![]() There are entire blogs dedicated to the preservation of Y2K-era design in media, architecture, and interior design, but the futuristic niche’s aesthetics and philosophies were best crystalized in music culture.Ģ002: Pop star Kylie Minogue kicked off her concerts by emerging from a “Kyborg” inspired by the female robot Maschinenmensch from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). Advancements like the iMac and Windows 98 became stylistic staples of the era, and bright colors, holographic imagery, and robotics emerged into fashion. This revamped idea of futuristic optimism was reflected in updates on ‘60s space age designs, modernized by the incorporation of “cyber” aesthetics. It was believed to promise “a placeless, raceless, bodiless near future enabled by technological progress,” as sociologist Alondra Nelson explains in Future Texts. Unlike the ‘60s space age, this utopia was to be realized not by looking to the stars, but by means of an equally intangible future of extreme connectivity via the Web 2.0. ![]() The late ‘90s embraced a new space age as it saw the possibility for the millennium to either end the world in a crash of binary code or actualize the idyllic future the late 1960s and ‘70s had promised but failed to produce. ![]() The Cold War mentality and fears of a nuclear holocaust were finally fading away, the economy was hopeful, and a bright, utopian, escapist future seemed closer than ever. This era infused a certain bubbly optimism into a previously self-serious decade dominated by grunge and gangsta rap. Fashion and design often channel the desires and anxieties of the masses into aesthetic innovation, one of the most fascinating examples being the late 1990s-early 2000s space age 2.0: the cyber edition. While stuck at home, staring at my computer screen from what feels like dawn to dusk, I’ve been thinking a lot about pop culture’s reckonings with technology.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |