Nostalgia: Vaporwave and Retrofuturism
It was at dawn of this decade, when a new odd artistic movement began to spread on several Internet forums. A kind of music which felt as an authentic virtuality, mean plastic. Playing with polyphonies that reminded of Russolo's machine concerts, playing with aesthetics of very familiar sounds. With covers that also evoked memories from that Good Ol' Days, keeping characteristics of the pop style of last century's dusk, with some varied references to products, Software and even vibe, of that time. Would be a feast for any avant-garde! That smelled to me of The culture of recycling, had also touched the plasticity of the 80's.
Its roots, presumably, were based on critics inherited by old philosophers and some critical thinkers of modernity, and the near post-modernity; This critique was based on aesthetics, histrionic hedonism, a twist on the concepts of value, consumism, and the foundations of a society with disposable, meaningless values. Forming a whole sphere of what Jean Baudrillard called hyper-reality.
A deep feeling of nostalgia started to give hype about all this movement, orchestrated in sities like 4chan, Bandcamp, or even Reddit. Finally it would be called: Vaporwave movement.
It didn't take so long for this cultural turn to also reach hispanic internet users. This would be the beginning of a whole avalanche of memories, broken dreams: an unflagging looking, adding a questionable value, to everything that's "Old", now, Retro.
Despite what I personally observed on Web with reference to all this movement, we can observe that it is something generalized, in the so-called Age of Adaptations. The 21st century (and the late 20th) is characterized by many things, and creativity is not what we'd like. Proof of that is what all big brands have been doing for a while: Betting to rescue those successes of more than 30 years ago, to ensure sales success.
But isn't only for money, it applies to art to. That's the mean of all of this. We also on plastic arts, could see how this Age of Adaptations is doing presence since avant-garde. What is cubism more than the simplistic style of roman or greek mosaics, with african sculpture perspectives? And trust that I am not saying that I disliked Picasso, or Juan Gris. Is that Picasso, and so many other artists, particularly talking about visual arts, were covering a lot of "the masters" from old centuries. Isn't that an excuse for not inovating at all? Why is West so affraid of change? Anyway, a great one will come soon...
A key element in this abandonment of creative material, for the creation of new classics, is that controversial generation that everyone talks about; Millenials. As controversial as confusing, topic can only be touched when we look at a large scale. The current adolescents and young adults, in an anachronistic way, use idioms, look for music, video games, series and culture in general, from the 80's, and 90's. As a strong rejection to everything that belongs to "their time". It's all a phenomenon seeing that latin millenials put on a extreme high-esteem everything that comes from their early years. But this is not a phenomenon proper of our time, or to the new mankind of this century. To affirm this, is way too pretentious. It is only the living representation of a generational gap, that has been restored by contact with past through technology. Young web users are interested in rescuing gems hidden by time. And not only from West, as happening here in Mexico. This can be verified by observing the rise of a genre that seemed to be dead already, that 80's japanese pop that you've surely heard or talk about if were on anglosaxon meme sphere, City Pop.
Its roots, presumably, were based on critics inherited by old philosophers and some critical thinkers of modernity, and the near post-modernity; This critique was based on aesthetics, histrionic hedonism, a twist on the concepts of value, consumism, and the foundations of a society with disposable, meaningless values. Forming a whole sphere of what Jean Baudrillard called hyper-reality.
A deep feeling of nostalgia started to give hype about all this movement, orchestrated in sities like 4chan, Bandcamp, or even Reddit. Finally it would be called: Vaporwave movement.
It didn't take so long for this cultural turn to also reach hispanic internet users. This would be the beginning of a whole avalanche of memories, broken dreams: an unflagging looking, adding a questionable value, to everything that's "Old", now, Retro.
 |
| All solid melts into air... - Marshall Berman. |
Despite what I personally observed on Web with reference to all this movement, we can observe that it is something generalized, in the so-called Age of Adaptations. The 21st century (and the late 20th) is characterized by many things, and creativity is not what we'd like. Proof of that is what all big brands have been doing for a while: Betting to rescue those successes of more than 30 years ago, to ensure sales success.
But isn't only for money, it applies to art to. That's the mean of all of this. We also on plastic arts, could see how this Age of Adaptations is doing presence since avant-garde. What is cubism more than the simplistic style of roman or greek mosaics, with african sculpture perspectives? And trust that I am not saying that I disliked Picasso, or Juan Gris. Is that Picasso, and so many other artists, particularly talking about visual arts, were covering a lot of "the masters" from old centuries. Isn't that an excuse for not inovating at all? Why is West so affraid of change? Anyway, a great one will come soon...
A key element in this abandonment of creative material, for the creation of new classics, is that controversial generation that everyone talks about; Millenials. As controversial as confusing, topic can only be touched when we look at a large scale. The current adolescents and young adults, in an anachronistic way, use idioms, look for music, video games, series and culture in general, from the 80's, and 90's. As a strong rejection to everything that belongs to "their time". It's all a phenomenon seeing that latin millenials put on a extreme high-esteem everything that comes from their early years. But this is not a phenomenon proper of our time, or to the new mankind of this century. To affirm this, is way too pretentious. It is only the living representation of a generational gap, that has been restored by contact with past through technology. Young web users are interested in rescuing gems hidden by time. And not only from West, as happening here in Mexico. This can be verified by observing the rise of a genre that seemed to be dead already, that 80's japanese pop that you've surely heard or talk about if were on anglosaxon meme sphere, City Pop.
 |
| I'm talking about you, Van Paugam! |
.jpg)
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario