Orbit Trap

The Fractal Art Guild: How it works

2009-11-10T22:05:38Z

In Part 1 I had said that Part 2 would be the Guild in action, but I think I need to clarify this whole notion of a Fractal Art Guild a bit better before going on. I really think most of the fractal art world functions like a large association of craftsmen whose closest analogy [...]

Understanding Fractal Art: The Guild

2009-11-09T22:27:33Z

In order to understand the current fractal art world you need only to learn a bit about the concept called a guild. I believe the majority of fractal artists are members of a rather pervasive fractal art guild. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that almost all of the angst expressed [...]

Ups and Downs of the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest

2009-11-08T17:36:22Z

Ups and Downs. Design by Roller Coaster Tycoon. The 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest results have been announced. If you’re a regular OT reader, you already got this news. We announced it on Thursday — apparently before the contest itself was ready to do so. When, on the UF Mailing List, one of the judges [...]

Have they no shame?

2009-11-06T17:29:07Z

Yes, the winners of the Benoit Mandelbrot 2009 Fractal Art Contest are now out (and this time it’s final). I’m skipping the usual clever art critic review for now because there’s something that’s just too outrageous not to comment on right off the bat. If you’ve seen the 2009 winners page you might have missed [...]

A History of the Orbit Trap Blog

2009-11-05T21:40:54Z

All about the first year of the Orbit Trap fractal art blog. Candid, behind the scenes commentary never before published. Initial planning; Exciting launch of the group blog; Things get rather quiet; Cut bait or fish; Comments and Cutlasses; New sailing orders; Land ahoy!

Welcome to OrbitTrap.ca!

2009-11-02T05:33:16Z

OrbitTrap.ca is our new address. Update your bookmarks and check out the new site! Actually, it’s all older stuff transferred from our archives over at the old, Blogger site. Why did we move Orbit Trap to this site? Well, like any online publishing venture, we’ve changed and grown over the years and our [...]

Keith Mackay’s Revisionist History

2009-10-27T03:43:00Z

“It was already dead, so I didn’t see any point in keeping it around.” One of the few extant group blogs on fractal art got its plug pulled recently. This was no surprise since the wedream(ed)incolor blog, run by Keith Mackay, had been on life support for some time. In fact, Tim wrote [...]

Sailing into the Horror

2009-10-26T23:37:00Z

The Garbage Path by Guido Cavalcante [Click on the image above to see a large-scale version.] Editor’s Note: This is a guest posting by Guido Cavalcante. His image was made using Ultra Fractal. Excerpts in this post were taken from “Our Oceans Are Turning into Plastic…Are We?” by Susan Casey. For [...]

Force 10 from Navarone!

2009-10-19T21:55:00Z

In keeping with the Phase 2 idea that the essence of fractal art is found in the imagery and not in the tools that made it, I present a mixed bag of things I found while taking the paths less traveled, or never traveled, to find fractal art. I followed a number of categories during [...]

Dan Wills: Fractal Columbus

2009-10-14T21:49:00Z

halleyDetailTwoPointNine… by Dan Wills, 2008-Click for larger view- Like a needle in a haystack, or a glowing needle in a fractal formula, is the rumor of a continent over the horizon or the possibility of some new and intriguing fractal artwork out there, somewhere, on the internet. My impression after browsing over Dan Wills’ Picasa web [...]

Meanwhile, back at the Academy…

2009-10-08T14:51:00Z

lesson_2_atmosphere_isolation_for_janet Click to Enlarge I found this in the Student Galleries section of the Visual Arts Academy. There’s no name or date but it’s filed in the Ultra Fractal Artistry section of the gallery, a course given by Janet Parke.I like this. In fact, I fished it out of all the student works there as the [...]

Sheets in the Wind and Rings of Gold: The Ultra Fractal Style

2009-10-02T18:36:00Z

Whether you’re a fractal artist or simply just a fan of fractal art, you’re bound to eventually notice similarities in style and develop preferences for this kind of art or that kind of art. Fractal art is still what I would consider to be something of a niche art form, but thanks to the [...]

