I created these because it pleases me to create them. Go ahead and download them, save them, give them to your friends, print them and hang them on a wall, whatever you want. "Property" is simply not a productive paradigm for art.

If you like these images and you do something special with them, I'd be glad if you could drop me an e-mail, though, as I like getting feedback. (Update: I rarely get around to writing emails any more -- But I do read everything you send me, eventually.) And of course you're allowed to donate to help with the hosting, if you'd like.

Just as I was tentatively picking up fractal art again, the second HD crash in two years reduces my computer to an expensive paperweight. Fortunately I had some backups this time.

After such a prolonged hiatus, I spent some time re-acquainting myself with the way various things were done in UF, playing with somewhat derivative things ("Neuron" is a direct descendant of "Flagellum" in the 2003 gallery, for example) and throwing around some color for the sheer heck of it. "Constipation", for example, exists entirely as a result of wanting to make something bold and colorful. "Wing", "Verne's Propeller" and "Transmission" were all created to show exactly what they're showing - the time that was spent on them was to make them do what I want rather than the other way 'round and thus to get me back into the mechanics of algorithmic art.

In the second half of 04, fortunately I got the time and opportunity to play with concepts a bit more seriously (to the degree that art can or should be serious in the first place). I had the time, for example, to push a preliminary design like "Quilt" to its final completion ("Quilt3") and even to take a little detour on the road here and there (i.e. "LargeQuilt").

Finally I got around to playing explicitly with artistic concepts - like in "Unbalanced", where I expressly tried to create something that is aesthetically pleasing but not actually centered or balanced on the page. Or in "Release" where I tried to expressly use colors that don't quite work well together. Or even "Dark Blue", where I spent a good while trying to break every artistic concept I appreciated myself in other people's works while still creating something I liked.

On the other hand, I produced the first couple of things that actually look the way people classically expect "fractal art" to look like - with spirals and swirls - that actually pleased me artistically.

"Rocket science" is actually an offshoot of trying to reproduce "Up and Down" (in the 2001 gallery).

And 2004 was a breakthrough year in terms of spread of my work - my images are now on display in libraries and public offices around the country, they are featured on CDs and book covers, they are used by people to make their web-pages prettier and their products more attractive, there's even been a poetry contest about them. And all I can say is "cool": that is exactly why I set these free - so that others can look at them, share them around, build on them, appreciate them.