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Typical scenery to be found while browsing the Fractal category on Deviant Art<\/p><\/div>\n
It’s not all bad<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh yes, I have to acknowledge that there really are some flame images out there that are not garbage.\u00a0 I’ve collected about 10 so far and that’s (only) after browsing maybe 4000 thumbnails.\u00a0 Like I said in a previous post, I don’t mind scavenging for the good stuff, even when the ratio is 400:1.\u00a0 You can breeze through 400 thumbnails in about 15 minutes.\u00a0 The time required varies a lot of course depending on how promising the thumbnails look.\u00a0 If you have to frequently stop and check out something that looks interesting, that can really slow you down.\u00a0 For the most part you can travel at a pretty good clip, or click –show next page.<\/em><\/p>\n Jock Cooper left a comment<\/a> recommending Cory Ench’s flame fractals.\u00a0 I found a couple that would make me agree.\u00a0 But…<\/p>\n Man<\/em>. Even Cory’s got a lot of stuff there<\/a>.\u00a0 Something like 700 and frankly, while agreeing with Jock and acknowledging Cory’s ability to make some of the best flame fractals, he’s got quite a few “also rans”, to use a horse racing expression.\u00a0 Whick raised the question:\u00a0 Is this just the nature of fractals?\u00a0 Is there always going to be such a wide range of “quality” wherever fractals are found?\u00a0 Don’t all fractal artists have “a lot of stuff” in their galleries?<\/p>\n I went through all of Cory’s gallery, or galleries<\/em> rather, mainly browsing the thumbnails.\u00a0 It was quite interesting to see the progression of his artwork over time.\u00a0 Cory’s best stuff is his most recent.\u00a0 Or has he just become more discerning and more selective in what he uploads these days?\u00a0 I’ve said before that all artists are editors and judges of their own work.<\/p>\n Three cheers for thumbnails!<\/strong><\/p>\n An aside:\u00a0 Next to Mandelbrot himself, we ought to celebrate the guy who invented auto-generated thumbnails.\u00a0 Without those little visual samples we’d never be able to navigate the Sargasso Seas of the fractal world.\u00a0 You can tell an awful lot about an image from it’s thumbnail.\u00a0 And if there’s any substantial difference between a thumbnail and it’s full-size image, it’s usually that thumbnails make the larger images more appealing than they later turn out to be.\u00a0 Thumbnails are a good visual summary.<\/p>\n Ich bin ein Garbage Picker<\/strong><\/p>\n I’m a garbage picker and nowhere is it more so than when I’m crawling over the heaps at Deviant Art.\u00a0 You know what gold miners do most of the time?\u00a0 They shovel dirt.\u00a0 It’s hard work but the chance of finding even a little bit of gold has caused people to dig away whole mountainsides.\u00a0 Gold miners are really dirt miners.\u00a0 Garbage pickers are the gold miners of the garbage fields.<\/p>\n What the fractal world really needs right now is more garbage pickers.\u00a0 If you want to test yourself to see if you’ve got what it takes then try looking for good flame fractals on Deviant Art.\u00a0 If a place like that doesn’t make you want to give up then I, King of the Garbage Pickers, salute you!<\/p>\n A new pile is uploaded: This could be the one, I just feel it!<\/p><\/div>\n They say I gotta dig<\/p><\/div>\n Finding good fractal art is like just like digging through heaps of garbage looking for useful or valuable things.\u00a0 The better artists are like rich people and you’re bound to find something to make it worth your while “browsing” their garbage.\u00a0 But what I’ve found is that the difference between the so-called “better” artists and the average, or even the worst, is not that great.\u00a0 Artists who make good stuff often make a lot of the other stuff, too.\u00a0 And the ones who upload endless pages of cheesy cliche images will eventually stumble on something noteworthy.\u00a0 I love it when that happens.<\/p>\n Fractal Art is the realm of the scavenger<\/strong><\/p>\n The notion that good fractal art comes only from skilled and talented people (as the Fractal Art Manifesto<\/a> claims) is simply not supported by my numerous trips to the great online dumps of the fractal world.\u00a0 Furthermore, this suggests that good fractal art is as much the outcome of playful experimentation as it is of any kind of ability or learning on the part of the fractal program “user”.\u00a0 Fractal art is an electronic toy; a paint-by-number machine.\u00a0 It’s only the grown-ups who want to make it into something big and important, not us kids.<\/p>\n Anyhow, this scavenging aspect to viewing fractal art that I’ve been alluding to I think just reflects the same scavenging environment that fractal art is created in.\u00a0 We search parameter sets and search parameter variations looking for something that stands out –that catches our eye.\u00a0 We search large panoramas for signs of promise, something that’s different.\u00a0 The artists sort their work and the viewers sort what they’ve sorted.\u00a0 Everyone who doesn’t like junk is a judge.<\/p>\n Even if you’re into post-processing there’s still a lot of experimenting and scavenging to be done.\u00a0 Post-processing entails the most searching and experimenting of all.\u00a0 It’s a natural extension to a fractal program: extra buttons.