In the Critical Interventions Factoring Fractals issue Ron Eglash & Audrey Bennett write:
More hereFractals are patterns that repeat themselves at many scales. In the context of African art and design, that simple characterization takes on profound meanings that can move across disciplines and geographic boundaries. Fractal patterns can be found in African architecture, textiles, sculpture, music, and many other places. The means by which computers generate fractal graphics, recursive loops which allow structures to “unfold” or self-generate from an initial state, find parallels in African cultural traditions that might seem distant from math or computing: stories of spiritual rebirth, trickster narratives, the social dynamics of communalism, the “repetition with revision” linking music with oral history, and other ineluctable aspects of lived experience. Rather than imposing an alien analysis from afar, the eclectic mix of contributions in this special issue allow the rich complexity of African culture, in all its global diversity, to enter into dialogue with nonlinear dynamics, complexity theory, and other mathematical and computational frameworks in which fractals occupy a central role.
Image courtesy of Critical Interventions
