Retro Futurism
Retro-Futurism is an aesthetic founded on what ideas felt futuristic to a past society, which can mean both people in the past looking forward, and also us looking back and incorporating a mix of that old-fashioned life with modern features and technology. The genre includes broadly popular aesthetics such as Steampunk and Space-Age Fantasy, with features like zeppelins, chrome colour schemes, and Marvel’s idea of Asgarde with Vikings heralding spaceships. It can also be applied to real life, such as with the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum made to look like a flying saucer!
Origins
Futurism began in early 1900’s Italy as industrialisation transformed the world, and glamorised new technology such as planes and cars as well as the values of speed and youth. As the twentieth century came crashing in, science evolved almost boundlessly, bringing to the public commercial airlines, highways, skyscrapers, particle colliders, as well as weapons of warfare and destruction. The extreme speed at which technology advanced influenced its society, and so its aesthetic reflects the cultural fears and ideas of the time.
“The age demanded an image of its accelerated grimace.” – Pound, E. (1920) ODE POUR L’ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCHRE
Retro-Futurist Types:
- Atomic Age
- An aesthetic defined by the 2 sides of nuclear power: a promise to power the world with new energy, and the violence it casued in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- Focuses on labratories, espionage, great factories, and classic cars, all plucked from the cold war era.
- Eg; Metropolis, Dr. Strangelove, the Fallout Series, the Incredibles
- Space Age
- Aesthetic defined by the space race of the 50’s and 60’s; an optimistic, hopeful utopia shaped around American culture
- Focuses on modernist and art deco design, space exploration, spacetravel, utopian cities.
- Eg; The Jetsons, Barbarella, Moonraker
astroart. (2015). SF & Fantasy | David A. Hardy – AstroArt.org. [online] Available at: https://www.astroart.org/sf–fantasy [Accessed 13 Sep. 2019].https://www.astroart.org/sf–fantasy
- Steampunk
- Aesthetic defined by the 1800s of Britain and the USA as a mixture of Wild West and Victorian London.
- Focuses on steam-powered machines, gears and cogs, and burnished bronze metalwork
- Eg; Wild Wild West, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Hugo
- Cyberpunk
- Aesthetic defined by futurism from the 80’s to the present, reflecting fears of new technology and rising dystopia’s creating class divisions
- Focuses on cramped cities, virtual reality, drugs and cyborgs, surveillance, and neon lights
- Eg; The Neuromancer, The Matrix, Cyberpunk 2077
Retro-Futurism in PARANOIA
I knew as the designs got more and more grey and dystopian that I wanted to look more into retro-futurism to give the atmosphere some intrigue, as there is little visually interesting about grey slabs and concrete, even if it is thematically and worldly relevent. With the fear of surveillence being a major theme in my game, and with my concept art direction leaning more towards the 80’s tech designs, it felt right that the specific subculture I choose should be cyberpunk, albeit a much less colourful and more toned down version.