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These images are from fractal explorations undertaken using the 'supercomputer' fractal generator at www.shodor.org. All are from the mandelbrot sets, created by iterating the algorithm z=z^x+c. x=2 for the regular mandelbrot set (see the images at google if you are unfamiliar with it) but for most of these images i used x=5 or x=10, as the complexity of the resulting images was higher. Back in 2000-01 I spent hours of my spare time in the internet cafes of london at 3am drilling deeper and deeper into these sets, pushing the available computing power to its limit. I felt I was an explorer of deep space - a deep space populated by curious primordial being-shapes often resembling microscopic insects, or reptiles and amphibians. I became familiar with the pathways through this space, the skeletal arms and spiralling spoons which make the fabric of the mandelbrot. There is an art to finding the new, something which is not simply a detailed but banal repetition of forms seen before - in the shallow water. As I dived down I would avoid the obvious and seek the empty but potent space between recurrent motifs. Sometimes I would get close to what I was seeking - a familiar form from nature - but one which did not occur at the higher levels. However I would inevitably end these sessions frustrated, as I hit the 'critical wall' the depths beyond which further calculation was impossible. I await the day of faster and faster computers - like spacecraft they can take us further than ever before to fractal lands not yet imagined.
snapshot	some mad old clouds	inside aforementioned clouds	crimson candy
crystal	mandel arm & foam	dust clouds	i was walking down the street
z^7	fairly crazy	if there's one thing I can't stand it's crazy people	louse in the z^10
strange places	park boundary	mr curl up surveys the territory	mandel cross
andromeda	andromeda qwerk	andromeda queasy limb	mandel in square
mickey mouse claw	seahorses ride the waves (all the way home)	seahorses go crazy for the camera	more old hat
an arm and cosmos	evolva	churning googles pass wind at the gate	near the edge 7legeyes spawning
old inch worm	jovarian cystitis	red louse of some sort	uh-oh spilt the radioactive milk