Forget the story of the shoemaker and the elves…the 21st century equivalent might be the laser physicist and the machine elves. Scotland-based physicist-turned-artist Tom Beddard (aka subBlue), creates computer-generated 3D fractal artworks that he refers to as ‘Fabergé Fractals’…and they look like something that the denizens of the DMT realms might use as furniture.* Beddard uses iterative fractal formulas to create his astounding CG models:
The 3D fractals are generated by iterative formulas whereby the output of one iteration forms the input for the next. The formulas effectively fold, scale, rotate or flip space. They are truly fractal in the fact that more and more detail can be revealed the closer to the surface you travel.
The fascinating aspect is where combinations of parameters can combine to create structural ‘resonances’ of extraordinary detail and beauty— sometimes naturally organic and other times perfectly geometric. But then like a chaotic system it can completely disappear with the smallest perturbation.
I look forward to someone bringing these things into the real world with a 3D printer.
Beddard is also the co-creator of an app called Frax that lets you create your own fractal art. And he also has a pretty cool Vimeo channel full of fractal animations to make your head spin, like the one below.
For similar videos and images, see some of the links at the bottom of this post.
(* Beddard’s use of the word ‘Fabergé’ is interesting, given Terence McKenna’s own description of what he saw under the influence of DMT: “So you burst into this space. It’s lit, softened lighting, some kind of indirect lighting – you can’t quite locate it. But what is astonishing and immediately riveting is that in this place there are entities – there are these things, which I call “self transforming machine elves”…and then they proceed to sing objects into existence. Amazing objects. Objects that are Fabergé Eggs, things made of pearl, and metal, and glass, and gel; and you, when you’re shown one of these things, a single one of them, you look at it and you know, without a shadow of a doubt, in the moment of looking at this thing, that if it were right here, right now, this world would go mad. It’s like something from another dimension. It’s like an artifact from a flying saucer. It’s like something falling out of the mind of God – such objects do not exist in this universe, and yet, you’re looking at it.”)
(via Science Alert/@RakRazam)
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