Retrofuturism

レトロフューチャリズム / 1970s– / Aesthetic / Digital Culture

Retrofuturism revisits futures imagined in the past through their vehicles, materials, advertising and cosmic visions, preserving both their hope and their blind spots.

Retrofuturism — Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone, frontispiece, 1914 — historical imagined-future illustration — Stratemeyer Syndicate — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone, frontispiece, 1914 — historical imagined-future illustration — Stratemeyer Syndicate — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Retrofuturism — AI-generated interpretation 1 — AI-generated interpretation, not a reference work

Retrofuturism — AI-generated interpretation 2 — AI-generated interpretation, not a reference work

At a glance

Visual cues

Streamlined vehicles and monumental cities
Analog gauges, chrome and vacuum tubes
Space-age advertising type and diagrams
Faded print beside luminous future imagery

Best used for

World-building from past visions of tomorrow
Showing both technological optimism and the predictions that failed

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Dictionary entry

Type: Combine assertive period advertising with technical annotations.
Composition: Share the field between low horizons, oversized machines and explanatory diagrams.
Material: Keep chrome, amber displays, faded paper and painted metal visibly of their period.
Caution: Neon plus old machines is not enough. Decide when, by whom and for whom this future was imagined.
Further study: Past visions of the future / Space-age advertising / Utopia and bias

Related entries

Cassette Futurism (カセット・フューチャリズム)Shared effects: Nostalgia / Futurity.Compare Retrofuturism and Cassette Futurism
Space Age Design (スペースエイジ・デザイン)Shared effects: Futurity / Play.Compare Retrofuturism and Space Age Design

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