Visions of the Future
Worlds imagined by novels and films where the future took a different turn, and swapping the underlying technology changes how society and the body get pictured.
Dictionary entry
- Cyberpunk 1980s– / Style
Advanced technology and ruined daily life share the same frame, so the future arrives as promise and as threat.
- Steampunk Victorian retrofuture / Style
Extends steam-age materials and machinery into a tangible alternate history.
- Solarpunk 2000s– / Aesthetic
Refuses to oppose nature and technology, painting a bright future that is tended by hand.
- Afrofuturism 20th century– / Aesthetic
Connects African diasporic history, culture and future, reclaiming stolen time and new possibility.
- Cassette Futurism 1977–1990s / retro revival / Aesthetic
The future as the 1980s pictured it, built from CRTs, physical buttons, thermal paper and squared-off white plastic. Its matte pragmatism is now being reappraised as the counterproposal to sleek science fiction.
- Hexatron early–late 2010s / Style
A 2010s future language crystallized around TRON: Legacy, using hexagonal grids, diagonals, blue light, holograms, and terminal-like interfaces. Harder in black and white than Synthwave and cleaner than Cyberpunk, it foregrounds angular technical ornament and complete systems.