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Devious Journal Entry
Message Center Performance Upgrades
:star: Message Center news to know!
Today we completed a three-month process of implementing performance upgrades to the Message Center. With these improvements in place, we're able to increase site speed and decrease the amount of errors deviants may experience in their Message Centers. Our Devious Technology and Tech Ops teams have been working hard to move Message Center data to its own dedicated database cluster. We made a considerable investment in servers with 96GB of memory and 12 CPU cores to handle 6 billion messages and 6500 queries per second.
What does this mean for you? :sherlock:
Absolutely nothing. We hope. The upgrade
The Great Valentine Exchange!
:heart: Love is in the air!
Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and we're big on love here at deviantART! Whether it's the love of someone's gallery, the glomping of that friend who's always there for you, or the devotion you share with that special someone, February 14th is the perfect day to remind those around you how much they bring to your life. One of the great Valentine's Day traditions is giving and receiving heartfelt messages between friends, family, lovers, or even secret admirers. This year, we wanted to add digital deviance to the tradition by introducing the Great Valentine Exchange!
:heart: How does it work?
We've cr
The Resource Roundup #4
The Resource Roundup is a regular feature showcasing some of the best resources deviantART members share with the world!
Whether you're a beginning artist or seasoned pro, deviantART's Resources Gallery is an inspirational and beneficial asset for art creation. Take a look at a few of the incredible submissions below – they might help enhance your next artistic creation!
This issue is all about stock photography featuring models. What should the next Resource Roundup theme be? You tell us!
• A different stock photo theme
• Crafts you can make at home
• Marketing yourself: website, logos, and business
Featured in Groups
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How do you respond to critics who claim that fractal art is too much of the “machine” creating the artwork?
Educate and reveal the mystery. Personally I feel that like all art there are techniques we use to create that which we envision. Knowing that a particular formula will create certain effects is akin to music where 1-6-4-5 patterns or 1-4-5 patterns have resulted in many different songs. Its like asking if musicians only follow patterns. Clearly the patterns exist, but each song is unique to the artist. While two songs may use the chords E-A-D (which can be heard in many well known songs) those songs can sound very different from one another. There may be particular parameters which differ, or have been slightly altered from the standard which makes that song unique. I see fractal art in a very similar manner. You can follow the parameters, but ultimately as an artist you always alter things to your own liking. I was watching a documentary "The making of Aja" by Steely Dan and in it one of the musicians said, its not about learning the songs to play perfection, but the step beyond that where you are just playing. The machine may be the tool used, but ultimately without the artist the machine doesn't make art on its own.
What is the extent of the artist’s human agency that makes a fractal artwork the artists vision rather than just an extension of “the machine”?
The artist makes the choices. Color palette, form, shape, line, size, etc... The machine can randomize within a range, sure... but I, the artist, can go outside that range. Even further then that, I can go outside the base program and involve other techniques, and or tools to do what the original generating program could not.
Is a background in mathematics or programming something that can greatly aid a fractal artist?
I'd say yes, because after all you are using math but it isn't required in my opinion. It helps to understand what its going to do to transform the image, especially when you stack up the transforms. Sometimes I tend to experiment with different methods to get to the result I'm looking for. Knowing that using a particular set of parameters will give me some form of effect I'm looking for is a tool in the belt. In the same way, if I want deep and rich texture in a painting I might use modelling paste to build thickness. In real media, we have the same tools, and we understand them to be tools and techniques used to illicit an effect. I feel fractal art is no different. It still requires the same understanding of form, line, and composition as the other art forms to have a strong image in the end.
Thanks for the great article and the solid questions. Rock on
Educate and reveal the mystery. Personally I feel that like all art there are techniques we use to create that which we envision. Knowing that a particular formula will create certain effects is akin to music where 1-6-4-5 patterns or 1-4-5 patterns have resulted in many different songs. Its like asking if musicians only follow patterns. Clearly the patterns exist, but each song is unique to the artist. While two songs may use the chords E-A-D (which can be heard in many well known songs) those songs can sound very different from one another. There may be particular parameters which differ, or have been slightly altered from the standard which makes that song unique. I see fractal art in a very similar manner. You can follow the parameters, but ultimately as an artist you always alter things to your own liking. I was watching a documentary "The making of Aja" by Steely Dan and in it one of the musicians said, its not about learning the songs to play perfection, but the step beyond that where you are just playing. The machine may be the tool used, but ultimately without the artist the machine doesn't make art on its own.
What is the extent of the artist’s human agency that makes a fractal artwork the artists vision rather than just an extension of “the machine”?
The artist makes the choices. Color palette, form, shape, line, size, etc... The machine can randomize within a range, sure... but I, the artist, can go outside that range. Even further then that, I can go outside the base program and involve other techniques, and or tools to do what the original generating program could not.
Is a background in mathematics or programming something that can greatly aid a fractal artist?
I'd say yes, because after all you are using math but it isn't required in my opinion. It helps to understand what its going to do to transform the image, especially when you stack up the transforms. Sometimes I tend to experiment with different methods to get to the result I'm looking for. Knowing that using a particular set of parameters will give me some form of effect I'm looking for is a tool in the belt. In the same way, if I want deep and rich texture in a painting I might use modelling paste to build thickness. In real media, we have the same tools, and we understand them to be tools and techniques used to illicit an effect. I feel fractal art is no different. It still requires the same understanding of form, line, and composition as the other art forms to have a strong image in the end.
Thanks for the great article and the solid questions. Rock on