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NilNilNil β Twilight at the Towers
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Published: 2007-03-21 09:15:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 722; Favourites: 21; Downloads: 23
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Description
More Apo madness... just out of curiosity, I'd be glad to anybody who'll comment about picture luminosity and/or contrast... I'm having some trouble as my laptop generally shows pictures brighter than they appear on other machines - all comments are welcome
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Comments: 21
I guess may try to find the right angle of the laptop screen to ur face next time 
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wonderful work! and VERY interesting discussion with eunecte...I am not a purist myself but I take your points....many thanks for your flamepack, it is delighting me at the moment..will note you when I post something. Now I'm going to look more thoroughly at your gallery.
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This is pure creative beauty BUT... your twighlight seems to be happening in the middle of the night. Maybe some amount of background and lighting would make the top of this incredible tower look less like a birthday cake when everybody is about to sing 'Happy birthday to You'! It would have added in 'realism', without deterring from the beauty of the center piece. Some subdued orangey-pink, maybe... rising from a hypothetical 'horizon', and scattering here and there over the tops... Just an idea, and a bit late to come, I know
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No probs, every critique's welcome no matter how late - even more so when it's so articulate. This is a pretty old piece I made when I was starting to get a grasp on Apophysis, and one I've been wanting to rehash for ages, if only to fix bright spots I didn't take care of then and maybe crank up resolution - which I never did eventually. As to your point here, I definitely see it, but well... on average, I'm a tight-arsed purist when it comes to fractals, and try to avoid post process as much as possible. This said, after your comment I'll prolly change my mind and try out as soon as I find the will to pipe this one through Apo again (wild zoom - I remember it took aeons to render).
Thanks for your words
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The point of being a purist, in such cases, being? To test the limits of a program, a script ? Not Art, surely. Self-defeating, mostly. I hope to see a real twighlight on your tower someday, that will give it life. Forcing oneself within the constraints of strict limits may be an exciting exercice, of a rather selfish nature? If art is to be shared, then no holds must be barred, to express whatever visions the mind produces. But what do I know ?
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Mmh that requires a somewhat lengthy answer. Let's go by points, and apologies in advance if it at times it'll make little sense.
First off, I love fractals because of their underlying maths as well as for the downright esthetic side. I like to think of my pieces as definite, self-sufficient sets of formulas and parametres yielding a definite, self-sufficient assembly of shapes and colours. I definitely see how post-process could add to the results sometimes. On the other hand, I can't help regarding any post-process (beyond the bare minimum required e.g. for lighting) as introducing spurious elements. Unlike most art, fractals can be replicated provided starting conditions are set - in this sense, a good fractal can be viewed as a successful experiment achieved by a trial and error process. With Apophysis, passing on a fractal to others for them to push the experiment further is just a matter of copypaste; applying heavy post-process makes this impossible.
Moreover, consider I tend to take the expression "fractal exploring" quite literally, silly as it may sound. To me, creating a fractal requires a trance-like focus and I never start with a clear picture of what I'm going to do. It's more about bending formulas and parametres to get from A to B, from B to C and so on, till something (or somewhere) comes into view that seems worth some fine-tuning. Then, what I do is basically take a snapshot and leave. Normally I wouldn't photoshop holiday snapshots before showing them to friends, and much the same applies here.
One more point. On a first look, fractal art is downright abstract - nothing more than orderly intricate shapes and colours and lines, nothing the eye can comfortably latch on to. But then, why are so many prone in reacting to fractals with comments like "this looks like X, reminds me of Y"? I guess it's a sort of reflex kicking in, that forces the observer's eye to try hard and extract a meaning out of the chaos and complexity - a meaning that thence on will keep flickering on and off of sight. Then, giving a piece a certain title is giving the observer a hint, it's a means aiming to draw attention upon a certain pattern or detail - but that, I think, shouldn't to be too explicit either. I named this piece "Twilight at the towers" and now everybody's prompted to see a tower in there, and a reflection of the sunset's last gleaming - and maybe, if endowed with a well-developed critical attitude as is your case, to remark the absence of any actual sign of twilight in the picture. But turn the picture upside down and the tower becomes just something else - a fang, a stalagmyte, whatever. No doubt, adding a real twilight in the background would do wonders on this picture - but then, would it still work this way? I like my stuff to be dark and slightly disturbing, and most of all I like it to keep an ambiguous appearance - sacrificing some eyecandy is a price I can afford. Is it self-defeating? Maybe - but what would be the point in showing my art to others, if my art didn't meet my standards in the first place?
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Yes, I had noticed the ambiguity of the relationship between fractal art and abstraction. But art is made up of signs, which the brain insists in interpreting into familiar patterns. The artist's brain just as the watcher's. An emotion, a personal experience, anything that the individual can relate to. Being mathematically conceived doesn't change anything about that. Art speaks first and foremost to feeling, and feeling cannot subsist in unalturated abstraction. Was art not born as an instrument of worship of the unattainable, the beyond, the sacred? It awakes stories and myths into the archaΓ―c mind, the dreaming mind, and this unexpected and unique bridge between the two sides of the brain that fractal art creates gives flesh and life to calculus. It cannot be helped, and if you push abstraction to its utmost, you may satisfy your sense of achievement, but you will have denied art.
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It cannot be helped, and if you push abstraction to its utmost, you may satisfy your sense of achievement, but you will have denied art.
Agreed - ideally, I strive to achieve maximum ambiguity by pushing abstraction as far as I can, in accordance with the feeling I want to convey. Sure, my own sense of achievement plays its part in this - but I never share anything that doesn't appeal to my right brain in the first place.
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I don't see the 'full view' ... nothing but BLACK!
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Now that's funny O_o let me see...
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I just tried again ... and the full view is still black ...
but I love the towers!
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Dunno, I've checked on a few machines and it seemed to work smoothly.
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Eheh. parla pure italiano qui, sono Imago del forum Laici Libertari
Grazie dell'add e del commento
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Oops, ho lasciato in inglese un messaggio sulla tua pagina. Comunque te lo dico in italiano: con i frattali sei un mago! Complimenti!
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Ahah grazie
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Very unique pattern/flame. You've composed this very nicely as well. Wonderful job!
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Wow dude trippy & original flame construction
Me---->
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Thank you
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