Vaporwave

Before reviewing this post, I was aware of the vaporware aesthetic but I was never aware of the assigned name- which is quite cool if you ask me.

In doing research on it, I found out that Vaporwave is “defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and 1990s.”

These are a few of the vaporwave images posted by the professor and examining them from a journalistic perspective, I think they are quite unique and very artistic. This type of art appears to be both objective and subjective.

For example: look at the first image I copied. Every entity in the image is clear in its individuality- there is a cell phone, a computer, some palm trees, as well as some “museum heads”. We can all understand what those things mean separately (which makes it objective) but what do those things mean once they are put together? What feelings stir up in you when you look at that combination?

For me, the combination of the pictures and the use of colors make me feel as though I’m on a hot island in one of those huge mansions you would see in the movies. ( The ones mostly owned by drug kartels.) I’m not sure why but that’s what I get from looking at the image.

Typical vaporware images actually remind me of the 80’s game ‘Tron.’ I’ve never played the game but I remember seeing the game in the infamous “Wreck-it-Ralph” and I thought the aesthetic of the game was very cool.

Though I was looking at this from a journalistic perspective, I wanted to try making my own vaporware image- but that didn’t quite work out. I guess I need some more practice but I genuinely admire the entire aspect of vaporwave.

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