You wouldn’t know it, but all the plants in the GIF above were made with an L-system, which was used by early computer graphics professionals to accurately model plants. And by early we mean, EARLY. L-systems, a type of formal grammar were developed in 1968 by Aristid Lindenmayer, a Hungarian theoretical biologist and botanist at the University of Utrecht.
Nothing about this eerie GIF by artist Ben McCarthy, though, looks particularly dated. The whole scene resembles a 3D rendered environment, so a viewer doesn’t even contemplate that the technology might be old. In fact, it’s the kind of picture you’d imagine a younger Vija Celmins making if she decided to venture outside the subject of water. Something basically still, but for a small movement, implied or real, that imparts a feeling of quiet dread to the whole picture.
Comments on this entry are closed.