3 min 1

Coaches and Artists

  • Tim
  • 7 February, 2007
I dislike the “artist” label. Maybe it dislikes me, too. Original from Tierazon 2.7 To me, the word, “artist” conjures up the image of someone who works hard and approaches their “work” with discipline and…
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8 min 11

Enemy Combatants

Enemy Combatant 1 (2007) “Put it all together, and last week’s passage of the Military Commissions Act is ominous for those in the US. As Bruce Ackerman noted recently in The Los Angeles Times, the…
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1 min 3

One-eyed Madonna

  • Tim
  • 31 January, 2007
Alright, it’s not historically accurate. Traditionally, I think, Mary has always been portrayed with two eyes. None of the Bible accounts mention how many eyes Mary had. Da Vinci’s Madonna had two eyes. Of course,…
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1 min 3

Dragonfly Saloon Girls

Dragonfly Saloon Girls (2001) We had gunslingers in deluxe tuxes and knit jackets with shoulder straps. We had military girls and sailor girls but sexy Red Riding Hood was a no show. Smothered in daisies…
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2 min 2

The Wells of Abraham

  • Tim
  • 22 January, 2007
I saw a documentary on Middle Eastern wells. A well is a big deal there. Everything happens because of water. Some of them are quite old, even supposedly dating back to the days of Abraham.…
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2 min 2

"Fractals Don’t Look Like Anything"

Alien Supplicant (2007) I go on a quaternion fractal kick for a few weeks almost every year. There’s something very special about these sculpted, rolled in Play-Doh, Tootsie Roll forms. I find them fascinating because…
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1 min 1

I spent my future building a star

  • Tim
  • 15 January, 2007
We worked as a team. A huge team of scientists and builders like me. No one had built a star before. We were going to be the first. How many angels can dance on the…
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3 min 0

How Green was my Cubicle

  • Tim
  • 7 January, 2007
I read somewhere, or heard from someone, that study carrols were invented in monasteries. A study carrol (did I spell it wrong?) is a one-person table that is walled on all sides except the one…
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1 min 1

Hordes of Photoshop Jockeys

Hordes of Photoshop Jockeys (2000) This one is kind of an in-joke. Back when I used to post my images on Usenet on alt.binaries.pictures.fractals (which were either — pick one — the good old days…
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2 min 1

The marriage of Sputnik

  • Tim
  • 2 January, 2007
The first Radio Satelite. 1957, or around then. Whatever happened to Sputnik? No longer a celebrity, and not too shiny anymore, he slides through space, without destination or purpose. His simple senseless beeping, once the…
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3 min 2

Deep in the Mines

Deep in the Mines 1 (2000) Fractals sometimes transcend their parameters. If they are art — and I’m guessing that most of us think they are — then our images reflect some deeper part of…
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2 min 2

Space Heads

  • Tim
  • 24 December, 2006
Sasquatch, UFO’s, Bermuda Triangle, and now –Space Heads. What am I talking about? Imagine that outer space is something like the ocean: mostly empty but “infected” with life. We don’t expect to find something. We…
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6 min 3

Putting the Art in Fractal Art

Chump Change (2006) The way I saw my art changed when I started working with a master printer to make poster-sized Giclees of my own work. I began to see my images on the wall…
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5 min 0

Flames over Tokyo

  • Tim
  • 17 December, 2006
It’s never been my intention to talk about war and depressing stuff like that, but I like this image and all I can think of when I look at it is the B-29 fire-bombing campaign…
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3 min 3

The Varieties of Deadly Experience

  • Tim
  • 8 December, 2006
Forest of Knives I remember back during the last few years of the Vietnam war, in the early 70s, reading an article in the magazine that came with the weekend edition of the newspaper, about…
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4 min 1

Homage to Andy Warhol

Homage to Andy Warhol (2000) From artrepublic: In 1960 Warhol began to replicate a range of mass-produced images, beginning with newspaper advertisements and comic strips before turning to packaging, dollar bills and more. He is…
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2 min 1

Visual Encryption

  • Tim
  • 1 December, 2006
Smashing with style Digital Dynamite Filter of Frenzy Ripped-off beyond recognition and left for dead “No, your Honour; I didn’t do anything. I just took the dog for a walk until it was dead.” Together,…
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2 min 2

Homage to Alexander Calder

Homage to Alexander Calder (1999) To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there’s no such thing as perfect.—Alexander Calder From the National Gallery of Art: Alexander Calder revolutionized the art of sculpture…
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4 min 1

