![\"\"](\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Opisthoproctus_soleatus.png\" "\\"Opisthoproctus_soleatus\\"")
<\/a>Opisthoproctus_soleatus by Augustus Brauer, 1906<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Eurypharynx_pelecanoides by Goode and Bean, 1896<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>By Eric Zugmayer, 1912<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Saccopharynx, 1887<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Winteria_telescopa by Augustus Brauer, 1906<\/p><\/div>\n
They have no need of being real, we can relate to them entirely as manifestations of shape and color.\u00a0 Shape and color then, become real things, or rather, they become their “own reality”, their own little world with its own characteristics.\u00a0 Which is ultimately what I’ve been saying about fractals: they have little in common with other things (like fish, Tim?) and like fish out of water (forgive the metaphor) they are a disappointment when flopped down at the feet of a land animal.\u00a0 They can’t really be compared.\u00a0 Underwater, of course, the land animals look equally out of place.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Scopeloberyx robustus by Emma Kissling, 1911<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Scopelogadus_mizolepis by A. Brauer, 1906<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Poromitra_crassiceps by Emma Kissling, 1911<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Cottunculus_microps by A. Mintern, 1887<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Bolinichthys longipes (Brauer 1906)<\/p><\/div>\n
Challenge: imagine a deep sea fish you’ve never seen before.\u00a0 It’s got eyes, a mouth, tail (an end) and some fin-like structures somewhere in between.\u00a0 In your mind, add some colors, give it some brighter ones in places and some more subdued ones in others.\u00a0 Change the numbers of it’s parts; two tails, one eye (or three).\u00a0 Stretch some part of it and compress some other part.\u00a0 Give it some new kind of pattern for fish scales, say car-keys or bottle caps, or sewing needles.\u00a0 Lastly, change the outline of it, it’s profile.<\/p>\n
Now look at that fish and ask yourself if it’s really something completely new or just a variation of other ones you’ve already seen?\u00a0 It’s probably a variation, a synthesis of other images you’ve already seen, but a fractal program will come up with shapes and colors that you’d never imagine.\u00a0 That’s the strength of fractal algorithms, they work in ways our human minds don’t.\u00a0 But then that non-human “painter” doesn’t come up with the sorts of things that a person would paint.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Coccorella_atrata by A. Brauer, 1906<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Regalecus_glesne, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Cryptosaras_couesii by Gilbert and Jordan, 1905<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Platyberyx_opalescens by Emma Kissling, 1911<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Malacosteus_niger by Emma Kissling, 1911<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>-Lobianchia_dofleini by Emma Kissling, 1911<\/p><\/div>\n
I just say that fractals are a completely different medium and that you’ll never find creatures from our human domain in theirs.\u00a0 Just as you won’t find fish living on dry land.\u00a0 They’re two different environments and they produce two different –but equally interesting– kinds of art work.\u00a0 Interesting, though, for different reasons and in different ways.<\/p>\n
The question is not, “Are fractals art?” but rather, “What kind<\/em><\/strong> of art are fractals?”\u00a0 They’re not the kind of art that human artists make.\u00a0 And for that reason they’ll never do what the works of Picasso, Dali, Da Vinci or other artists like that have done.<\/p>\n We make fractals with a different kind of machine and machinery; that’s the “medium” we work in.\u00a0 We get a whole new category of results from working in that new medium.\u00a0 Comparing it with other, more traditional mediums like painting or photography is a mistake because all the audience will think is, “Those aren’t good paintings” or “Those aren’t good photographs.”<\/p>\n But what I’m saying is that fractals aren’t a digital subset of those other visual art forms, they’re a whole new category because they’re made in a totally different medium.\u00a0 If you regard fractals as something new and unconnected to any other preexisting art form or medium, I think you’ll be able to work with them much better and appreciate them much more and also to deal with any criticism they might receive better.\u00a0 You no longer will have to defend fractals as paintings or photographs before painters and photographers.\u00a0 Like the deep sea fish, fractals are strange new things to look at; fresh examples of shape and color that could never have been imagined.<\/p>\n Is that art?\u00a0 Of course it’s art, but it’s not the kind of art that Picasso made or Ansel Adams made or that any human in the future will ever make.\u00a0 Fractals as an art form are on a completely separate trajectory and path than the “human” or hand-made arts because where they come from and what forms them isn’t human or done with the hand.\u00a0 The real winners in fractal art are those who are content with fractal art existing in a separate, alien domain.\u00a0 The losers are those who want to be painters and photographers.\u00a0 You can’t get there from here.<\/p>\n Made in Sterlingware<\/p><\/div>\n Made in Xaos<\/p><\/div>\n Made in Sterlingware<\/p><\/div>\n Made in Xaos<\/p><\/div>\n Made in Sterlingware<\/p><\/div>\n Made in Fractal Vizion<\/p><\/div>\n Made in Tierazon<\/p><\/div>\n Fractal “objects” composed of little more than a shape with some simple coloring has been one of my favorite themes over the years.\u00a0 Most of what I see other people making are much more complex “scenes” with very “deluxe” coloring.\u00a0 But for me the ability of a program (and the formula it’s using) to create a variety of shapes is intensely interesting.<\/p>\n 15,500 year old flint tools from Texas (Michael Waters, Texas A&M Univ.)<\/p><\/div>\n Is this art?\u00a0 Cave-man tools?\u00a0 Yes, it too is an art form of shape and color.\u00a0 Shown together they are even more powerful as examples of mere shape and color.\u00a0 I made some things<\/a> in Terry Gintz’s quaternion program, Hydra.\u00a0 All they had going for them was their shape and their coloring.\u00a0 There was nothing else to the images.\u00a0 Shape and color were their only characteristics.<\/p>\n Fractals (and rocks) are good at this kind of thing.\u00a0 It’s a simple genre that works with only shape and color and so it’s not capable of doing the sophisticated things that something like sculpture, for instance, does.\u00a0 There’s more to a Henry Moore sculpture than there is to those flint tools in the picture above.\u00a0 On the other hand, I find the stone tools more attractive and pleasant to look at (and hey, probably more useful too).<\/p>\n Fractals are an interesting art form just like weird fish drawings and rock collections.\u00a0 I wouldn’t say fractals are a lesser art form because they lack the capacity and capability for higher expression (above the level of a rock or fish).\u00a0 They’re just a different<\/em><\/strong> kind of art.<\/p>\n I can just see the old sage, Master Po, from the Kung Fu TV series saying to Kwai Chang:<\/p>\n “The greatest art is found in the common objects around us.\u00a0 We see art in a painting because we look for it.\u00a0 We do not see the art around us because we do not look for it.\u00a0 Art is nothing but a frame.\u00a0 It says, look!\u00a0 Every man who looks is an artist.”<\/p>\n “But Master, you are blind.”<\/p>\n “Can you see what I see, Kwai Chang?”<\/p>\n “I do not know what you see, Master.”<\/p>\n “Well then, shut up about it!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By looking at all these weird fish images my hope is that you’ll stop seeing them as fish and start seeing them simply as objects of shape and color. ~Click on images to view full size on original site~ They have no need of being real, we can relate to them entirely as manifestations of … Continue reading <\/a>\n
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