Posts Tagged art

The chosen ones, pt. 3

Jul 12

Posted by Mr. Mandelbrot in Images | No Comments

Dot Hurricane, from gallery 06.

This was one of the images I sent to the people at MOCA, when I received this pre-selection invitation for an exhibition at Lincoln Center, right after I had been in the spanish exhibition(s). I must confess I entered it just for fun – sending them the images wouldn’t cause me no harm anyway. But Lincoln Center? Impossible!…

I tried to pick my best 3 images (that also weren’t sent to Spain) and… guess what? The three were approved! The feeling I had when I knew that not one but all three images were selected was something unbelievable. It wasn’t like “I’M THE BEST!” as one might think, it was just a feeling of “mission accomplished” or something, something like “see? I can do it!!” (actually it was more than anything a message to myself in these hard times). It’s quite good to have anything you do – in any area – admired and respected for what it is and not for what or who you are, after all I was (and still am) an “artist” with no tradition whatsoever, people found me and liked my humble work just because of itself, not because a famous person told them to look at my images or because I was/am part of a certain group of people neither because I paid them to be there. It is more worth it than getting a thousand comments from “friends” in a digital art forum, I can tell you that. And at Lincoln Center… I even planned to go there myself, but due to the stupid bureaucracy of getting visas and all that it wouldn’t be possible to get all the “legal” stuff ready in time. The images and the exhibition even continued for some more days in New Jersey, but it was really impossible for me to be there, not because I didn’t want to.

This image still has a place of honour in my living room, along with the other two. The printed version I sent them (this one on my wall) isn’t quite correct though (too much green, odd reds as usual), but it still looks great.

Tags: art, artists, computer art, digital art, exhibitions, image, Lincoln Center, MOCA, museum, print

The chosen ones, pt. 2

Jul 11

Posted by Mr. Mandelbrot in Images | No Comments

From gallery 04, these 2:

“A thousand skimo eyes”

And “baby seal”

They were made apart from each other. Happened by accident, both, not planned at all. And when I went to sort out the images to appear in the new galleries, they (accidentally, again) ended up in the same gallery, in sequence. Organized chaos?

Tags: art, chaos, coincidence, funny, seal

You don’t need drugs to enjoy fractals

Jul 3

Posted by Mr. Mandelbrot in General, Images | No Comments

Some of these older images were made during a period in my life where I was taking a lot of strong painkillers (not for “recreational purposes” I can assure you), and people that knew that often asked me if some of these images were “drug-influenced”. I don’t know, really. I don’t think so. Maybe some were, some of these images that when I saw them 5 years later I just said “ouch, it looks like crap!”. When the “purple haze” went off, I saw the real image(s), I suppose. Not many images were like that, I should say. Those that were discarded when this new gallery format started, were discarded for a lot of different reasons, including plain old suckiness.

I never deliberately did anything “special” before making any image neither I did any image after doing something specific like finish reading a book for example and make an image inspired by that, or did drugs (alcohol also being a drug, of course) just to create a fractal. Some images were inspired by some other stuff, of course, mostly their names. But not deliberately. Neither I did any image to look “trippy” or “psychedelic” or something on purpose (this is why I’ve never used the “animation” feature of UF despite it costed me a few more bucks when I registered it). Fractals are just like that, sometimes.

I really have no idea if these images can or will enhance your drug-of-choice’s trip or if when you’re on something you will see something different than me. With a little or no effort you can see the same objects/things I did and get the same “feel” while looking at one image, and you will even understand most of the cryptic names, but as I’ve said some people will never see even the basic bits in some images.

These images weren’t made to be seen under the influence, but you can try that. But… in some cases, the results are really… weird to say the least, even without any “extras”. Like this image, done not so long ago (years after the painkillers, BTW):

It's alive!

Look at one of the spirals, either one. Noticed something? Cool, isn’t it? Now look at the text bits right above/below the image. See? No drugs required, I told you.

PS1. If you didn’t see it, I won’t tell you what happens, go find it yourself. If your mind isn’t open for new experiences, you won’t see it (OK, just kidding!). Hopefully it works in the smaller version of the image, but I’ve tested on both, the big original image and this one.

PS2.: I think that this effect depends on the combination of colours chosen for the image. I haven’t tried it with different colours, but I think I’ve seen similar images (some are quite popular) with similar effects and they all had unusual colour schemes.

PS3.: That was a lot of bullshit talk just to present a nice effect. Must be the drugs that did that.

Tags: art, colours, depression, drugs, eye-candy, fractals, image, image names

Some more weird Google stuff

Jul 2

Posted by Mr. Mandelbrot in General | No Comments

Again, a brief new check for the indexing of the site (as it says it had 100 visitors in a day!). While doing a search using my name and the word “fractal”, I discovered that my old Renderosity account is still alive. I thought it was deleted (by myself or by them) as the link pointing to that at fractalland.com wasn’t working, it said that the requested artist wasn’t a member of Renderosity or something. I don’t remember its password and its assigned e-mail address is wrong and gone, so I think I won’t be able to change anything there. Not that I want to, actually. But I found a few images posted in these galleries (3 or 4 actually) that I should also add here, and they might only exist in that gallery… I’ll have to find their sources here again, re-render and post some updated version if I can. If not, I’d have to recover these images from these “originals”, unfortunately.

Anyway, here’s the link to the gallery.

It used to have a lot of images in there, then I just made some major cleaning and let just those that could be some of my best images that at the same time could be shared without fear (I had a couple images posted there that were “borrowed” by others, to use a kind word), because I just didn’t want to simply close the account – which I must say that was also considered. I let that just as sort of a “public advertisement” for the site, kind of a teasing page. Didn’t work much I think, not many visitors came from that place looking for more.

I was even re-reading some of the comments posted, and I found interesting to find one that says “incredible undercommented image” or something, which again proves my point that these places are just a bunch of friends commenting on each other’s images only, most of the times. If you’re not part of their team, you’re ignored. Orbit Traps blog said exactly the same about this, in other words. In Brazilian Portuguese, we use the word “panelinha” to describe that.

Tags: annoyances, art, artists, digital art, fractals, gallery, Google, image, intarwebs, Renderosity

This might be a tip

Jul 1

Posted by Mr. Mandelbrot in General | No Comments

If you’ve got bored with my long rant about how I was tired of fractals, how disappointed with the new stuff I was making then, disappointed with the new stuff other people were making… I think I can make a short resume on all that.

I just found about 25 images that were kind of lost in my notebook, stuff that I did a bit recently (mid-2009, actually) and comparing them to the stuff I did – most of them at least, and I have seen them all again to make these new galleries – I must say that these new ones seem to have been made by a different person. And they look much better even when they are “simple” or “common” images, let alone when they look a bit more “complicated” than usual. They are not using any of the “what’s-cool-today” techniques, they are still recognizable by me as mine, I haven’t spent years mastering anything, it’s all the same, done with the same tools and skills I ever had.

All I can say about it is… if you seem to feel like I was when I quit making fractals (and this applies for any kind of creative stuff) – take a break. Let it be as longer as you need. Get some fresh air. Try to keep away from that stuff, yours and by others. You’ll see how you will come back very refreshed and much more “talented” than usual. No I’m kidding, the talent has been there all the time, it was just tired of being mistreated.