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Contenido
Dado que el retrofuturismo se basa en gran variedad de periodos históricos y de multitud de visiones del futuro de estos, es complicado unificar la temática general del retrofuturismo, aunque si se puede vislumbrar un tema común entre todos ellos, la disconformidad o despecho hacia el presente actual en contraste con la nostalgia del tiempo ya pasado.[7].
El argumento dado en las historias retrofuturistas suele establecerse en una futura sociedad utópica basada en el contexto histórico elegido, en claro contraste con la corriente de ciencia ficción, cyberpunk, que aborda temas distópicos, si bien el optimismo y la ingenuidad de este futuro utópico se usa a menudo de forma intencionadamente irónica. En otras ocasiones, el escenario dispuesto para la acción se sitúa en un pasado alternativo, colocando el retrofuturismo más cercano a una ucronía.[8].
El retrofuturismo no es universalmente optimista, durante los últimos años estas historias han madurado para incorporar elementos claramente distópicos, ya sean ocultos dentro de estas sociedades perfectas o bien siendo el pilar de sus tramas, como ocurre en aquellas historias situadas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial o durante la paranoia de la Guerra Fría, donde esta realidad alternativa inspira más miedo que esperanza.[7].
Steampunk
This current draws on the work of the great visionaries and, at the same time, fathers of science fiction, H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, which places this retrofuturism during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, a time when the Industrial Revolution was at its peak and steam engines, as well as the coal that propelled them, were the main resource of this era. Problems such as overpopulation, racism, poverty and unemployment coexist with education and Victorian good manners and the feeling, almost lost today, of honor.[9].
Wild Wild West (1999), based on the Jim West series set in an alternative American West where a strange couple must rescue a group of scientists and inventors kidnapped by a disturbed genius, is one of the best-known examples in steampunk cinema.[5].
Within the world of comics, we can mention The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O'Neill, which presents an amalgamated pastiche of unlikely characters, places and technologies typical of 19th century literature.[10].
diesel punk
The aesthetics that color this retrofuturist current range from 1920 to 1950, and are fed by the imaginative pulp fiction "Pulp (literature)") and in turn by film noir influenced by it, by German expressionist cinematography, especially that found in the film Metropolis "Metropolis (1927 film)"), by the "Jazz Age" and by swing music and the characteristic art deco style. The roaring twenties, the Great Depression and the Second World War are themes that in turn play within the retrofuturist imagination of this movement.[11].
The two parts of the video game BioShock, where its main plot revolves around the dystopian underwater city of Rapture, with an art deco aesthetic and built under a technology clearly marked by pulp retrofuturism, are an excellent example of the dieselpunk trend.
The series of comics, Roco Vargas, by Spanish author Daniel Torres, which immerse themselves in a world that inspires recovering the classic aesthetics of the 1940s but in which trips through the solar system are common, is an example of a comic that straddles dieselpunk and atompunk.[8].
One of the Latin American contributions can be found in the Colombian work “Miskatonic Grancolombia 1938”, by Andrés Gómez Ordóñez from Cali, where Lovecraftian elements are intermingled with fairy beings – fairies, fauns, goblins, etc –, with powerful machines and energy weapons.
Clockpunk
Unlike Steampunk, Clockpunk cannot simply focus on “the technology of the Renaissance” since while the industrial revolution or the Victorian Era are two clear moments throughout Europe and its expansion to other territories, the Renaissance for its part was different, to the extent that it spans centuries and is a cultural movement in itself.[12].
However, it can concentrate, more than on a movement, on an ideological moment such as the so-called "Age of Discoveries" that begins with Gutenberg's printing press in the technological, Protestantism in the social and the voyages of explorers such as Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Zheng He and Columbus.[13].
The ideology of this genre is that of the so-called Renaissance men or polymaths, regardless of their era, which is made clear by names such as: Imhotep, Pythagoras, Avicenna, Zhuge Lian, Abbas Ibn Firnas, Roger Bacon, Nicholas of Cusa, Da Vinci, Michelangelo Bounarroti, Galileo Galilei, Pascal and María Gaetana Agnesi, among many others.
In Clockpunk, clocks, gears, and simple machines predominate, and they appear in both heavy machinery and portable devices and are driven by the force of the wind, which is why Leonardo Da Vinci's inventions are considered an influence. Many times machinery needs so much energy that writers resort to other sources such as gunpowder or alchemy.[14].
Clockpunk, although it has the mechanical technology of pulleys and gears, the primitive machine with kinetic force, is not based on it; but in the wonder of the human being who consciously turned his back on an obsolete, dark and manipulated system of which he had already grown tired.[15].
