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AFTER THE INTERNET / 2480
After the Internet imagines a biology atlas from the year 2480, documenting species that evolved from the remains of digital civilization.
I built a Custom Recraft Style using four historical plates from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1904), preserving their intricate linework, organic structures, and scientific compositions.
I wanted to revive the visual language of historical natural history atlases to document a world that has never existed.
Across nine illustrated plates, abandoned technology becomes biological anatomy, from primitive organisms inhabiting old hardware to post-human species and collective intelligence.
The result is a fictional evolutionary history in which technology becomes nature itself.
Technology became anatomy. Memory became tissue. Networks became living organisms.
#recraftstyleschallenge
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LOVED THIS ONE! While exploring the Rijksmuseum's public domain collection, I fell for Ohara Koson's quiet woodblock prints of small birds and flowers on soft, misty skies.
I trained a custom Recraft Style on ten of his prints from 1900–1930, cropping away signatures and margins so only his gentle colors, delicate lines and generous empty space remained.
Then I asked: what if his birds moved to the city? I used the Style to design for everyday 2026 life, from a tram wrap and a full-sleeve tattoo to café umbrellas, a building mural and a pedestrian crossing painted as a lily pond.
A century later, Koson's birds are still finding new places to land.
An interesting implementation.
Specimens of the Future — a field guide to the machines of 2026, drawn in 1899
What if Ernst Haeckel had been handed our century to catalogue?
In the Biodiversity Heritage Library's scans of Kunstformen der Natur (1899) I found the most beautiful filing system ever made: jellyfish, radiolarians and hummingbirds arranged like jewels, every creature centred, symmetrical, and gravely serious. I trained a custom Recraft V4 Style — Machina Naturae — on eight of Haeckel's plates, and used it to catalogue the fauna that actually surrounds us now.
PLATE I · THE SMARTPHONE — the slab that glows back; its charging cable curls like a tentacle.
PLATE II · THE WIRELESS EARBUDS — twin grubs resting in their shell-case nest.
PLATE III · THE CAMERA DRONE — a four-winged insect with a single compound eye.
PLATE IV · THE ELECTRIC SCOOTER — a heron on one long leg, at rest between migrations.
PLATE V · THE VR HEADSET — a blind deep-sea creature, banded where its eyes should be.
PLATE VI · THE ROBOT VACUUM — a disc tortoise, grazing the savannah of the living-room floor.
PLATE VII · THE SMARTWATCH — the wrist-dweller, its dial a single watchful eye.
PLATE VIII · THE FOOD-DELIVERY BOX — a hermit species that carries its insulated home.
The brief: In the stacks of the Biodiversity Heritage Library I found Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1899) — plates that arranged jellyfish and radiolarians like jewels in a cabinet. I built one custom Recraft Style from eight of his plates and used it to catalogue the machines that now live alongside us: the smartphone, the drone, the robot vacuum. Each device is drawn as Haeckel drew his specimens — centred, symmetrical, gravely serious — as if a naturalist of 1899 had been handed the year 2026 to document. The result is a field guide to a fauna nobody ordered, but everybody owns.
Full series in the Recraft project: https://www.recraft.ai/project/bb94acd8-7b26-4c8c-9f19-00e7ec676a26
Try the Machina Naturae style: https://www.recraft.ai/styles/30cb7d33-a267-4687-bbbe-852998bcc5b5
Archive references (all public domain, Wikimedia Commons):
· Trachomedusae — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Trachomedusae.jpg
· Tetracoralla — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Tetracoralla.jpg
· Trochilidae — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Trochilidae.jpg
#recraftstyleschallenge
Joseon Delivery — Seoul 2026, painted in 1800
What if Kim Hong-do came back?
Korea's most beloved genre painter spent the late 1700s documenting ordinary Joseon life, one album leaf at a time: wrestlers, taverns, schoolrooms, ferry landings. His world and ours run on the same fuel: food, crowds, music, work.
So I trained a Recraft style on eight leaves from his Danwon album (public domain, Wikimedia Commons) and asked it to paint the ordinary Seoul of 2026. Same ink, same warm paper, same affection for crowds, new century.
SCENE 1 · THE DELIVERY: A helmeted rider hands over lunch outside a tiled-roof restaurant. Danwon painted travellers heading to market; ours just arrive faster. (after Jangteogil, the road to market)
SCENE 2 · THE CONVENIENCE STORE: The 24-hour store is the new jumak: noodles at the window counter, a clerk who has seen everything. (after Jumak, the tavern)
SCENE 3 · THE VIDEO CALL: Two friends, one glowing phone, a crowd that pretends not to listen. (after Ssireum, the wrestling crowd)
SCENE 4 · THE SUBWAY: A whole carriage, heads bowed, not in prayer, at phones. Danwon's ferry passengers waited the same way. (after Naruteo, the ferry landing)
SCENE 5 · THE NORAE BANG: The dancing boy had musicians; we have a tambourine, a microphone and disco lights. (after Mudong, the dancing boy)
SCENE 6 · THE STREET STALL: Steam, skewers and spicy rice cakes at dusk, the forge's heat made edible. (after Daejanggan, the smithy)
SCENE 7 · THE PC BANG: The village school grew up: rows of pupils at glowing screens, one celebrating a victory instead of fearing the teacher. (after Seodang, the village school)
FINALE · THE FESTIVAL STREET: Everything at once: rider, busker, stall, a forest of phones filming it all.
The brief: Kim Hong-do's Danwon album leaves (late 1700s, public domain) became a Recraft style, "Pungsokdo 2026", used to paint eight slices of everyday Seoul in 2026: delivery riders, convenience stores, subway phone-glow, PC bangs. The style holds (ink, light colour, warm paper, crowds in motion); only the props changed. Some background figures still dress like it's 1800. Honestly, so does half of Bukchon on a weekend.
Recraft project (full series): https://www.recraft.ai/project/d742b5a7-d032-4cc6-a51c-5a330c5d49e1
Try the style, "Pungsokdo 2026" (free to use): https://www.recraft.ai/styles/705da9da-bbf7-43af-bb7a-1850588ba8b4
Archive references (Kim Hong-do, Danwon Pungsokdo-cheop, public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Bbalraeteo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Danwon_Bbalraeteo.jpg
Wow, this looks absolutely stunning!