The winners of the 2007 Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest have been posted. This is the second international contest and the entries are stunning examples of the visual beauty and intellectual fascination to be found in fractal based art.
Benoit Mandelbrot, the mathematician responsible for coining the term “fractal” and creating the deceptively simple expressions that artists (and mathematicians) use to make the startling images commonly called “fractals”, is the Honorary Chairman of this contest that bears his name.
The contest’s web site has an archive of the 49 winners, like “Crowded Street” by Yvonne Mous (above), and a more extensive page for the entries.
Fifteen of the winners have been selected to be in a physical exhibition, although the site isn’t very informative about that exhibition.
It’s also not very precise about the defined limits of how much of a given piece should be fractal-based in order to be eligible, apparently leaving that up to the discretion of the judges.
It seems as though the major portion of the work bust be fractal based, however, and the images on the site can give you a nice introduction to some of the potential in the dazzling beauty of mathematical infinity.
For more on fractal art and the science behind it, see my 2006 post about Benoit Mandelbrot.
[Link via Boing Boing]
I’d like to participate in the Fractal Art Contest 2008 / 2009, but I don’t know how to do it.
I have already exhibited three exhibitions in Art Galleries in my place and I’d like to post my fractal art on internet.
My regards,
Rossana V.G.
It doesn’t appear that this particular contest is continuing this year. You might try searching Google to see if there are other, similar contests.
Charley, can you help me understand how much of fractal art is device driven and how much is imagination driven and hand rendered since fractals create their own design. It is so amazing to see repetiton in nature, lines/shapes/and processes repeating within an object. I’ve always said the two quintessential elements of life are rhythm and design. I get the same feeling when I stand between two mirrors.
Hi Betty.
Fractal images are created on the computer and are derived from mathematical formulae, but there is a fair bit of human input involved.
The best analogy I can make is to 3D rendering tools. Inexperienced users can make a few basic things with the application’s standard settings (though these were created by the application’s designers), but the outstanding and original work comes from skilled and imaginative use of the tools by the artists who use them.
For an idea of what’s involved, you might take a glance through a few of these tutorials for the Apophysis fractal generation tool.
Yes fractals are natural in a sense, they are a reflection or mathematical model of some part of the structure underlying the way natural forms occur; but nature, of course, doesn’t consult math when organizing matter, the math is our map of the territory.
Thank you Charley. I definately will look at the apophysis fractal generation tool site. I am just trying to get a general understanding of this. Your web site is a wonderful tool for learning and for art communication. I appreciate it very much. Betty.