The Three Musketeers film "The Three Musketeers (2011 film)") (2011), contains elements of Clockpunk.
The Clockwork Earth series books), written by Jay Lake, are a clear example of the genre.
atompunk
This retrofuturist current, which overlaps with the previous one, immerses the viewer in the period between 1945 and 1965, which includes both the Atomic Age, which gives its name to this subgenre, as well as the Space Age and the paranoia present in the United States due to the intangible communist presence. Elements such as American underground cinema, the ever-present atomic threat, Googie architecture, the first aerospace programs and superhero fiction mix to create this retrofuturist current.[16].
The film The Iron Giant (1999), where a huge robot from space is pursued by a paranoid US army in the middle of the Cold War, is an example of this trend on the big screen.
The Fallout video game saga "Fallout (series)"), which takes place in a United States devastated by nuclear war, and eternally anchored in the aesthetics of 1950, is another example of atompunk.
bitpunk
Almost closing the list started by steampunk is this debatable retrofuturist current based on neon and computing and which corresponds to the time period between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1990s,[3] where the first steps of modern computing, the harassment of international terrorism, the appearance of AIDS as a pandemic, the feminist movement and ethnic sentiment give color and personality to this retrofuturism.
Like the primitive science fiction and pulp "Pulp (literature)") that feed steampunk and dieselpunk respectively, bitpunk is based on the first stories of the cyberpunk imaginary where it finds its inspiration.
The video game Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (2013), set in a dystopian 2007 taken over by a cyborg army, is a good example of this trend and is described by its creators as "a VHS vision of the future of the 80s".[17].
Another successful saga of role-playing games on board, consoles and PC is Shadowrun. In this universe, magic coexists with computing, wrapped in a neon-laden aesthetic reminiscent of the late 1980s and the massification of hacker culture.
The movie Tron: Legacy (2010), where a young rebel must enter the cybernetic world, created by his own missing father, to save him. This film plays with the imagery and aesthetics created in the eighties, updating it with current resources.[18].
Seapunk
Seapunk refers to the popular culture of the early 1990s and late 1980s. It is often associated with an aquatic-themed fashion style, 3D net art, iconography, abusing kitsch 3D aesthetics and scenes of fluorescent colors, geometric figures, the Memphis design movement and the artist Keith Haring that were abundant in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The arrival of Seapunk also spawned their own music that incorporates fragments of 90s house "House (music)"), electronic music, with elements of Southern rap and pop music and contemporary R&B of the 1990s, reminiscent of new age music "New age (music)") and hip hop mixtape Chopped and Screwed in roughly equal proportions. Katia Ganfield interviewed Lily Redwine (aka Ultrademon) in the article, titled "Seapunk: a new club scene trying to drive sub-bass sound waves into the future." Some notable seapunk artists include; Azealia Banks, Grimes&action=edit&redlink=1 "Grimes (musician) (not yet drafted)"), Blank Banshee 0, Isaiah Toothtaker and Unicorn Kid.
Y2Kpunk
Most of this trend is based more or less on the aesthetics of the years 1998 to 2003. It is characterized by the optimism and techno-utopianism that was the main component of the Y2K era (named after the turn of the millennium and the "Year 2000s"), a distinct aesthetic period, jeans under dresses and miniskirts, long-sleeved T-shirts, under short-sleeved ones, extremely wide-cuffed pants (JNCO style pants), velvet jackets, plastic clothing or some shiny or translucent polymer, kitten-strap heels, platform shoes with organic curves, metallic, frosted makeup, an aesthetic that encapsulates hardware design, music and shiny furniture with technological optimism, especially abuse of shiny, reflective, frosted and frosted; pieces that look like airlocks, fashion appreciated by hacker ravers at the end of the millennium, computer interface with the futuristic optimism of moving into a new era, from one millennium to the next; which is also to pay tribute to the time when, for the first time, common people had access to the web; as well as a tribute to when computer-aided design had just advanced enough that designers could experiment for the first time with curves, drops, gradients, layered transparencies, sparkles, 3D textures or the typical screensaver with "digital rain" from Matrix or a silver and sticky skin for the Winamp music player that young people had at that time, similar to the player on iMacs in their Mac OS 9. Some films that portray this end-of-life atmosphere millennium and the beginning of the next are the already mentioned Matrix, the Blade saga "Blade (film)") or End of Days.
The Y2K aesthetic") has thousands of fans on Facebook and thousands more on Tumblr. It is possible that the Y2Kpunk aesthetic") was inspired by another previous aesthetic based on the future, within the same retro-futurism. Its name, more than referring to the year two thousand, refers to what the era that this current honors knew was coming: the "error of the year two thousand", known as "Y2K".