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>>Narrator: THIS TIME, ON COLORES!\e DR. JONATHAN WOLFE, HELPED ALBUQUERQUE BECOME
THE FRACTAL CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AND SHARES HIS INSPIRATIONS AND INSIGHTS.\e
>> Fractals are the pictures of chaos theory. With the help of computers we can visualize
how fractal patterns grow and turn into these really beautiful things that echo the patterns
of nature.\e >>Narrator: STUDENTS GET A CHANCE FOR ARTISTIC
EXPOSURE AT THE XL PROJECTS GALLERY IN SYRACUSE NEW YORK. THIS SHOW EXPLORES RELATIONSHIPS
BETWEEN CONCEPT AND THE REAL WORLD.\e >>Our work still seems to have this commonality
of like, ideas of the transitive state, which are, things that are, the interaction between
thoughts and objects on this plane of reality thats not quite real and maybe even sometimes
fantastical or strange.\e >>Narrator: NORM OBERLES CURIOSITY FOR WHAT
LIES BEYOND PLANET EARTH LED HIM TO BUILD A POWERFUL TELESCOPE. \e
>>So I remind myself how bad it can be building a large telescope.\e
>>Narrator: PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES REDDINGTON FOUND THAT MOST PEOPLE HAVE A TREASURE BOX
FILLED WITH MOMENTOS.\e >>I love photographing anything regarding
peoples secrets or anything where something is not readily apparent to people. I like
bringing that out in the open.\e >>Narrator: ITS ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!\e
JONATHAN WOLFE SHARES HIS FASCINATION WITH HOW FRACTALS MIRROR PATTERNS IN NATURE.\e
>>Jonathan Wolfe: Ive been in love with fractals for about half my life now. Since I was in
high school... when I discovered them... way back. As an artist I saw the potential for
making really really beautiful patterns, I love exploring them. As soon as I got a powerful
computer in the early 90s, powerful relatively, but it was powerful enough to make mathematical
fractals. I was captivated by these things. Just on fired, loved them, Ive been exploring
them ever since and had some ideas about turning them into some public art works, and its finally
come to fruition and its been really interesting, an amazing journey. Now there are fractals
all around Albuquerque and its been really wonderful to watch this vision unfold. \e
>> Whats your favorite way to express chaos theory through your art?\e
>>Wolfe: Its a good thing you bring up chaos theory because fractals are the pictures of
chaos theory. With the help of computers we can visualize how fractal patterns grow and
turn into these really beautiful things that echo the patterns of nature. And thats really
the reason we care about fractals. Not just that theyre pretty pictures, but they describe
how the world works. So I like to say that fractals are the language of nature. But to
answer your question, what are my favorite ways? I like flying over the city of Albuquerque
in a fractal balloon. Thats an exercise in chaos theory. Because fractals and chaos really
came from studying the weather. And as a balloon pilot Im exploring the chaos dynamics of the
atmosphere. And its applied science and its an applied art form. You know you can turn
on the TV news and hear weather forecasts and theyll tell you that the winds will be
blowing out of the west at 10 miles an hour, as if that was the truth. And its not, we
all know that right. They do the best they can to predict things but if the wind really
was blowing at 10 miles an hour what would happen at an event like BalloonFiesta? Wed
have 700 balloons take off and they would all fly in a clump and in an hour they would
land 10 miles to the east right? Because thats what the wind did. But what that tells you
is that the atmosphere is actually doing this.... Its swirling and its spiraling at all different
scales. From tiny little dust devil to giant hurricanes. The atmosphere loves spiraling
and it moves in non linear ways and its hard to predict when you do things like that but,
because these 700 balloons go different places that tells you that if you know how to use
the atmosphere you can go to any one of those destinations. \e
>> How does that spark creativity?\e >>Wolfe: Well thats a good point. Its something
I call butterfly power, because its not brute force power but its butterfly power its small
changes. How does that spark creativity? Well, knowing that the system is dynamic and that
its non linear, its interconnected and because of our interconnectedness and because of our
innate creativity, I can have an Idea and I can share it and I can inspire other people
and they can share that and inspire other people pretty soon it ripples out and it in
fact does transform the world.\e >> In a visual way can you tell us a little
bit more about that math and how it creates pictures and how it creates these stunning
visuals.\e >>Wolfe: Fractals let you play with equations.
Tinker with them and then see the results which is right away. The fundamental lesson
of chaos theory is that a small change early in a system leads to a big difference in the
outcome. And its in a nonlinear kind of relationship. So I make a small change and it makes a big
difference. You can actually see that, any fractal is a complex never ending pattern.
Its made by repeating a simple process over and over again. Nature works that way by doing
simple things again and again, but we can simulate that with equations. And usually
when you square a number it gets bigger, when you square the answer it gets bigger, it goes
to infinity. But not always, and thats the key to fractal math in this fractal we call
the Mandelbrot Set. Some numbers when you plug them into this equation get smaller and
you plug the answer in and it gets smaller, and it spirals inward. Stays Finite. Those
are all the points we call inside the Mandelbrot set. Theyre in the central black part of this
fractal. And then its surrounded by all these beautiful colors and those colors represent
all those numbers that fly off into infinity. And the colors are not just arbitrary decorations
theyre actually carrying information about the behavior of that equation. Because any
column a point thats in the same color will have the same behavior. It will fly away at
the same speed. And thats a really amazing insight that equations actually behave like
something like living creatures. Different fractal equations have totally different styles.
The other thing about fractals is that theyre infinite; people are touched, moved and inspired
because theyve come face to face with infinity and many people find that to be a very spiritual
experience. Its pretty awesome.\e >> Why do you think thats critical that as
an artist you kind of create this experience for people? \e
>>Wolfe: Thats the role of the artist right? Is to change how other people see the world.
Whats really fun about fractalizing Albuquerque, making us the fractal capital like this, that
its not just my art. When I gave this project away and created the Albuquerque Fractal Challenge,
what we do is that we teach kids how to make fractal art, we reproduce their art and blow
it up big on the sides of buildings and schools and parking structures and things like that.
Now theres a lot of fractal art out there, and more coming soon. And its like whoa, we
live in this beautiful fractal world of creative, beautiful possibilities and people are understanding
that this is math. This is what math looks like and were part of what I like to call
the fractal revolution, were changing how people look at math and science and were doing
so in an artistic way. My goal is not to turn everybody into an artist. Thats really not
the point. But I do want people to be looking at the world creatively. Weve got big problems
to solve. We need new ways of thinking. New ways of looking at the world. New ways of
appreciating non linearity, interconnectedness, complexity. With the science of chaos and
complexity but we need to adopt that into our culture our political leaders need to
start thinking about complex systems and chaos theory and applying that instead of using
brute force solutions for these kind of problems. We need subtle small changes. And you know
I hope that thats what the outcome is for the underlying message of the fractal revolution.
>> Thank you for visiting us on Colores.\e >>Wolfe: My pleasure, thanks for having me.
\e >>And were going to come take part in a fractal
revolution.\e >>Wolfe: Thats right.\e
>>Narrator: XL PROJECTS GALLERY IN SYRACUSE NEW YORK GIVES TALENTED YOUNG ARTISTS THEIR
FIRST OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLIC EXHIBITION.\e >>My names Andrew Havenhand. Im the programs
exhibition coordinator for College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University.
We are standing in Excel Projects, which is the colleges downtown gallery venue. The way
the gallery operates is that any students at any time either individually or collectively
can submit proposals to exhibit here. This exhibition now, Transitive Flux is just one
proposal that was submitted by these four graduate students and was accepted.\e
>>My name is Sarah Camille Wilson and I am a third year graduate student in the ceramics
department at Syracuse University. This particular piece is titled Small Moments so its a number
of small uh elements that are shown together. But the idea behind the piece is the mini
tiny little moments that sort of make up our day to day lives and the way in which sort
of stopping and paying attention to those moments can really enhance our experience
of life. And that thats what our lives are really made up of are the tiny little moments
in time. The idea was conceived and constructed as a series so all of these pieces were made
more or less at the same time, using the same materials, uh, but each piece is unique.\e
Lives are made up of routines that repeat over and over and over again, but are always
different and if we can give a little bit of attention to some tiny piece of that repeating
routine each time that we do that its a different experience. Even though it is part of our
lives that tends to seem like its the same over and over again. Our commute to work,
our preparation of breakfast in the morning, all of these things that are sort of always
the same, but always different and giving attention to the uniqueness of those moments
in that routine.\e >>My name is Davana Wilkins, Im a second year
graduate student at Syracuse University. This is my work called um Condensate and this work
what happens is that slowly over a period of time it sweats and drips water onto the
floor. Talking about the human body as an object and also having a relation to the form
of snow. And the accumulation of those things and how they have similarities to one another
and tie in together. Our work still seems to have this commonality of like, ideas of
the transitive state, which are, things that are, the interaction between thoughts and
objects on this plane of reality thats not quite real and maybe even sometimes fantastical
or strange. The object can function as an external projection of consciousness and in
a way that relates our own bodies to this idea of accumulation of form and thoughts.
Uh, this is how I wrote the ideal situation for it to be displayed um it has more of a
pop. It gets the window display and it can stretch across the room, really interacting
with a space in a way that um it hasnt been allowed to do before.\e
>>My names Rebecca Aloisio and Im a second year painting graduate student at Syracuse
University. This piece is called Raise and um its one in a series of four. Uh, I do a
lot of drawing, its uh I think of these as drawings. Uh drawing for me is um this process
and an act and it serves as an interim I think between ideas and forms and objects so in
my work I really focus on this tension between um creating a form and a space and also a
surface. So in a lot of these you can see theres, theres forms that are more defined
and are coming forward and theres also a lot of surface being developed and areas that
are more abstracted and flat. Um and lately Ive been including bright colors, neon colors
uh into the work, um to kind of supplement for line. Im trying to use color instead of
defining light using color to define form and shape. \e
Theres a lot of layers built into these I think when you get up close you can see. So
some of them go really quick and just kind of work themselves out in a really natural
way and other ones are a little bit longer and more of a struggle.\e
>>My name is Michael Giannattasio I am a recent graduate from the uh sculpture program at
Syracuse University. This particular work is titled Come Back to Bed and it is a more
of a physical representation of an experience that I find myself constantly in. Uh, Ill
find myself trying to wind down by the end of the day and go to go to sleep and as I
go to sleep the ideas the creative flow starts to develop and starts to wake me back up.
This is essentially a representation of what it feels like to have this kind of happening.
Ive been you know exploring the geometric forms um for taking on for architectural forms
for crystalline forms and I find these, these particular shapes reoccurring a lot in my
surroundings and reoccurring in my work itself. Uh so it comes from a very intuitive place,
but it ultimately, you know takes these, takes this form from for me.\e
In the future I would, Id be very happy if we had so many proposals from so many different
branches of the college that I couldnt possibly deal with them. Um that I have to hire more
staff to help me sort them all out.\e >>Narrator: WHEN NORM OBERLE WASNT FOCUSING
ON HIS DAY JOB, HE TURNED HIS ATTENTION TO THE SKY\e
AND BUILT A POWERFUL TELESCOPE.\e >> Growing up in the 1930s, the closest Norm
Oberlee came to outer space was through popular science fiction magazines, like Amazing Stories
and Fantastic Adventures. At the time, space shuttles, satellites and even television didnt
exist. That didnt stop Norm from pursuing his passion. \e
>>It was just a genuine curiosity\e >>Norm was an amateur astronomer and had been
involved in astronomy all his life.\e >>Although deeply interested in outer space,
norm never became a rocket scientist, or anything as exciting as a pilot. He went into sales
with his wife, Sandy.\e >>They had their own business. Theyd go around
to the eye doctors and theyd take the instruments and theyd take them and clean them...clean
the eye grease off of them, clean the optics and he used to sales. \e
>>But when Norm wasnt pounding the pavement, he put his knowledge of optics to work building
telescopes. \e >>To build a telescope from scratch, especially
grinding the mirror, and that surface has to be accurate to an eighth of an inch. Otherwise
you end up with the Hubble Space Telescope that was half a human hair off. Its, you dont
do it overnight.\e Norm Oberlee\e
So I thought we would record this for historical reasons here. So I remind myself how bad it
can be building a large telescope\e >>He inspired so many of us as kids to pursue
astronomy. And he pursued a lot of people to grind their own mirrors. And there are
still quite a few students out there who are still grinding mirrors Norms style.\e
>>Norm was a founding member of the Cuyahoga Astronomy Club and the Lake Erie Astronomical
Project. He turned his house into a telescope laboratory and even built an observatory right
in his front yard. \e >>He built a lot of telescopes over the years
and used it not only for his own private use but to enhance the publics appreciation of
the night sky. Why astronomy helps us to understand how everything came to be. Early cultures
started to interact with the night sky, and were talking about Egyptians and Eolithic
cultures and that sort of thing. It really helped place them within, to located them
within their world. \e >>Its a time machine. Every time you look
at the night sky you look at the stars, youre looking back into time, because its taken
time for that light to get here. So what this does, it helps you take some years off that
light travel. So you can look back further. So actually, it also is a time machine. \e
>>In the basement of his house, norm built a telescope ten thousand times more powerful
than the human eye.\e >>People gasp when they look through this
telescope. Its great for observing the moon and the planets. You know, with a 25.5 inch
mirror its not just a typical amateur telescope that you would buy over the counter say. It
really gathers a tremendous amount of light. It allows you to see deeper into space. So
the images are incredibly clear. You can see the rings of Saturn and when you look at the
moon its almost like reaching into the craters so its an amazing experience.\e
>>The telescope was so large that Norm had to build a retractable roof on the house so
they could pan the scope across the night sky.\e
>>He was a master at what he did. Everything was measured out and weighed. This telescope
is perfectly balanced. You can see all nine planets. Galaxies in spiral arms and galaxies...the
death throws of a dying star... you can see all that stuff with this telescope. \e
>>In 1996, norms light faded from earth. He passed away and the Oberlee telescope went
dark. That is, until Norms wife Sandy had an idea. \e
>>It sat, and then one time, about three years she called me and says Ian, find a home for
this telescope that Norm would be pleased about.\e
>>We were approached by Ian Cooper of the Chagrin Astronomical Society and he said Hey,
weve got this telescope, were looking to donate it. Would you be interested? \e
>>Here it is, the rest is history.\e >>What youre looking at is the realization
of Norm Oberlees dream. After spending decades toiling in his workshop and spending a lifetime
pointing others to the night sky, the largest telescope he ever built now has a new home.
This is the dark sky park in Geauga County. Its certified by the international dark sky
association, a national organization of elite scientists, ecologists and astronomers who
test and certify the best locations across the country for stargazing. \e
>>The park district had to prove that they were worthy. You dont just hand those out.
And its a silver tier site. Its one of three east of the Mississippi. The night sky out
here in Geauga County is a natural resource and its just beautiful and dark. You can see
a nice clear the moon just blazes overhead. Ive been out here at nights when theyve had
open houses and people say oh this is magical, this is awesome. This is beautiful. And this
is the only one of its kind on the planet. Theres no other park district that has a facility
like this...county park district.\e >>In 2012, the Geauga County district park
completed construction of a dark sky park. The site includes a planetarium and observatory.
The Oberlee telescope is the centerpiece. \e
>>Between the observatory and the telescope, we can do a variety of space based programs
specifically about asteroids and planets and comets and how early cultures developed the
constellations that they had and what it meant to them as a culture.\e
>>Norm would just be grin from ear to ear knowing that his telescope is being used in
such a facility, where kids could come out and see the rings of Saturn. The moons of
Jupiter, the moon, galaxies, nebular...and have everything else, all this interpretive
facility surrounding his telescope. Hed just be absolutely over the moon about it. He wanted
it to be used for what Norm would want it to be used for and that would be educating,
you know, turning a mind on, which is what it does.\e
>>Narrator: DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHER, JAMES REDDINGTONS PANDORA PROJECT CAPTURES PEOPLE
WITH THEIR MOST CHERISHED ITEMS.\e >>James Reddington: See what Im doing...I
think documentary allows a photographer to insert themselves into the work. It really
gives you a window into the mind of the photographer and like is a little bit of their spirit is
in the work and you can feel it when you look at the images.\e
I love photographing anything regarding peoples secrets or anything where something thats
not a readily apparent to people I like bringing that out in the open through my photography.
And the Pandora Project was through something that I had my self which was a little treasure
box where I kept all my... you know mementoes and photographs and things from my past. I
started discovering that almost everybody has one of these things or at least some sort
of container where they keep their old relics from their past. I had them label the significance
of each of the items on the print itself and I would also take a portrait of them with
their box to kind of connect the face with the items in the box. I think just that process
of meeting people and getting to know peoples stories is the best part of photography for
me.\e >>Narrator: NEXT TIME ON COLORES!\e
PHOTOGRAPHER AND ALCHEMIST, IAN RUHTER, TRAVELS IN A TRUCK THAT IS ALSO HIS CAMERA. HE SHARES
HIS EXPERIENCE PHOTOGRAPHING NEW MEXICO.\e >> When were shooting out in the elements,
just a little bit of wind will shake the camera. Nature creates all the beauty but it also
gives us the most adversity.\e >>Narrator: ARTIST NANCY MOOSLIN HAS SYSTEMATICALLY
TRANSLATED MUSICAL PIECES INTO PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES, CREATING A UNIQUE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE.\e
>>I developed a way to translate pitch, musical pitch, into color. \e
>>Narrator: ONE OF THE 20TH CENTURYS MOST ACCOMPLISHED PHOTOGRAPHERS, ROMAN VISHNIAC,
CAPTURES GERMANYS CHANGING POLITICAL REALITY THROUGH A MODERNIST LENS. \e
>>Its an incredible documentation of how quickly things changed. \e
>>Narrator: NEW YORKBASED INSTALLATION ARTISTS STEPHEN NGUYEN AND WADE KAVANAUGH WORK TO
RECREATE THE DENSE MANGROVES AND PLANT LIFE THEY DISCOVERED ON A TRIP TO THE FLORIDA EVERGLADES.\e
>>By exposing ourselves to a different landscape, were trying to extend the language of our
work.\e >>Narrator: UNTIL NEXT TIME, THANK YOU FOR
WATCHING.\e \e