Alex Varanese’s “ALT/1977” post on Behance is as sweet a piece of contrafactual history as I’ve seen in a lifetime of pursuing this. I want to live in his timeline.
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)… 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 uber-kitsch. Sorry, Apple.
ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS