ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS
Alex Varanese has redesigned 4 common products from 2010 as if they were designed in the year 1977. The result is a nostalgic set of ads that capture the spirit of the true ingenuity behind the products we use every day while reminding us, through subtle text, of the products the have replaced. Ads like these in 1977 would have certainly been advertising the items that these now overshadow, like “supercomputers”, phonographs, Atari systems, and telephones. That is what makes these art pieces so successful and interesting. Nice idea.
from the artist:
“I’ve explored that idea in this series by re-imagining four common products from 2010 as if they were designed in 1977: an mp3 player, a laptop, a mobile phone and a handheld video game system. I then created a series of fictitious but stylistically accurate print ads to market them, as well as a handful of abstract posters (you know, just for funsies).”
“I’ve learned that there is no greater design element than the anachronism. I’ve learned that the strongest contrast isn’t spatial or tonal but historical. I’ve learned that there’s retro, and then there’s time travel.
The irony is that all post-modern, smugly self-referential retro porn aside, I’d gladly trade in my immaculately designed 21st century gadgets for these hideously clunky, faux-wood-paneled pieces of ?ber-kitsch. Sorry, Apple.”
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