Underwater

Underwater is a collection of 100 generative illustrations. The project portrays seven hypothetical species. Left to grow in the underground aquifer of Mexico City, these species are conceived as fictive descendants of ancient Mexican plants.  The abstract aesthetic of the drawings is inspired by the pre-naturalist illustrations of medieval herbaria, especially the Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis. To recreate the beauty of these early scientific illustrations through code, the superformula was combined with space colonization algorithms to generate tepal-like forms with characteristic patterns. The flowers that inspired this collection of generative plants are: Dahlia coccinea, Chirahodendron pentadactylon, Magnolia dealbata, Tigridia pavonia, Helianthus armus and Sprekelia formosissima.