Patterns of Confusion

Its really beautiful. I have only recently heard of fractal art. A lot of what I have seen while looking it up has seemed... I don't know, accidental, I guess but that's not the right word. Anyway, this is great. Do you do the whole thing in Apophysis or similar program or do you edit the fractal? I seriously know nothing about this medium. I assume that fractal manipulation and raw fractals are self-explanatory, but what does traditional media fractals refer to?

Hoping you will answer my questions...