The Vaporwave graphic style as a modern and current movement

The Vaporwave graphic style, it's a style modern and current. It began at the beginning of 2010. Its origin comes from the musical genre called with the same name, Vaporwave. This musical style emerges from Indie dance genres such as Seapunk, witch house, and chillwave. It can be considered a micro-gender produced by the microblogging platform, Tumblr or Reddit that is also fascinated with Geocities graphics and modern and experimental music genres.

Vaporwave as a modern and current movement

The Vaporwave style contains a lot of diversity and ambiguity in his attitude and message. According to the artist, it can be taken as a criticism and a parody focused on capitalism, in addition to introducing us to a nostalgic environment. Does reference to pop culture from the decades of 80s and 90s and the birth of the Internet age. It could also be taken as a critical reference to yuppie culture, very common in the United States in the 80's. The term Yuppie refers to the typical behavior according to the stereotype of young executives 20 and 39 years between U.S.. The stereotype of these people stood out for the value they showed in excess of the material and the interest they showed towards technology (more sophisticated mobiles, notepads, etc.).

The Vaporwave graphic and musical style is also inspired by the New Age cultural and musical movement, which aesthetically shows a curious and nostalgic fascination for artifacts. The cultural movement, can be translated as New Age, was used during the second half of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXst. Its origin emerges from astrological belief.

New Age, in addition to being a cultural movement rooted in astrological beliefs, is also known as a musical genre, whose objective is create artistic inspiration, relaxation and optimism. This genre is associated with environmentalism and the beliefs of the cultural movement, New Age.

This graphic style shows a combination of digital aesthetics, with elements like Roman representations and classical sculptures, plus technological elements and using japanese elements who have an interest in Japanese culture.

The image associated with Vaporwave is also associated with aesthetics based on "error in the digital age" glitch art. An artistic current which chooses as aesthetic element «the error», for this they resort to current elements such as software programs, video games, videos and sounds. This movement captures these works on different supports such as paintings, textiles or through new, more modern supports such as videos or through music and sounds.

The Vaporwave graph, in addition is inspired by web designs from the 90s, old computer presentations and in a cyberpunk aesthetic style. Cyberpunk is a subgenre that deals with a somewhat futuristic science fiction theme, this subgenre is known for its treatment with the image with a retro-futuristic and dystopian environment, with high technology and low standard of living and takes its name from the combination of cybernetics and punk. It is characterized by being a combination of advanced science, such as computer science and cybernetics, along with some radical alteration in the social or cultural order.

In this style, as we have said before, Japanese characters and other non-western script are used, so it shows a interest in the different and unknown. Artists use elements that are foreign or antagonistic to their culture to represent a specific symbolism or for an aesthetic interest.

Natasha hassan

All the illustrations by Natasha Hassan They are some of the best graphic examples that we can talk about in this post about this characteristic style. In his illustrations he represent some of the characteristic elements that we have named at the beginning of the post. It uses classic Roman sculptures and very striking and saturated colors, as well as the representation of "error", as inspiration for the Glitch art aesthetic, superimposing images and colors.

Vasya Kolotusha

The Ukrainian artist and illustrator, Vasya Kolotusha also inspired by style Vaporwave in some of his work. Use elements such as Roman busts and LED lighting as a more modern element.

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