The Shoulders of Giants

Note: This began as a reply to Tina Oloyede's "Whose Picture Is It Anyway?" post. It got longer than a reply comment ought to be and perhaps wandered a bit afield, so I decided to make it its own post. And it's not directed at Tina specifically any more, except for a little bit at the end.

We stand upon the shoulders of giants.

When creating fractal art with a program like Ultra Fractal, there are many layers of giants on whose shoulders we stand. We use formulas, which are in many cases not just mathematical formulas, but algorithms, programs written by other hard-working people. These formulas run in Ultra Fractal, written by the hard-working Frederik Slijkerman. Ultra Fractal was written with Delphi, a commercial product, the labor of many people. Delphi runs on Windows, a gargantuan product written by hordes of Microsoft serfs (many of whom are bright and creative people). Windows runs on PCs with x86-compatible processors, the work of legions of chip designers for AMD or Intel (or others). These processors operate in motherboards that are the products of still more dedicated engineers.

You can carry the chain back as far as you like, and extend the principle to other fractal tools. The basic concept is the same: when you make a tool, and you share that tool with others, you don't own what they create with it (unless you've specifically indicated so in your license, which would be incredibly crass and is seldom done).

This is different from a derivative work. A derivative work is where you start with someone else's product and produce a similar type of product. For example, if I took someone else's tool and, rather than use the tool as intended to create something, I change the tool. That would be a derivative work and may infringe on a copyright. (It depends on the tool's license.)

Of course I don't think Tina was asking a legal question, and that's good, because I Am Not A Lawyer and This Is Not Legal Advice. Rather, I think Tina was asking a more complex question. I sometimes think in terms of "strong" and "weak" formulas and tools.

A "strong" tool is one whose effects are so powerful, so distinctive that, to those who are familiar with the tool, its use is indelibly etched into the work. In UF terms, this would be particularly obvious algorithms (Triangle Inequality Average, anything with fBm in it, etc.) At the next level it would include tools like Apophysis. Things so distinctive that it's hard to create with them without it looking similar to other things created with that tool.

"Weak" tools are just the opposite; they leave plenty of room for the artist's own style to show through, because their own specific traits are less blatant.

The interesting thing is that although I have named my tool categories based on their obviousness in the products of those tools, if you were to name them based on the tools' flexibility and capability the labels would be flipped. A "strong" tool in the obviousness sense is a "weak" tool in the flexibility sense. So really, "weak" tools can be much better, because you have so much more freedom. Of course, this does mean they take more time to learn.

Where it gets really tricky is where an artist's style is based on a strong tool. This is what we ask of artists: that they be creative. The more "strong" tools an artist uses, the more their style comes from their tools, rather than their choices in using those tools. Is the artist really expressing themselves? Or just pushing buttons until they get something pretty? Is it the artist, or the tool? (This is very much what Tina was getting at.)

We have this angst, as fractal artists. Some of us have had experiences where, once we describe what we do, people get in a huff and say, "well any chimp can do that!" I've personally been called out on this during a presentation I was giving on fractal art. So sometimes we are very insistent that fractal art is art. But there will always be people who think that, because we do it with a computer, we are not really being creative, and this is an idle pursuit. That we are dilettantes, dabblers, not really artists. This would not bother us if we didn't have a little sliver of doubt within us, or if we couldn't point to plenty of people for whom those labels apply (and who do not seem to be bothered by it like we are). Are we really artists? Will there be a fractal Renoir, or Picasso, or da Vinci? Will any of this be remembered in twenty years? Fifty? Two hundred?

This is our elephant in the room. We feel that sometimes our tools make things too easy. We want to be visually distinct from each other. But we all use the same tools. So we're afraid that an outsider will look at our work and think it is all the same. That we really didn't contribute much. And we're afraid that maybe they're right. Because most famous artists didn't make six hundred images in ten years. The fact that we can produce so much suggests that perhaps we didn't put as much of ourselves into it as we ought.

My suggested cure is not very complicated.

1. Approach "strong" tools with caution. Use them judiciously. Overusing them is a crutch, an easy fix. If your style depends largely on tools someone else has created, broaden your reach. Try something new.
2. Prefer more generalized tools, that leave you room to express your own style. If you develop your own style that is distinct from the "normal" things your tools do, you will know that it is you who is in charge, not your tool-maker. This has the added benefit of giving your more confidence in what you're doing.
3. The best fractal artists are those who know enough about their tools to be able to imitate the styles of other artists. If they can do that, then you know that they are making choices about how their art looks because they can, not because it's all they know how to do. Practice doing this. It is a very educational, confidence-building, and skill-building exercise.
4. Spend lots of time with each image. This is something I am still learning to do. Don't let an image out until it's really ready. Filter, filter, filter. Keep all that bad stuff; hard drive space is cheap and parameters are compact. Look at your old stuff from time to time to remind yourself how far you've come. Periodically rework an old image that you didn't feel was quite done. Over time your standards will go up and your "productivity" will go down. That's OK. Great art is seldom made in five minutes.

If fractal artists want fractal art to be taken seriously as art, then above all what we need to prove is that fractal art is the expression of artists, not the default representation of basic mathematics. So, master your tools and force them to express what you want.

Specific reply for Tina: the images shown clearly bear the traits of the tools used. And yet they also show your style. Tool-makers love to see their tools used; that's the point of sharing the tool in the first place. But the best, most satisfying thing for me as a tool-maker is always when someone uses the tool to do something new that I never thought of.