Future Nostalgia

[corporateclone11]

I've come to a realization in recent days. A major aspect of Vaporwave as a genre and concept is nostalgia, especially for a past that many of us have never actually experienced. For instance, many people would cite Resonance by Home or Palm Mall Mars as music that awakens a yearning in them for memories they've never had. What makes this so interesting to me is that we now experience this culture and music so dripping with iconography of the past, that in several decades, we will look back at this vaporwave culture with nostalgia for when our minds felt nostalgia for experiences we've never had. If that isn't mind-fuckery, idk what is.

 

[Eis-T]

well put! I never thought of this on a personal level, only on a cultural one. There is this thing called the 30 year cycle. the 90s for example had a lot of 60's flower power aesthetics. for older people that must have been retro but for me that was all new and my first encounter with it (to be more specific, them austin powers movies.. no I'm not proud of it either). Most of the stuff is merely new FOR US, not new as in "its never been done before". So yes, in a couple of decades we will fondly remember how we were fondly remembering that "stolen future" (alt. visiting the mall/virtual plaza/ 80's business trip)
There are plenty of people, also here on the agora road forum, who haven't lived through the era vaporwave is lamenting/celebrating. Yet they feel connected to it, even nostalgic, despite not having been there.
Mark Fisher has (had?) really interesting things to say on cultures repeating itself. His thesis is that we have become stuck in a self-referential loop of retro-mania and are experiencing a cultural slowdown. I recommend checking some of his talks on youtube (or some vids by zerobooks about the man and who more often than not use vaporwave music in their productions)
I have to believe that if Mark Fisher knew vaporwave existed he would still be with us today... It has the exact haunted qualities to be the situationist art he needed.

 

[cityman900]

Simon Reynolds also wrote a book called Retromania. It's about popculture repeating itself over and over again. I highly recommend it! It was published like in 2011 or 2012. He mentions hypnagogic pop, chillwave, Far Side Virtual and Daniel Lopatin. If Reynolds only knew about what happened after his book came out : D (the rise of vaporwave scene)

 

[httptony]

well put! I never thought of this on a personal level, only on a cultural one. There is this thing called the 30 year cycle. the 90s for example had a lot of 60's flower power aesthetics. for older people that must have been retro but for me that was all new and my first encounter with it (to be more specific, them austin powers movies.. no I'm not proud of it either). Most of the stuff is merely new FOR US, not new as in "its never been done before". So yes, in a couple of decades we will fondly remember how we were fondly remembering that "stolen future" (alt. visiting the mall/virtual plaza/ 80's business trip)
There are plenty of people, also here on the agora road forum, who haven't lived through the era vaporwave is lamenting/celebrating. Yet they feel connected to it, even nostalgic, despite not having been there.
Mark Fisher has (had?) really interesting things to say on cultures repeating itself. His thesis is that we have become stuck in a self-referential loop of retro-mania and are experiencing a cultural slowdown. I recommend checking some of his talks on youtube (or some vids by zerobooks about the man and who more often than not use vaporwave music in their productions)
I have to believe that if Mark Fisher knew vaporwave existed he would still be with us today... It has the exact haunted qualities to be the situationist art he needed.

I find it interesting that you mentioned the cultural slowdown we're experiencing. I definitely see it happening and the funny thing is that it's all due in part because of the digital overload we're facing. I feel like now more than ever, anybody with access to the internet (which is a large majority of kids nowadays) have access to unlimited information and knowledge. with this I feel like it can be easy to get lost in so many articles, aesthetics, moodboards and such in a way that was unavailable before. In past decades, everyone just had to look around them to get informed on the culture but nowadays with the internet you could literally look at any past decade, any era in time, any aesthetic and explore it. I think that's why there isn't a profound artistic movement like there has been in the past as well, because the internet gives access to all kinds of art formats that were perhaps unknown of without regional cultural settings allowing for it. :-X

 

[Deleted member 2006]

Think about it like this,You get nostalgia from something then you have kids then THEY get nostalgia of the same thing then THEY have kids and then they get nostalgia of the nostalgia that you had then the cycle repeats.

 

[cryptfrog]

cultural slowdown sounds kinda ominous, but then, for how long has it been fast? In ancient times oral traditions went on and on through the generations. Cultural progress does obviously exist, but it seems like an extremely subjective thing to try to measure compared to say scientific progress.

 

[kliffi]

my favorite vaporwave aesthetic is reimagining y2k sci-fi, like Orion's Arm, intelligent jungle, blue-da-ba-dee sci-fi optimism

scientific/cultural progress seems to be tending in the virtual/digital dimension (and so our irl architecture feels slow), and there's no better VR vibe than shark boy and lava girl lol

i think a lot of vaporwave can be categorized as utopian or dystopian--and im partial to the groovy utopian solarpunk fantasy of pure ecstasy vectors beaming into distant regions of space

nostalgia is always framed by the comparison "is it worse now? is it better now?" future nostalgia challenges us to retool our imaginations and maybe have a dream like we used to have

 

[vaporwavemaster1]

ヴェイパーウェイヴは懐かしさだけに訴えると言う人もいます。別の理論があります。ヴェイパーウェイヴは、テープやビデオカセットがまだ流行していて、モールがまだ人気があり、人類がそのアナログの過去への感謝を保持している別の現在からの音楽として見ていますが、他の方法では、コンピューティングなどの物事は彼らが持っている限り進歩しています私たちの現実では。これが、ソース素材が作成されたときに達成することがほぼ不可能だったテクニックを音楽が使用する理由、音楽が接合されて切り刻まれる理由、そして古い音楽と新しいフォーマットの間にそのような並置がある理由です。ヴェイパーウェイヴはノスタルジックでも未来的でもありません。それは単に別の世界からのものです。

 

[Some_porcupine]

digital overload we're facing

watched some vid on Watchmen author. his art Jerusalem/Israel? (some name like that), or "how (he predicted "wrongly") by AD 2010-2020 (2017) or so, this D.O. will cause us , for brains, to not work soundly (going insane/not upkeeping/?ignorance)" - here we go: -
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=163Cb1bAW7U&t=740s


here goes some Fisher (Ghosts of my life) :
View: https://youtu.be/H3xBXlwuQIg?list=PL3I9c5RM3WmzZGkYRnTwGIU-_NKKcELg8

 

[Yabba]

cultural slowdown sounds kinda ominous, but then, for how long has it been fast? In ancient times oral traditions went on and on through the generations. Cultural progress does obviously exist, but it seems like an extremely subjective thing to try to measure compared to say scientific progress.

I was thinking about the same oral traditions when I started reading this thread. And, I also disagree with cultural slowdown, as I believe the exact opposite is happening.

Here's my theory. Culture isn't slowing down, it's speeding up, to such a point that most people can't keep up, so they instead look to the past. There they see the bright and varied cultures of the 50-90's, which they cling to, because they can understand it. This effect is only multiplied by our ageing population, which causes companies to make more products that play to there nostalgia.

This of course is in direct opposition with ancient times, where culture progressed at a very slow rate.

 

[Some_porcupine]

What I posted before - nostalgia is racket, see how Mark Fisher got popular coz of vaporwave and nostalgia... Also, Alan Watts, his Jerusalem - basically what you said about not upkeeping with Big media/data blasted at us; ability to process and make picture of it all, -vs- the times before this catastrophe is "news at 11", normalized, and demoralised if thought of it as otherwise...

 

[Drifloon]

I've come to a realization in recent days. A major aspect of Vaporwave as a genre and concept is nostalgia, especially for a past that many of us have never actually experienced. For instance, many people would cite Resonance by Home or Palm Mall Mars as music that awakens a yearning in them for memories they've never had. What makes this so interesting to me is that we now experience this culture and music so dripping with iconography of the past, that in several decades, we will look back at this vaporwave culture with nostalgia for when our minds felt nostalgia for experiences we've never had. If that isn't mind-fuckery, idk what is.

I feel nostalgic for the year this thread was made in.

 

[Some_porcupine]

I feel nostalgic for the year this thread was made in.

i will repeat myself from other, or even this same thread:

nostalgic for music what vaporwave is originally from: [N/A] - *no reponse*
nostalgic for vaporwave in itself that sampled that same music: *s c r e a m s* in vaporwave (saint pepsi - private caller | yung bae - i got you | floral shoppe 420 album (+8yrs ago, uploaded by imortalyear), eccojams, news at 11 (catcorp)...)