# Collecting The Colors Of Infinity

## Wierd Collections

I love anything fractal and physical I can get my hands on. Books, arts and crafts, The other day I saw fractal themed playing cards on etsy that I wanted bad even though I would never use them. I especially like physical art books in general, so when I came across this particular object, I had to have it.

# Colors Of Infinity, The Movie

In 1994, A documentary called "The Colors Of Infinity" narrated by Arthur C. Clarke. The film focuses on introducing fractals and their applications in the natural world. While aware of the documentary for some time, I was NOT aware of its acompanying book of the same title released a decade after to comemorate the film. I believe I was doing research into the origins of the soundtrack when stumbling unto a music fourm mentioning the DVD.

=> https://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24171 Pink Floyd Fan fourm thread mentioning DVD

=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qXSeNKXNPQ Full "Colors Of Infinity" documentary on Youtube

# Colors Of Infinity, The Book & DVD

And so, I splurged and bought a used copy of "Colors Of Infinity", A 2006 reprint of the 2004 book celebrating a 1994 documentaries 10 year anniversary. The book comes with the DVD in the back which contains the original documentary and some seperate extras. The DVD was as important as the book to me. Unfortunately its a little scuffed but reads in the computer just fine.  

As far as the book itself, Its a soft-cover with a big and colorful zoom of "The Needle" Portion of the mandelbrot set.  and while the plastic is durable, it has seen its fair share of scuffs and scratches over the years. Thats okay with me though, I appreciate it all the same. Everything has scuffs and scars given enough time, they're a testament to continued existance despite the hardship of reality.

The Inside pages are supprisingly immaculate. No stains, rips, or dirt. Not really suprising, its only a little over a decade old and a half which is pretty young in terms of old books. The oldest book I have is from the 1970s, Mandelbrots very own "Fractal Geometry Of Nature" and thats still peanuts compared to true antique books.

The actual contents of the book, which is probably most important, is just as beautiful and artfully tasteful as the cover. The book aims to be an introduction to fractals and their applications in reality as well as a companion piece to the documentary. Because of the appealing nature of fractals as both mathematical constructs and natural objects, they make for both great visual aides as well as art pieces. The book is more of an informational piece with long paragraphs and some pretty pictures than full on art gallery. Thats okay though. 

## The Soundtrack

The soundtrack of the film is produced by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame. If you like the guitar work Pink Floyd is known for, I recommend giving it a listen. Its a very short soundtrack of about 16 minutes so not a huge time investment.

=> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC_7rMdA7gs The soundtrack of "Colors Of Infinity" on Youtube

# The Fractal Film Art

Acompanying the music is a trippy mandelbrot zoom film which is as beautiful today as it was when it was generated in the 90s. What the film lacks in resolution, it makes up for in a sense of composition. Beautiful pans, clever transitions, and color cycling really make the film feel like an art piece on top of the powerful music. While there are some people who make fractal zooms with modern day software and GPUs, suprisingly few of them implement the practices used in the film especially color cycling.

# Fractal Image Compression & The Collage Theorem

One of the best parts of the documentary is Mr. Barnsley explaining his Collage theorem and how fractals can be used to compress and more importantly uncompress images. Im still trying to wrap my head around how it works and what exactly the implications are. Because of that, I cant really say too much about it. Check out the video and see what I mean.

=> https://youtu.be/RxesbuyTtTI Barnsley Explaining The Collage Theorem.

#Passion Shows

I am not a big collector of stuff. Still, im a sucker for art that appeals to me. Things I can look at in my free time and admire their beauty, ponder and wonder about their nature of being. Those are real treasures to me. Books can be collections of great art, whether through words or pictures or both. The Colors Of Infinity, both the book and documentary, are great achievements of art which I am proud to have in my small but meaningful pile of stuff.  

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