The term “Fractal” was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot (a French mathematician) in 1975 when he was working since 1952 at the IBM research center.
Mandelbrot is not the only mathematician having worked in specific fields of Chaos Theory, Dynamic System and Fractal Geometry.
For instance, Iterated functions in the complex plane were investigated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Henri Poincaré, Felix Klein, Pierre Fatou and Gaston Julia.
However, without the aid of modern computer graphics, they lacked the means to visualize the beauty of many of the objects that they had discovered.
It is quite unusual that simple mathematic functions visualized using computer programs generates so incredible images as demonstrated in the following movie, knowing that the mathematical formula in itself is as simple as that:
xn+1 = xn2 + c (where x is in the Complex Set)
Fractals and Arts
Fractal patterns have been found in the paintings of American artist Jackson Pollock. While Pollock's paintings appear to be composed of chaotic dripping and splattering, computer analysis has found fractal patterns in his work.see: Fractal expressionism
Fractals are also prevalent in African art and architecture. Circular houses appear in circles of circles, rectangular houses in rectangles of rectangles, and so on. Such scaling patterns can also be found in African textiles, sculpture, and even cornrow hairstyles TO LEARN MORE: RECOMMENDED VIDEO
To conclude as usual: Science meets technology meets art.
Voila.
Reference: wikipedia.org