watch plant species morph into one another in AI-generated animations by stanislas chaillou

stanislas chaillou is a paris-based architect, artist and artificial intelligence researcher who’s applied AI to botany for this project called ‘bio morphosis’. inspired by the work of german photographer, karl blossfeldt, he’s created a series of AI-generated animations that blend different plant species together in a dynamic herbarium. 

images and GIFs courtesy of stanislas chaillou

in 1928, karl blossfeldt published his first herbarium, ‘urformen der kunst’, which was later translated into english as ‘art forms in plants’. the photography book documented an extensive collection of different plants in exquisite close-up detail. inspired by this, stanislas chaillou has brought his fascination for the graphical purity and ornamental variety of vegetal patterns to a new exploration using today’s AI technology to decompartmentalize the natural order.

trained on some of blossfeldt’s collections, bio morphosis uses statistical learning to recreate astonishing plant hybridizations. through this new medium, stanislas chaillou is able to capture and reveal the flora’s multiple facets, blend its different aspects into a series of impressionist animations. the resulting dynamic simulations blur the boundary between natural forms, categories and species, to reveal the flora’s formal richness. with bio morphosis, AI cuts across species and usual classifications by transposing biomorphism into the poetic field.

30 snapshots from bio morphosis

karl blossfeldt’s photographs

project info:

project name: bio morphosis

by: stanislas chaillou