Fractal Housewives 2

Fractal Housewives 2 (2012)

 

Another from a series I worked on last winter.

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Image initially renderted in Mystic MandalaBeth. Post-processed until the oven self-cleaned.

Fractal Housewives 1

Fractal Housewives 1 (2012)

 

The first in a series that I worked on last spring. Each features a couple of couples .

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Image initially rendered in Mystic MandalaBeth. Post-processed until the bacon that was brought home became recursive.

The Familiar Remix

The Familiar Remix (2012)

 

Halloween was always my favorite holiday. Maybe it's because my elementary education took place in Catholic schools taught by nuns who were quick to rap your knuckles if you blew reciting your Apostle's Creed. Halloween was the one night allowed for Catholic kids to take your id out for a walk on the wild side. I mean, why not, once a year, literalize those demons and witches and ghouls?

Halloween was a much bigger deal on the Great Plains (where I grew up) than it is in the South (where I now live). I blame the Southern Halloween Apathy Syndrome, comparatively speaking, on the near-total influence of party-pooping Baptists. If dancing is frowned upon, then going door to door dressed as Satan is a serious offense.

Give me Halloween's sliced up jack-o-lanterns and arched back black cats any day over Easter's formally arranged baskets and stylized egg rolls. If a ghost is going to the considerable trouble to resurrect, I want him to scare the shit out of me -- not drift tranquilly into the heavens like a small balloon filled with hot air.

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One of the few black and white images selected for remixing last sumer. Image originally rendered in Tiera-Zon in 1999. Remixed until it became even more familiar.

At the Mountains of Madness Remix

At the Mountains of Madness Remix (2012)

 

It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be left alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
--H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

Another artifact from last summer's remix delirium. The blacks deepened. The snow thickened. The purples feathered and drifted.

Originally rendered in Fractal Vizion in 2002. Post-processed until blind six-feet-tall penguins appeared.

 

Equestrian Death Match Remix

Equestrian Death Match Remix (2012)

 

Another testament from this summer's remix frenzy.

The black, striatic lines really leapt out in the remix. Depth became more defined. Still, the most radically altered feature was the lighting. It irrupted.

This one goes out for Ann Romney's horse:

 

Now, Ralfalca. Remember your Battle Royale training.

I remember, twelve years ago, when I first studied this image, the forms reminded me of tracks, and the title was remiscent of an xtreme posse.

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Originally rendered in Fractal Vizion in 2000. Remixed until the polo sticks were slick with gore.

Io Remix

Io Remix (2012)

 

Even 35 years on, our rugged Voyager spacecraft are poised to make new discoveries as we eagerly await the signs that we've entered interstellar space," Voyager results turned Jupiter and Saturn into full, tumultuous worlds, their moons from faint dots into distinctive places, and gave us our first glimpses of Uranus and Neptune up-close. We can't wait for Voyager to turn our models of the space beyond our sun into the first observations from interstellar space.
--Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena

Another remix now seen by better telescopes.

The photos from Voyager(s) blew my mind as a young adult. For years, I had luminescent shots of Jupiter and Saturn prominently displayed in homes and offices. These were neighbors worth taking the time to get to know.

Both the density and the light became more prominent in the remix. Orginally rendered in XenoDream in 2000, and remixed to the point of eruption.

School's Out Remix

School's Out Remix (2012)

 

Another remix. Forgive the cognitive dissonence caused by posting this one at the start of the school year. Think of it like viewing a snow fort in the Dog Days.

Aspects of motion and absence were murky in the original, and light at he bottom of the ocean floor suddenly became visible...

...which appears possible:

Oceanographers struggle to explain a strange glow from seafloor vents.
--Richard Monasterkey, Science News, 9-7-96

This remix expands, then dives deeper.

 

Cut Down on the Anime Remix

Cut Down on the Anime Remix (2012)

 

Another summer marathon remix.

I always liked the rounded, tentacle-like lines in this piece. The eye form reminds me of both the tripods in War of the Worlds as well as cheeseball horror films like The Crawling Eye.

Originally rendered in Sterling-ware in 2002. Remixed until physical characteristics became even more exaggerated.

Great White Feeding Frenzy Remix

Great White Feeding Frenzy Remix (2012)

 

I've been in hibernation much of the summer working on an art project I never thought I'd be able to undertake.

