Retro-futurism is fun. Whether most of today’s images of the future appear all too ‘realistic’, offer merely more of the same, offer not enough future or display so much less ‘grandeur’ than those of the old days, something about the old days makes their imagery ever more inspiring today. Part propaganda, part boundless imagination, part science&tech visions rendered tangible, the material breathes ‘boundlessness’, an inspiring lack of fear to tread uncharted territory, to think beyond obstacles and boundaries (real or imaginary because unknown).

Check out DarkRoastedBlend for some old Soviet space-race imagery, but also German, Italian, British images of yesterday’s future. Even though similar themes are covered as in American popular science posters of the same periods, cultural differences in envisioning the future and depicting it are noticeable, which makes retro-futuristic imagery – linked to the societal context in which they took shape – ever more interesting.

Image courtesy of retro-futurismus.de

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 10:23 and is filed under future, scenarios, technology, visions, visualization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.