As I go about updating this website, I’ve also been revisiting my views about fractals and art since I started to consciously regard this hobby as an artistic expression. I’ve been reconsidering what I said in my old writings, and reviewing the judgment of others involved in this field.
All in all, it seems no new creative ideas have emerged, though: in all appearances, the fractal world, like myself, came to a standstill in 2007. New programs were released, that’s for sure; familiar ones have been updated, as expected… and with them came the distinctive forms users have popularized, giving the impression that those are the only kinds of images these generators are able to produce —yes, it’s people, not the software, who are responsible for that limited impression.
Nearly every document available continues to cite Kerry Mitchell’s 1999 “Fractal Art Manifesto” as the sacred scroll to define the genre. Either no one else has said anything of value since (and the worth of that prominence has been debated on numerous occasions), or later authors have simply relied on that declaration of intention to outline what “fractal art” is, or even given as sole reference. That’s not a bad thing. I just expected that, after 20 years (ten of my absence) some new perspectives might have emerged; it seems not.
Orbit Trap, a blog about fractal art (that’s its tagline), has been the most consistent publication —despite its recurrent intermissions— expressing both for and against viewpoints on fractals as artworks, along with other related matters. Its contributors, Tim Hodkinson and Terry Wright, have been the —almost— only public voices after 2006 saying some things worth discussing. Their often divergent opinions, it seems, caused some heated debates within the community, as is evident from the replies left on their posts and their own responses to those that came to refute their musings. I’ve been catching up with their provocative viewpoints —yes, quite late, I know— and although I may not concur with both authors and commenters’ postulates (that amalgam of varying stances is what makes it worth), the reading has been utterly gratifying. Unfortunately, the blog is currently undergoing one of its periods of remission and hasn’t seen a post in the last six months.
The original idea behind the founding of Orbit Trap was to gather a group of fractal devotees and collect their views, intending to foster discussions to enlighten the still nascent expression of fractals as a category of digital art in its own right. Art was supposed to mature there, but passions —and sometimes loyalties— took precedence over the “greater good,” and eventually human nature broke the spell of inception and dissolved what was planned and implicitly agreed upon. Worse still, nothing has emerged to replace or counter it.
My guess is that most people rendering fractal pictures are primarily focus on that activity, and not precisely interested in theorizing about what they’re doing —myself among the guilty. In my case, even after all these years, I still feel I’m not in a position to do so: I know little of the mathematics underlying fractals and about art as a subject matter as to solidly embark in lecturing anyone about what I do or its value as a creative expression. Yet, it’s clear that it rests on our shoulders to authenticate our imagery if we really want to position fractal abstraction within the recognized human-made arts.
Revised on 2025 April 18 for precision.