About The Orchid Terraformers

Shan Geh: Messages From the Orchid Terraformers is a series of illustrations created in 2020. scientists who are terraforming a distant planet.

As you click through each message, you will notice a few things.

First, each image is 100% manually made with tools like Photoshop and Procreate. I did not use any AI image generation. They are collages and illustrations from a variety of sources: stock photos libraries, NASA archival photos, ethnographic illustrations from the 1800s, and so on.

Second, the message text uses a stilted English that sounds like it’s been translated from some alien language. I used that as inspiration for the illustrations. In order to get it, I used a Markov Chain text generator and mashed up text from century-old Russian and North African travel expedition diaries with botanical descriptions of orchids and sci-fi vocabulary. I did not use any AI text generation. This text gives weird descriptions, such as “These usually consist of only two or three excessively thin branches, which could be traced close up to the very stars.”

I have many more illustrations and messages. I hope to one day put them together in a printed book.