Diaphanous goes live at 8am PT / 11am ET / 5pm CET on Highlight on December 8.

Whether gazing at soaring Gothic cathedrals or a spider’s web, generative artist Landlines sees intricacy and wonder emerging from simple rules and repetition. He channels this appreciation into code, architecting layered systems that manifest mesmerizing digital artworks.

Landlines has been investigating the intersection between code and various artistic mediums for over a decade, with a focus on music and visual art. His works, which are often the result of a serendipitous series of coding “mistakes,” place an emphasis on color, texture and fine details.

Landlines’ latest collection, Diaphanous, draws creative sparks from exploded architectural drawings, specifically isometric schematics showing buildings’ hidden infrastructure. The work evokes rotating plexiglass, as color slices stack in A-frame arrangements with surprising depth.

Diaphanous first renders as a 3D cube that gets recursively divided into smaller sub-cubes. This subdivision process is randomized so some outputs occur more along certain axes.

The 3D cubes are then projected into isometric space with specified gaps between them. Landlines draws architectural shapes with varying complexity within each cube before applying color palettes, transparency, and optional speckles of grain throughout the artwork.

The grain aims to capture a hand-drawn aesthetic at odds with the computational precision: “I always look to explore contrast. Some layers don't have any texture in them. And so I kind of liked how you get texture in some areas, which creates clarity."

The artmaking process was a continuous iteration on these rules. The artist wanted to enable a multi-panel display for collectors, stitching batched mints into diptychs and triptychs. This crossover was intended to produce buildings in the truest sense — composable, modular artworks fused into larger wholes.

While developing the collection, Landlines established a mesmerizing spatial feel true to its name—“diaphanous” means light and translucent—allowing light to pass through. He transformed rigid lines into structures with implausible flexibility, architectural mirages that disappear only to reassert themselves.

Beyond its core explorations of architecture and dimensionality, Diaphanous holds secrets and surprises for meticulous collectors. Minting 29 NFTs in a single transaction triggers a special vertical orientation mode, turning the artwork on its side to striking effect. Starting December 9, a rare color palette emerges in 5% of mints, evoking glimpses of a sunrise.

And Landlines hints at some exceptionally unique traits, still under wraps: “There will be some very rare surprises.”

Given his penchant for subtle emergence from underlying creative systems, these may depend on the final number minted following the seven day open edition.

Either way, dedicated collectors will delight in encountering all possible iterations from Diaphanous..

Diaphanous goes live at 8am PT / 11am ET / 5pm CET on Highlight on December 8.