Curiouser and Curiouser

Ultra Fractal: Bailed or Booted from its Home?

[Photograph seen on Recession Profession.]

Hmmm. Odd events are piling up.

First, as I previously reported on Orbit Trap, every scrap of information pertaining to the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest, both the 2006 and 2007 iterations, were suddenly deleted recently from their web home on Fractalus. Fractalus, of course, is hosted by fractal artist and BMFAC co-director Damien M. Jones. I would think, at the very least, the competitions' winners* deserve some kind of explanation as to why their successful entries are no longer being showcased. To date, Jones has provided no reason as to why both competitions were inexplicably expunged.

And now, to further muddle the mystery, there was this recent entry by Frederik Slijkerman, the creator of Ultra Fractal, on the Ultra Fractal Mailing List:

Today the Ultra Fractal web site was moved over to a different provider, which was supposed to be a smooth transition -- but unfortunately there were a few hours during which downloads and support via e-mail were not available.

Also, the formula database is temporarily off-line.

Like the BMFACs, the Ultra Fractal site was hosted by Jones at Fractalus.

One has to wonder why sites are suddenly evaporating or jumping ship from Jones' Fractalus domain.

It would almost seem like some kind of deliberate purge is taking place. But surely not. The idea that perhaps Slijkerman disagreed with Jones over some little something is ludicrous. And it's preposterous to presume that Jones would inexplicably find Slijkerman irrational and a rampaging security threat and surreptitiously give him and UF the boot. Really, such a scenario is completely...um...absurd...and...

Wait. Something's coming back to me now. Some vague memory of an email Jones once sent me. I think it's actually in the OT archives. I believe it went something like this:

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:55:11 -0400
From: Damien M. Jones
To: Terry Wright
Subject: Re: Eclectasy Hosting

Terry,

I wrote Lynne [Edel] earlier today to let her know that I would no longer be able to provide you with access to my server. She is the owner of the eclectasy.com domain. I know that she is not responsible for your actions; however, I knew that I would not be granting you further access (except as necessary to download a copy of your content) and that would likely mean eclectasy.com would need to be moved.

[...]

She did ask why I had taken this step, and I indicated that your recent Orbit Trap postings have destroyed a lot of the trust I had with you.

One such hosting boot from Jones is curious enough. Another would be curiouser -- especially when added to the curious evaporation of the Benoit Mandelbrot Fractal Art Contest sites from Jones' server.

*By winners I mean the BMFAC contest entrants who were actually selected for physical exhibitions and not BMFAC's judges who also hung their own works in the same shows leading some people to suspect both contests were deliberate self-promoting publicity stunts designed to suggest to the undiscerning that the judges had also been chosen to appear in juried international art competitions.

Tags: fractal, fractals, fractal art, fractal blog, benoit mandelbrot fractal art contest, ultra fractal, fractalus, damien m jones, frederik slijkerman, site overboard, curiouser and curiouser, cruelanimal, orbit trap