Fractal art and generative art: chaos and order between forms and colors

Spazioformadesign
The Thinking Behind Design
3 min readJan 18, 2022

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“Structura” and “Abstract W | Cube City — The grid city WIP 2” © Rosanna Casalnuovo | Spazioformadesign

When we speak about art, all of you consider classical sectors as painting, sculpture, photography and cinema without thinking that also in the programming and in the math there is the development of new artistic paths in line with the graphics and digital art. They suppose a background of knowledge more extensive tied to mathematical algorithms and complex computer programming.

If the experience in the fractal art allowed me to extend the artistic and mathematical competences, the generative art allowed me to put in practice this competences from the point of view of programming in a different way and in relation with digital graphics.

The common vision of both arts is seen in the fractal formulas on which is based the study of dinamic systems, in both cases we find the chaos in the algorithms and only the designer decides how sets order.

The fractals are geometric objects with the characteristic of auto-similarity as defined from the chaos theory and they are described as recursive algorithms, while a generative system is an autonomous and recursive process. In the mathematical definition the fractals are function that explicitly attempt to give order to chaos and the theory of fractals is named the theory of chaos. The generative and recursive algorithms are for their same nature the expression of chaos and only the generative artist decides if give order to chaos of algorithm trying, if posssible, to return design canons that they always can present a random component tied to independent variable of algorithms.

The component “form” in fractals often is regulated from component “color” that placed on algorithm a function that it traces contrast, armony and composition. In the generative algorithms the designer decide the form to use, it derives from mathematical algorithm, the designer assign to the form a color in RGB value or with pattern image that follow the algorithm function drawing the output from determinate input for user.

“Abstract W | Cube City” has been my first attempt of a generative algorithm to be part of precise design limits after experiments with others generative projects as “Freeform study” and “Abstract W”. The project is inspired to morphology of the cities and the algorithm had to be an artistic work which would call back aesthetics of the typology of the city. It would not be the precise attempt to show the grow of the various typology of the city because for this exist the town-planning and the professionals of the sector. In my case I have used three simple cube with three simple colors in RGB value and a recursive algorithm with minimal modifications to simulate the different typology of th city.

Curiosity: “Abstract W | Cube city” is a fork of “Abstract W” and the letter “W” of title is for “Vice Versa” because in my intention the algorithm should have done an operation somewhat different. It’s not always possible to obtain what we want but the project can always regerate or convert in something different.

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Spazioformadesign
The Thinking Behind Design

Spazioformadesign | A digital artist who likes to explore the connections between computing and art, design and architecture