Design Fiction: Visual Styles

In a friday evenig seminar, we briefley spoke about fictinal designs, in particular Steampunk and Cyberpunk; two genres that I found myslef draw to during my school years.

Steampunk:
-Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre, steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power. Steampunk may, therefore, be described as neo-Victorian. Steampunk perhaps most recognisably features anachronistic technologies or retro-futuristic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them, and is likewise rooted in the era's perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art.

Cyberpunk:
Cyberpunk, a subgenre of science fiction in a future setting, tends to focus on the society of the proverbial "high tech low life"; featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as information technology and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order.
Cyberpunk plots often center on conflict among artificial intelligences and among megacorporations, and tend to be set in a future Earth, rather than in the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction.

I became interested in Steampunk when I was encouraged to read Phillip Pullman's series "His Dark Materials", a trilogy the soon became one of my favourites. The style of writing is so vibrant that the world painted itself, and the visuals it created have been some of the most influential in my work.

 

Cyberpunk, however, is the style I'm most interested at the moment. I'm fascinated by the aesthetic and the narrative behind most cyberpunk orentated works, one of my favourites being George Orwell's 1984 and Blade Runner.

 

I intend to use this genre in my studio work.