Homage to Niels Bohr

Homage to Niels Bohr (2004) From Nobelprize.org: In the autumn of 1911 [Bohr] made a stay at Cambridge, where he profited by following the experimental work going on in the Cavendish Laboratory under Sir J.J.…
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3 min 0

I stepped off on Saturn

  • Tim
  • 24 November, 2006
You know, post-processing can really mangle a decent, law-abiding fractal image and make it an almost unrecognizable, but strangely delightful, wreck. Some will never walk straight again. But when you start with an image that…
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3 min 4

Postcards from Shangri-La

  • Tim
  • 18 November, 2006
Would you expect this from someone named “Ilyich the Toad”? Once again, I’ve dug up a new and amazing Photoshop filter and I want to share the wonder… But it’s got a dirty name. I…
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2 min 5

One more time…

  • Tim
  • 6 November, 2006
What is art? There’s an old black and white movie that spends two hours depicting a jury sitting around a table in a room, deliberating the verdict of a murder trial. Now I could also…
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1 min 1

Life is not

  • Tim
  • 1 November, 2006
Life is not for the rich and famousfor the successful applicant and the olympic fewLife is in the eye and the mind and the handIt needs no permission,or conditionsto be. We can all be like…
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1 min 0

Fractal Trick or Treat?

The Familiar (1999) I’ve always been more interested in using fractals to push ideas rather than to serve as decorations Still Life with Dracula (2002) and this approach has sometimes proven very handy at Halloween…
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3 min 6

"Better" than Pollock?

  • Tim
  • 23 October, 2006
Back twenty years ago in high school English class I read or studied, or something, Julius Caesar by George Bernard Shaw. Shaw, as he is called by those who are familiar with him, was something…
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2 min 3

Jar Jar Agonistes

Jar Jar Agonistes (2006) Gollum is way better.I evoke birthday blight and snakesto haul home. I stoke vitrioland hollow men to guess the price of my money pit. Sad to bepitied more than Lieberman orother…
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4 min 3

The Robot’s Renaissance

  • Tim
  • 15 October, 2006
Although most labels in the art world have a number of interpretations, I define algorithmic art as artwork made with algorithms. An algorithm is a series of instructions. Usually these instructions are computer commands and…
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3 min 3

India Ink-194.8bf

  • Tim
  • 2 October, 2006
Download parameter file “bug05.ink” I’ve found a new toy. It makes everything look like it was ripped out of an old book, so to speak. Costs money. $15 US. Fully functional demo download. Just like…
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4 min 1

Cult of the Microbe King

  • Tim
  • 27 September, 2006
Who would have thought this humble pest would someday take a seat beside the likes of David Copperfield or Martin Chuzzlewit, as The King of the Microbes. One of the most startling events for fans…
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1 min 1

Tiffany Lamp Gone Bad

Tiffany Lamp Gone Bad (2001) May West liked good salmon.Her bedroom had dark panelling and lava lamps. Over her tables hungracks of critics behind the bar where bad service is largely blamedon Texas. Her rental…
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1 min 1

He played the Balalaika

  • Tim
  • 18 September, 2006
He played the Balalaika… then ate it! I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I clapped. He wasn’t finished yet. Everyone in the alien dinner theater scowled at me while he started again, from…
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1 min 0

Who’s That Tramping Over Our Blog?

Periodically, blog housekeeping issues arise that need to be clarified. Orbit Trap is not an online community. We’re a blog. In a very real sense, we are like a publishing house. We reserve the right…
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1 min 1

Unattainable

Unattainable (1999) An impossible self help questionwill waitcheck outbe homeunless you are a fan of stupid networks. One of the tightestgoing nuclear photographs cuts waste and overlooks ad agencyethics. To understand more toast the Broadway…
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1 min 4

Electro Sine Trap Tentacles of Terror

  • Tim
  • 11 September, 2006
It’s been ages now since ants took over the Earth, but they still enjoy reliving the old battles. “One small step for an ant, one giant leap for all insects.” Conquering the humans was the…
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2 min 3

I walked with Warhol

  • Tim
  • 4 September, 2006
Hey, how about it? Is this the Campbell Soup Cans of fractals or what? Anyhow, Andy told me, and no one else knows this, that he’s taken all his talent and everything he’s ever learned…
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6 min 1

Mandelbrot Among the Gypsies

Mandelbrot Among the Gypsies (2001) Gaston Julia, recovering from injuries caused by a hospital, was named king of the gypsies in 1917. He had darned some socks for corpses and driven a hawthorn stake through…
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