The New Aesthetic (or: Drones Don’t Wear Wayfarers)
Dan Catt on the art movement that’s known as the New Aesthetic:
The New Aesthetics, or at least the aspect I’m looking at, is inspired by computer vision. And computer vision is at the point now that computer graphics was at 30 years ago. The New Aesthetics isn’t concerned with retro 8bit graphics of the past, but the 8bit graphics designed for machines of the now.
Make sure to click through the photos — this one is my absolute favorite. I’d seen some of this NA stuff go by on Twitter but until I read this essay, I thought this stuff was yet more retro-throwback. Don’t get it twisted: I love retro things as much as other 25 year-old, but ultimately “retro-everything” doesn’t really grab me at this point — I expect that most things are going to contain some throwback to the past. (Again, totally OK with this. “Great artists steal.”)
Robots, however are different. Machines don’t care about the 1980s. Drones don’t wear Wayfarers. We’ve discovered seemingly the last agents left in our culture that haven’t been taken in by nostalgia, and they can’t even walk. And more importantly than “four wheels good, two legs bad”, robots see the world in a completely different way from us. And that’s fascinating.
If you agree, or are just curious, I recommend clicking through on all the links in the Catt piece above; but make sure you end up on the New Aesthetic tumblr at some point — great stuff.