The Damien M. Jones Fractal Art Contest

2009-09-28T04:30:00Z

“I’m the decider!” Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.–Lord Acton The 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. Jones, appears to be [...]

Is the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest Run Like the Fractal Universe Calendar?

2009-09-26T15:37:00Z

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 tabulated and the images ranked [...]

Winners First. Contest Later.

2009-09-25T03:40:00Z

Verdict first. Trial later. I showed in my last post what OT found: a winners page for the 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest that displayed current contest entrants placed into three categories: exhibition winner, alternate, and honorable mention. How could some entrants already have won when the contest does not close [...]

2009 BMFAC Winners Leaked ?!!?

2009-11-01T03:06:44Z

And the winner is… Elvis’ alien clone better move over. What is one to make of this? Just by accident, OT wandered into the “winners” page of the current (and ongoing) 2009 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest and found it active and showing thumbnails of entries listed as exhibition winners, alternates, and honorable mentions. You can see for [...]

The Road Stops at Digital

2009-09-21T17:17:00Z

Several questions Is the entire digital art medium just too new and different for the art gallery world? Has the art world, that great destroyer of cultural norms and traditions, found a free-flowing, anarchic, internet-based digital medium too ab-normal and un-traditional to dive into? Is it because digital art can’t be cornered by track lighting and [...]

Phase Two: A Real Fractal Art Exhibition

2009-09-17T04:20:00Z

Swine Flu by Luke Jerram I think Tim’s recent observations that fractal art is about to undergo into a new Phase Two paradigm shift are on target. Fractal art will never evolve beyond a curious, trippy, decorative craft until it moves away from being defined by software and instead starts thinking and acting [...]

Losers imitate winners

2009-09-14T19:52:00Z

One of these is from the Museum of Bad Art It occurred to me while browsing some of the greatest art of the 20th century to ask this question: Why don’t we see more art like this today? For instance, it ought to be very easy to imitate the famous drip paintings of Jackson Pollock with fractal [...]

Fractal Art Without a Computer?

2009-09-11T13:04:00Z

Could this work be described as …Fractal?Admiral Otto Von Howitzerhead by Kris Kuksi 2009 Samuel Monnier, writing at Algorithmic Worlds, his new website – gallery – and blog, said some very interesting things about the fractal nature of sculptures done by Kris Kuksi. Sam said that Kris Kuksi’s scuptures “are very interesting examples of non computer-generated [...]

Fractal Multiplication Concepts

2009-09-09T17:14:00Z

Editor’s Note: This is a guest posting by Rich Jarzombek.I’m always fascinated by what I call “The Infinite Powers” of fractals. Most fractalists know that the fractal computational process is iterative and therefore could go on to infinity but intentionally terminates when a programmed condition is reached so that an image existing at the [...]

I’m sick of Eye Candy

2009-09-08T04:36:00Z

Even my own homemade recipes leave me with an unsettled stomach. I used to get a thrill out of making some colorful lollipop of an image, but that stuff is for kids. If you still crave candy, then you’re still a kid too.Call it Decorative Art, or The Decorative Arts, it’s still the same old [...]

Fractal Art, Phase Two

2009-09-03T17:54:00Z

Bold, new, full-color, fractal artWhat? You didn’t know even know there was a Phase One? Well, let me begin there, then. At the dawn of fractal art.Phase One, the first stage of fractal art, has been oriented around software. The big developments in fractal art came from developments in the software [...]

Nothing New in the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest

2009-08-31T00:03:00Z

I don’t want to hear about why art competitions should be run professionally using fair play to promote excellence and diversity rather than favoring a select group. I’d much rather be openly exploited and cynically scammed. You say you got a real solution Well, you know We’d all love to see the [...]

Do You Need Professional Help?

2009-08-26T03:59:00Z

Sure you do. But, the kind of professional help I’m talking about is online software courses. I know that sounds like a common subject line for spam, but this is the real thing and it includes some of the most popular fractal art programs in use today –taught by experts and reasonably priced.The [...]