Vaporwave

Every now and then, I discover a trend in which elements of the past come back into the limelight. A music and art genre known as Vaporwave has been sweeping the internet in recent time.

According to Reddit, Vaporwave is defined as the following:

"Vaporwave is characterized by appropriation, imitation and re-contextualization of pop culture artifacts from the 80's and 90's. It has associations with the period's retrofuturism and cyberpunk. Visually, it is related to pop art, collage, and digital art but it is not limited to these. It tends to choose and deconstruct already kitschy and/or banal source material, usually associated with mass production , though it can choose any 80's and 90's pop culture artifact. The appropriation and imitation are done in a style that is deconstructive, re-contextualizing the material and emphasizing artificial elements." - https://www.reddit.com/r/Vaporwave/wiki/basics

In other words, Vaporwave will gather artifacts, if you will, of retro themes an re-purpose them into song and artwork. 

Take an example of music of the Vaporwave genre. The videos below are from an artist known as Macintosh Plus, an act well known in the Vaporwave community.

As you listen to the songs and watch their corresponding videos, you will notice the nostalgic theme intended. In fact, it should be noted that nearly the entirety of each song is actually an older song either sampled from or remixed entirely. Examples of Vaporwave sampling are explained in the following video.

As you can see, Vaporwave is essentially a collage of different components of vintage media with the intent of creating a nostalgic atmosphere. I shall close this post by leaving more examples of Vaporwave, this time in photographic form.

-Kathryn Muñoz