<\/p>\n No two piles are exactly the same<\/p><\/div>\n But why is there so much trash on Deviant Art?<\/strong><\/p>\n We’re getting there.\u00a0 Firstly, the making of fractal art is a lot of fun.\u00a0 It involves experimentation, exploration and sometimes just the challenge of taking someone else’s parameters and making something different with them.\u00a0 It’s a simple reflex to save the image and later upload it to some site like Deviant Art or Flickr:\u00a0 Each upload represents some sort of accomplishment to the artist.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n That is Deviant Art and most other art sites in a nutshell.\u00a0 This is why there’s so much “garbage” piling up in places like Deviant Art: artists want to share their “accomplishments” where the possibility of getting a reaction is possible.\u00a0 If they lack objectivity and think everything they’ve made is great, or fail to notice how much their own work resembles the truckloads that have already been uploaded, I think they can be forgiven.\u00a0 At least they we can shrug off the “offense” of spamming the gallery or posting images that are random batch renders (I loved that feature of Apophysis when I first tried it out).<\/p>\n The average Deviant Art user is self-absorbed and seeks recognition.\u00a0 The uploaded artwork reflects that self-indulgent, short-sighted and emotionally driven creative context.\u00a0 The uploads aren’t for the benefit of the general public to come by and get acquainted with fractal art; rather it’s the kitchen fridge analogy that some commenter here on OT years ago pointed out.\u00a0 Kids are proud of what they’ve made because they<\/strong> made it.\u00a0 And parents (or in this case, your online buddies) are (almost) as excited because of the relationship<\/strong> they have and because giving compliments makes them and everyone else feel good.\u00a0 I’ll bet cave painters got the same sort of comments from their friends as the folks on Deviant Art do today.\u00a0 The whole thing is just the result of human nature and the ageless urge to create because it’s a fun thing to do and it’s a social activity<\/strong> as well.\u00a0 Bigger things like “art” and “innovation” are not what these sites are all about.\u00a0 They’re very personal and thus very trivial<\/strong> and that’s why one needs to approach them with gloves and a shovel, a sharp eye and a critical disposition.<\/p>\n What then should be done about these trash factories?<\/strong><\/p>\n Firstly, Deviant Art is not some charitable enterprise set up to encourage and nurture young artists.\u00a0 Deviant Art is a money making operation.\u00a0 So the people running the whole thing don’t care so much about the quality of the artwork as they do about the quantity of people attracted to it and the commercial spinoffs it creates, like art sales, advertising and paid memberships.<\/p>\n I mean, think about it.\u00a0 Why does Deviant Art (or Flickr) exist in the first place?\u00a0 Those motives have a lot to do with explaining why the place is so member-focused and so inclusive.\u00a0 It’s primarily the needs of the members that generates most of the income.\u00a0 Deviant Art makes money off it’s membership, not people like me whose primary interest is looking around.\u00a0 They might sell more prints though if they had, perhaps as a separate section, a more selective collection of artwork.\u00a0 But I’m guessing that they’re reluctant to embark on any kind of sorting endeavor for such a massive amount of artwork.<\/p>\n And placing upload restrictions on it’s members would only spawn a new site where those restrictions didn’t exist.\u00a0 Besides, features like “favorites” galleries go a long way to sorting through the trash even if some artists game the system.<\/p>\n Sites like Deviant Art will always resemble a landfill site and the only chance for most people ever seeing the better stuff is plain old word of mouth advertising.\u00a0 The Favorites sections do this somewhat when they’re not too large, but beyond that they’re very few critical venues where the more interesting fractal artworks can break of out obscurity and get the sort of attention they deserve.\u00a0 The contests at best are too infrequent and display too few artworks.\u00a0 At their worst they’re horribly biased and choose work that should be thrown back on the heap instead of being held up for all to see.<\/p>\n Orbit Trap + More Orbit Trap = Deviant Art’s Best Friend<\/strong><\/p>\n You know, Orbit Trap is probably the best friend Deviant Art ever had.\u00a0 Look how many artists and artworks from there we’ve pointed people to.\u00a0 And we’ve inspired a lot of “journal” postings too, I hear.<\/p>\n No need to thank us.\u00a0 It’s payment enough just to be able to roam those flaming, smoking heaps at will and dig for gold where no one has ever dug before.<\/p>\n Or may ever dig again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Let’s just jump to the heart of the matter:\u00a0 Why is Deviant Art such a garbage dump?\u00a0 What is it about fractal art, and especially the flame fractal category in particular that leads to the creation of these huge online wastelands of worthlessness? It’s not all bad Oh yes, I have to acknowledge that there … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/image02.jpeg?resize=400%2C300\" "\\"image02\\"")
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