The last few years of a decade are important for the same reason Oscar bait comes in the late fall and winter. Donald Trump has earned the title of the first Home Alone 2 castmember to be impeached by congress and Elon Musk has furthered his vision of decreasing the load on whatever computer is simulating our reality by trying to make low-poly transportation happen.
Vaporwave is well-known, out of vogue, and generally seen sprinkled around as much as any other established-but-not-aged-out-of aesthetic. I wonder how much the look will be associated with its 201x origins in the early aughts. The early-CG look probably would have caught on more if 3D printers ended up being more of the thing they were promising to be in 2012, with easy-to-3d-model, hard-to-manufacture wares filling our spaces. Virtual reality is getting its second run at the markets, somewhat more successful than the Virtual Boy’s nauseating take, but still seemingly not catching.
It will seem obvious in post, but what does this decade look like? The further we get from a time, the more refined our mental image is of the model home, the fashion, the sound of an era. Something can be said of past eras’ aesthetics being a product of the new technology: the postwar idyllic ’50s home featuring robust, American-made steel good, the ’90’s loud plastic colors, whatever it is, but I don’t know if that will keep being the end all of aesthetics. We can make things how we want them. Manufacturing capability has never been more accessible, but the cutting edge of what we can produce is the ability to conceal how it was produced, and it just being a thing. What is 20XX.
Voidspire is a manifestation of the void dedicated to documenting the emotional effects of the layered design and decay that form urban spaces.