For many years, I've searched for a process to make my earliest work suitable for framing and viable for HD digital display. All of my art created prior to 2003 was produced at a very small scale -- mostly at the size of 800 x 600 pixels. Given the extent that I commonly post-process, the computers I had at the time were not capable of rendering extremely detailed work at a larger scale. Over time, I resigned myself to the fact that all of those early pieces could never be reproduced with enough vibrancy and resolution to do the pieces aesthetic justice. To paraphrase (and distort) Donald Rumsfeld, I went to war (that is, making art) with the technology I had -- not the technology I wish I had.

Wishes, though, as it turns out, can come true. This summer, with a new computer and a software upgrade, I rebuilt my digital studio. Now, I've finally been able to satisfactorily blow up and remix one hundred of those early works. Some of these remixes will appear on this blog in the coming weeks and months.

Digital artists often have a tough go placing their art in real-world galleries. I’ve shaken my head sadly many times while weighing the advantages of a physical original (like a painting or a sculpture) over a digital original, but one advantage the latter shares with digital music is the capability to remix – especially as tools (like a computer) evolve options and expand firepower. To my eyes, the remixes have more resonance and better exemplify what I saw in my head when initially creating these works at the size of a trade paperback cover.

Ironically, although I originally undertook the project to make some early images feasible for printmaking, I found that I spent much more time and attention fine-tuning the pieces with care for how they would appear digitally. As much as I enjoy prints, and have been an advocate for actively making fine art prints of original digital art, I also pine for the day when large-scale, high resolution HD screens will find fittingly representational wall space in brick and mortar art galleries.

I thought the image above might be an appropriate one to start the show. Think of it as beach viewing for the waning days of summer.

Skrillex Remix

Skrillex Remix (2012)

 

I went back to the digital drawing board here. The original was much too dark. Detail could not be seen. So I remixed -- which seems understandable given the subject matter.

Initally rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until it re-remixed itself.

Lake Serotonin

Lake Serotonin (2012)

 

In addition to the physical contact, it surprised us to find that these immume cells also have the machinery to take up serotonin and to secrete it in an excitatory manner.
--Gerard Ahern

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Image initially rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until it closed its eyes and said aaaaah.

And, because I feel serotonin is conducive to jam-on noodling, today's musical correspondence is the Meat Puppets playing "Lake of Fire."

 

Alien Hipster

Alien Hipster (2012)

 

With Ridley Scott's Prometheus making its debut this weekend, it's worth remembering that not all of the face-hugging, acid for blood aliens strove to be human killing machines. A select few of the xenomorphs just wanted to be hipsters.

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Image initially rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until it went from malicious to groovy.

For today's musical correspondence, here's Man or Astroman in 2010 performing "Invasion of the Dragonmen":

 

What She Saw in the Mirror Remix

What She Saw in the Mirror Remix (2007)

 

I don't want to be left out of this summer's Snow White revitalization.

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Initially rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until no longer the fairest.

Today's musical correspondence? A summer surf trip with the Mermen through a dark mirror.

 

Welcome to Rome Backgrounds

Welcome to Rome 5 Background (2004)

Welcome to Rome 3 Background (2004)

Welcome to Rome 7 Background (2004)

 

Still more images originally used as backgrounds for an illustrated poetry series and stripped of text to be seen with new eyes.

All images initally rendered in Fractal Vizion. Post-processed until the empire became a republic.

Fractal Cut-Ups Backgrounds

Fractal Cut-Ups 4 Background (2001)

Fractal Cut-Ups 5 Background (2001)

Fractal Cut-Ups 6 Background (2001)

 

More images originally used as backgrounds for an illustrated poetry series.

Again, feel free to see what you want to see.

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All images initially rendered in Vchira. Post-processed until their aesthetics mirrored those of quantum mechanics.

Garbage In Backgrounds

Garbage In 5 Background (2000)

Garbage In 3 Background (2000)

Garbage In 2 Background (2000)

 

I thought it might be fun to use my blog to showcase some selected images that were initially used as backgrounds for illustrated poetry.

Think of these artworks as black slates. The idea is to strip away the poems in order to re-see the images with new eyes.

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All works were intially rendered in Fractal Vizion. Post-processed until they became garbage out.

For today's musical cross-pollination, here's David Crosby in fine voice in 2009:

Arthur at His Worst

Arthur at His Worst (2012)

 

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
--Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

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Image initially rendered in Quasz. Post-processed until the sword re-lodged.

Arthur at His Best

Arthur at His Best (2012)

 

Always Sir Arthur lost so much blood that it was a marvel he stood on his feet, but he was so full of knighthood that knightly he endured the pain.
--Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur

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Image initially created with Quasz. Post-processed until the sword dislodged.

Sanctum Santorum

Sanctum Santorum (2012)

 

Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that's okay, contraception is okay. It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.
--Rick Santorum

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Image initially made with Quasz. Post-processed with frothy abandon.

Energy Vampire 362

Energy Vampire 362 (2001)

 

For background info on the series, meander here.

For musical cross-pollination, here's Neil Young and Crazy Horse performing "Cortez the Killer" at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2003. What a killer...

 

 

Energy Vampire 352

Energy Vampire 352 (2001)

 

For background on this series, wander here.

For today's music/image face off, here's the Minutemen performing "History Lesson -- Part II" in San Francisco in 1985:

 

Energy Vampire 337

Energy Vampire 337 (2001)

 

For background on this series, surf here.

Tonight's musical tryst is The Fall performing "Latch Key Kid" at The Basement in 2008. For best results, start the video and click on the image.

 

 

Energy Vampire 333

Energy Vampire 333 (2000)

 

I have posted about this series previously, but I thought, for awhile, I'd put up some optimized clean copies (sans signatures) with some music for your enjoyment.

For context, here's what I originally wrote about the series:

[These] images slink out of the hard drive graveyard today. They are part of a series called Energy Vampires -- 400 images that I worked on sporadically for over five years.

Stakes pulled from their pixel corpses--

Rising from their digital coffins --

The composition method for the series is positively parasitical. I found fractal images by other artists and messed them up severely with multiple layer dumps of whatever would stick to the monitor. I was sampling. Often, I would cannibalize my own images for the greater good. They were probably undead anyway. And, now, these "energy vampires" live again by feeding off the artistic blood of others and by draining the meaninglessness from my own failures.

Transforming into fractal werewolves --

I kept no record of whose images I bit in their beds -- or which of my own were seduced and sucked to a husk. I deliberately did not want to remember. The process itself was all that mattered -- just as the vampire is driven to feed off others with myopic need. The artist as leech. The artist as tapeworm.

As a musical complement for today's image, here's Dub Spencer and Trance Hill in a live performance of The Clash's "Rock the Casbah":

 

 

Pole Dancer

Pole Dancer (2010)

[Click on the image above to see the view with binoculors.]

 

Dancing is a sweat job.
--Fred Astaire

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Image initially made with Quasz. Post-processed until I would call it Vertical Dancer.

Skrillex

Skrillex (2012)

[Click on the image above to see the view with binoculars.]

 

I have inspiration A.D.D. It changes every five seconds.
--Skrillex

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Image initially made with Quasz. Post-processed until exponentially remixed.

Gully Washer

Gully Washer (2003)

 

A "sod-soaker" is a steady rain that sinks into the soil, whereas a "gully-washer" runs off into the gullies.
--Dictionary of Prince Edward Island English

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Image intially made with Factal Vizion. Post-processed until the fences lifted.

Bad Day for Macbeth

Bad Day for Macbeth (2002)

 

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.
--William Shakespeare, Macbeth

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Image initially made with Fractal Zplot. Post-processed until fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Channelled Fractal 5: Jack the Ripper

Channelled Fractal 5: Jack the Ripper (2001)

 

One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the twentieth century.
--Jack the Ripper

The last post from the series of channelled fractals.

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Image initially made with Sterling-ware. Post-processed until it became a bogey man.

For corresponding chills, here's a live version of "Jack the Ripper" performed by The White Stripes:

 

Channelled Fractal 9: Vincent Price

Channelled Fractal 9: Vincent Price (2001)

 

We exponents of horror do much better than those method actors. We make the unbelievable believable. More often than not, they make the believable unbelievable.
--Vincent Price

Another in the astral plane beamed back channelled fractal series.

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Image initially made with Fractal Vizion. Post-processed until it was the last image on earth.

Today's video accompaniment is a black and white tribute:

 

Channelled Fractal 4: Gregor Mendel

Channelled Fractal 4: Gregor Mendel (2001)

 

When two plants, constantly different in one or several traits, are crossed, the traits they have in common are transmitted unchanged to the hybrids and their progeny, as numerous experiments have proven; a pair of differing traits, on the other hand, are united in the hybrid to form a new trait, which usually is subject to changes in the hybrids' progeny.
--Gregor Mendel, Experiments in Plant Hybrids (1865)

Gregor Mendel, who is known as the "father of modern genetics," was inspired by both his professors at university and his colleagues at the monastery to study variation in plants, and he conducted his study in the monastery's garden.
--Machines Like Us

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Image Initially made with Sterling-ware. Post-processed until the dominant traits became recessive.

For musical cross-pollination, here's a song about selective breeding-- "Racehorse" by Wild Flag -- live in Philadelphia in March of 2011:

 

Channelled Fractal 17: Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Channelled Fractal 17: Jacques-Yves Cousteau (2002)

 

The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
--Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Yet another "channelled fractal" sent via psychic sonar.

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Initially made with Vchira. Post-processed until it reached crush depth.

For complementary viewing, here's a short video featuring Cousteau's major accomplishments and created last year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth.

 

Channelled Fractal 11: Judy Garland

Channelled Fractal 11: Judy Garland (2001)

 

Behind every cloud is another cloud.
--Judy Garland

Another entry in the "channelled fractal" expo from beyond the grave.

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Image initially made with Fractal Vizion. Post-processed until film executives took over and altered its appearance.

For your supplemental viewing pleasure, a 20/20 report featuring both audio tapes and entries from an unpublished autobiography from Garland.

 

Chanelled Fractal 20: Marilyn Monroe

Chanelled Fractal 20: Marilyn Monroe (2001)

 

It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on.
--Marilyn Monroe

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Another in the series of psychically received images from the other side.

Image initially made with Sterling-ware. Post-processed until everyone thought they knew it but no one ever did.

Today's supplemental viewing experience is part of a TV documentary featuring audio clips from an interview Monroe granted just weeks before her death.

 

Channelled Fractal 15: George Harrison

Channelled Fractal 15: George Harrison (2001)

 

America has everything. Why should they want us?
--George Harrison

The selected series of "channelled fractals" continues.

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Image initially made with Vchira. Post-processed until it lived in the material world.

For today's viewing accompaniment, here's George Harrison performing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Prince's Trust Concert in 1987.

 

Channelled Fractal 12: Jimi Hendrix

Channelled Fractal 12: Jimi Hendrix (2001)

In 2001, I created a mock series of twenty images in which I pretended to "channel" dead famous personages in order to let them create their own fractal imagery. 

These images were made before I started working more large scale in "wall mode," so the originals are only 600x800 pixels. I suppose the lower resolution made it less difficult for the departed to speak through them.

These images were initially posted to the Usenet group alt.binaries.pictures.fractals. Here is the explanation that initially accompanied them:

Out of concern that my art was becoming "depressing" and a desire to reacquaint myself with my more spiritual inner child, I have begun channeling fractals from others who have crossed over fractal-less into the Great Beyond. The process is simple. I close my eyes, turn on a generator, place crystals atop my monitor, burn peppermint incense, tie-dye some work clothes, and chant in a phony Jamaican accent. Soon, through intense meditation and lots of Fox Television programming, I slip into a beta state while leaving my fingers gently on my mouse -- which soon begins moving spasmodically on its pad much like a planchette. According to witnesses, there is the acrid smell of ectoplasm in the room as blood trickles down my monitor and eerily spells out the name of my troubled collaborator. When I awaken from my fugue state, the fractal is finished. However, I can take little credit for these works; after all, I am merely the vessel of a higher power.

I plan to post some of the series in the coming days.

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Image initially made with Quasz. Post-processed until it arrived at a red house.

Today's musical accompaniment for viewing is the Jimi Hendrix Experience live on Belgium television in 1967.

 

Snowbound 3

Snowbound 3 (2011)

The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
--John Greenleaf Whittier

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Image intially made with Quasz. Post-processed until the power went out. 

To thaw out while viewing, here's Amimals as Leaders performing "Song of Solomon" live at the Martini Ranch in Scottsdale AZ in July of 2011.