
Lol
I’m sure
I could clog
the list
with that
one…

Padding
and of little substance
or relevance to the list.
Thats the plain and simple
truth of it!
Hardly surprises me at all anymore
that a lot of faces
and some of the better
artists
I got to
know
learning this program
have vanished totally from the list,,,
I believe I can now see
why!

[ultrafractal] correction to my last post enough is enough
…

Fractal Computing

2 February, 2011 by Tim

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 the way they have on the Windows platform. He doesn’t speculate as to why it isn’t going to happen or what it is that’s all messed up with fractals on the Mac platform, he simply asked the question (I’m paraphrasing) “Why is a graphic design-rich environment like the Mac so fractal program poor?”

Of course it’s not quite so bad now as it was back in 2006; Duncan Champney has produced a fine fractal program, Fractal Works, whose style has created it’s own niche in the fractal art world and not simply played catch-up with Windows programming. I think if Juan Luis was writing today he’d concede that Macs now have a respectable fractal program in Fractal Works.

I know nothing about Macs, and Apple in general, except that they make very elegant computing devices and they run the entire user/developer environment like a minimum security prison. Ironically, the computing company that has the hippest public image is also the one with the most repressive and authoritarian practices. (Totally un-cool.) Bill Gates, the former head of Microsoft might have been a hard playing businessman who used his company’s monopoly to run competing software developers off the road, but Steve Jobs of Apple is running both software and hardware competitors off the road.

I got a new computer this past week. My previous one was a used, off-lease desktop made in 2002. It ran Ubuntu Linux and drove down its own road, far away from the commercialism of the worlds of Microsoft and Apple.

My new computer came with a disk for Xp and a disk for Windows 7 but instead I dropped a disk for Ubuntu 10.10 into the optical drive and installed this popular version of Linux in about 20 minutes. Everything worked on my HP Elitebook 8440p including wireless card and special touch sensitive volume buttons. In fact, the installation of this Free Open Source Software (FOSS) operating system was actually easier than Windows 7. Ubuntu downloaded and installed the drivers, flash plugin, document viewers, multi-media codecs and a full suite of applications in one, simple step.

But I decided to go with Windows 7 instead.

Why? Linux is the land of the free, isn’t it? No more Evil Bill or Sinister Steve? Don’t do it man! Stay in Shangri-la!

The answer to why is right from Juan Luis’s posting from way back in 2006: the world of the Windows operating system has more creative options for its users. Ironically, those creative applications were built by and for its users and have nothing to do with the square-headed corporate creators who make and administer (and license) the operating system. Windows might not be a perfect world, and Linux has much less restrictions and a groovy, futuristic vision, but Windows is more a world of its users’ making than it is of the heartless corporation that created it. Weird, but it’s grown into more of a creative place than Linux has despite lacking the strong un-restrictive, wide-open everything foundation that the Linux world is securely rooted in, and was carefully designed to forever be.

But… I could never find very many programs that would knock me out of my gourd in Shangri-la. I just couldn’t dig that, man.

Orbit Trap

a blog about fractal art

Monthly Archives: February 2011