90s Fractal Art

At this time the interest in fractals and the new scientific thinking of the Chaos theory was spreading across the UK in popular culture.

People were excited by the new futuristic aesthetic of computer generated imagery and fractals sparked people's imagination.

Music stores such as HMV and student markets featured these images as poster and postcards amongst their music poster and young people used them to decorate their rooms.

High street poster stores such as Athena soon started to stock these images alongside the other popular images of the time.

As these images gained popularity it became common to see them stocked alongside holiday postcards in post offices and in stationery and card shops.

The psychedelic look of the imagery also made them popular in head stores and market stalls.

The art of chaos exhibition, Milton Keynes, Stantonbury campus gallery by Tim Waters 1994

Galleries and museums became interested in the ideas of the Chaos theory and Fractals and a selection of the fractal artwork you see here was exhibited in the UK.

Venues included Derby industrial museum, Warwick central art gallery, and Milton Keynes long lounge.

These fractals images were printed onto A1 photographic paper and presented side by side in several A0 sized frames along side some accompanying text.

Fractal creations - by Tim Wagner, Published by the Waite Group (1991) - This book could be purchased off the shelf in bookstores. It contained a disk with the program Fractint that let you generate fractals on your home computer.

The Beauty of Fractals - by Heinz-Otto Peitgen and Peter Richter (1986). This book contains 88 full-colour prints from the exhibition "Frontiers of Chaos" as well as a personal contribution by Benoit Mandelbrot himself.

Natures Chaos - by Eliot Porter and James Gleick published by the Little (1991), Brown Book Group. Chaos also by James Glick was the seminal book on Chaos theory at the time.

Colourful computer graphics often featured on the flyers to were house parties and raves in the early 90s and fractal art was often used as a background.

The bright colours and kaleidoscopic shapes which feature strongly in these fractal graphics brought psychedelic imagery up to date for this drug fueled culture and they became an icon of the time representing hedonism and a freedom to party.

Many of the images features here were used in promotional material and then later ended up decorated the homes of this people in this scene.

See more examples of 90s Fractal rave flyers here