Thursday, January 18, 2007

Hidden Agenda

Each fractal image I create has a purpose. There is a hidden agenda behind it.

The image is created thinking about some question that is important to me and the only criteria used to select it is its relevance for the purpose. When I am satisfied I will publish it and from now on, it will guide my action concerning the matter for which it was created.

For example this has been created for this post and is helping me writing these notes.

I appreciate the creativity of the other authors of this blog in using images mixed with narrative. This is a wonderful way to use fractal images and perhaps someday I will give a try at it. My use of fractal images is instead similar to the use done by buddist monks of mandalas. One or few monks will work for days building a large mandala with colored sand and when it is ready , they destroy it.
The mandala will remain in their heart and guide their action or ther meditation .

I don't know, before I start searching a new image, which criteria I will use to select it. I select an image because I like some of its features and I feel that these features can help me in the problem that has me prompted creating the image. For example in the image above I liked the mixing of simmetry and chaos and the central "dovelike" feature that keeps everything togegether giving a centre to it.

The title of the image is important. In this case the title "hidden agenda" indicates the purpose of the fractal. Also I have many dedicated to ... images obviously dedicated to people for which I care. Normally the title comes to my mind when I choose the image and , in this case, the title has a meaning that is ,for me, deeply connected to the problem I am trying to solve. For example Past, Present , Future : the Path or Three Steps to Enlightenment .

By the way , concerning the titles we give to fractal images, they are used by search engines like Google to classify the images. But these robots, up to now don't recognize fractals and so you have this amusing fact that your most popular images are popular only because of the title. In my case this happens for example with this flowers .

2 Comments:

Blogger Philip said...

Hidden agendas also appear occasionally in the world of political propaganda. Candidate X has a hidden agenda?! Only one? I thought he had 47.

:-)

1/19/2007 11:50 AM

 
Blogger Tim said...

I really like your unique perspective on fractal art, Zito. Sometimes I've made images that are "interesting" and "thought provoking" but at the same time, not really "pleasing to the eye". This has often confused me because I've always thought "art" (forgive me for using so many quotation marks) was simply, "beauty" and for an image to be good or have artistic merit meant it had to be "likable" and "look good". If it wasn't "pretty" it was bad and if I still thought it was "good" it was only because I was becoming self-absorbed and losing my objectivity and I liked it for the egotistical reason that I had made it and I was in love with everything that had my name on it.

But I'm beginning to see (not just know it, but also to see it) that visual art can have another kind of beauty, a pleasing effect on the mind and not necessarily on the eyes. This may explain why there is so much "famous" artwork that I don't like: I just look at it, see the surface, and don't perceive it's deeper contents that the people who admire it do.

I don't know if this is what you're suggesting, but I think maybe it's similar.

1/19/2007 1:23 PM

 

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