Dave Makin says<\/a> the Honorary Presidents aren’t “actually” judges and yet they are listed on the official site as part of the Selection Panel.\u00a0 If that’s the case then how much does an individual judge know about the judging if such a basic fact about who is and who isn’t a part of the Selection Panel can be in dispute?<\/p>\nJust taking a glance at all those names on the Selection Panel makes me wonder if they all have equal roles.\u00a0 Just like a chairman of a board of directors, someone has to initiate the judging and organize everything.\u00a0 I would assume either Damien Jones or Javier Barrallo (or both) perform that role.\u00a0 Makes sense, doesn’t it?\u00a0 Someone has to organize the group.\u00a0 But this begs the question of where does simple clerical organization and direction become the more executive function of control and manipulation?<\/p>\n
Discussions take place, electronically I would assume, because the group is geographically spread out.\u00a0 When there’s a stated mandate for the contest to create an exhibition that “represents” fractal art rather than just pick the best works, and we now know that a considerable amount of discussion goes on to accomplish this because simply counting votes won’t work when you’ve got to make sure no artist “wins twice” (or three times) and the many inevitable ties have to be broken… it suggests that there’s an enormous amount of influence and direction required by the organizers.\u00a0 Aren’t the organizers acting as editors of the judging?\u00a0 That is, they’re judging the judging.\u00a0 What I’m saying is that they’re going to have<\/em><\/strong> to do that even if they didn’t intend to when they created what is essentially a committee in need of<\/em> direction.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/image01.png?resize=421%2C362\" "\\"image01\\"")
<\/p>\n
I think it’s an absolute necessity and that means that despite the big list of judges and the wide influence one would expect the actual result is one or two people exercising a disproportionate amount of control over the whole process in order to arrive at a decisive result that reflects a view of fractal art that can only be a subjective one because in who’s opinion has the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest ever been “representative” of the state of fractal art?\u00a0 (Of course the judges aren’t really that diverse.)<\/p>\n
It’s never really been a contest because from the very beginning it’s always had this huge group of judges and such groups never create clear decisions even when voting on just a few things.\u00a0 How much more so when their tasked with selecting 25 entries out of 345.\u00a0 Unless they’re “helped” that is.\u00a0 I think anyone can see that the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest judging is not straightforward and simply can’t be.\u00a0 12 judges and 345 pieces of art:<\/em><\/strong> how many more variables do you need to produce a circus?\u00a0 Oh, and remember each name associated with a work can only appear once in the final results.\u00a0 No wonder nobody has wanted to explain the judging of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest all these years; its an irregular and informal thing.<\/p>\nFor those who can’t understand why their artwork wasn’t part of the “winning” selection I would say they need only to look at chaos theory itself and remember that unpredictable results often occur in circumstances that are “highly sensitive to initial conditions”.\u00a0 The old Butterfly Effect thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And another thing… If you’ve only got one or two judges then there’s nothing that really needs to be explained.\u00a0 But when you’ve got 12… one would naturally wonder how a much more complicated scenario like that would actually work.\u00a0 How do a dozen people from all over the globe select a group of 25 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/image01.png?fit=421%2C362&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3330,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3330","url_meta":{"origin":3337,"position":0},"title":"The Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest 2011: Judging the Judging","author":"Tim","date":"20 October, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"If they're going to... not consider a second artwork by any artist rearrange the judging results to include a \"wider range\" of styles declare in the rules they don't want \"garish\" art let the Honorary members influence the results have a discussion to decide the final winners ...then why do\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3330#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/image1.jpg?fit=400%2C330&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2817,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2817","url_meta":{"origin":3337,"position":1},"title":"BMFAC Announces Its Judging Panel","author":"cruelanimal","date":"27 July, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 A symbolic representation of the BMFAC judging panel. [Photograph seen here.] The 2011 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest (BMFAC) finally got around to releasing the names of its judges. They are: Honorary Presidents: Michael Barnsley Aliette Mandelbrot Panel Members: Don Archer Javier Barrallo Cory Ench Damien Jones David Makin\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"BMFAC Judges","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/bmfac-judges.jpg?fit=450%2C348&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":416,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=416","url_meta":{"origin":3337,"position":2},"title":"Is the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Run Like the Fractal Universe Calendar?","author":"Tim","date":"26 September, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"How is the judging actually done?I've always assumed that in order to give every submission an equal chance of winning, the judges independently viewed the submissions and then chose the ones that they thought ought to be included in the exhibition. The choices of all the judges would then be\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":417,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=417","url_meta":{"origin":3337,"position":3},"title":"The Damien M. Jones Fractal Art Contest","author":"cruelanimal","date":"28 September, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I'm the decider!\"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.--Lord ActonThe recent revelatory leak that a pre-sorted \"winners page\" was being built by the director of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest leads to an inescapable conclusion. The competition is indeed a one man show. The director, Damien M.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=417#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Damien the Decider","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/DamientheDecider.jpg?fit=411%2C474&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":450,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=450","url_meta":{"origin":3337,"position":4},"title":"Ups and Downs of the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest","author":"cruelanimal","date":"8 November, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Ups and Downs.\u00a0 Design by Roller Coaster Tycoon. The 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest results have been announced.\u00a0 If you're a regular OT reader, you already got this news.\u00a0 We announced it on Thursday -- apparently before the contest itself was ready to do so.\u00a0 When, on the UF\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=450#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ups and Downs","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/UpsandDowns_RollerCoasterTy.jpg?fit=450%2C550&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":397,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=397","url_meta":{"origin":3337,"position":5},"title":"Has the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Cleaned Up Its Act?","author":"cruelanimal","date":"4 August, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What! Will these hands never be clean? It's baaaaack. The Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest returns for 2009 with freshly scrubbed rules. Past co-director Damien M. Jones made the announcement last night on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List: Good evening listfolk, I would like to inform you that the Benoit\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=397#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/washyourhandsoften.jpg?fit=325%2C450&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3343,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions\/3343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}