Skip to content
1981
Popular Culture and Nostalgia
  • ISSN: 2045-5852
  • E-ISSN: 2045-5860

Abstract

This article explores vaporwave’s appropriation of the past and future to constitute a (non)-site for the displacement of the present. In doing so, vaporwave – an electronic music genre that samples sights and sounds from 1980s and 1990s popular culture – masquerades itself as a radical project that decentres the subject’s location within the linear matrix of time (Tanner 2016) and houses the potential to oppose the humanistic territorializations of late capitalism (Killeen 2018; Whelan and Nowak 2018). I argue that these arguments focus too closely on vaporwave’s style and aesthetic dimension without considering its maintenance of various structures of oppression and appropriation indicative of globalized capitalism. The result is a misattribution of transgressive potential to vaporwave that ignores its incredibly conservative undertones. To engage with vaporwave then demands a bifurcation of its outward, rhizomatic veneer and the codes, conventions and axiomatics that underwrite it. I make this argument by drawing upon Jean Baudrillard’s (1981, 1993, 1994, 2010) scepticism of any accelerationist and technologist politics of subversion to mount effective sociopolitical change. Additionally, I make use of many feminist and critical race approaches to highlight the affinities between vaporwave’s appropriate style and the logics of late capitalism.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ajpc_00025_1
2020-09-01
2024-09-14
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ahmed, Sara. ( 2006), Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Ahmed, Sara. ( 2010;), ‘ Happy objects. ’, in M. Gregg, and G. J. Seigworth. (eds), The Affect Theory Reader, Durham:: Duke University Press;, pp. 2951.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Anderson, Ben. ( 2010;), ‘ Modulating the excess of affect: Morale in a state of “total war. ”’, in M. Gregg, and G. J. Seigworth. (eds), The Affect Theory Reader, Durham:: Duke University Press;, pp. 16185.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Baudrillard, Jean. ( 1981), For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (trans. C. Levin.), New York:: Telos Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Baudrillard, Jean. ( 1993), Symbolic Exchange and Death (trans. I. Hamilton Grant.), London:: Sage;.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Baudrillard, Jean. ( 1994), The Illusion of the End (trans. C. Turner.), Stanford:: Stanford University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Baudrillard, Jean. ( 2002), Screened Out (trans. C. Turner.), New York:: Verso;.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Baudrillard, Jean. ( 2005), The Conspiracy of Art (trans. A. Hodges.), California:: Semiotext(e);.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Baudrillard, Jean. ( 2010), America (trans. C. Turner.), New York:: Verso;.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Benjamin, Walter. ( 1986), Reflections (trans. E. Jephcott.), New York:: Schocken Books;.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Berlant, Lauren. ( 2011), Cruel Optimism, Durham:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Born, Georgina, and Haworth, Christopher. ( 2018;), ‘ From microsound to vaporwave: Internet mediated musics, online methods and genre. ’, Music and Letters, 98:4, pp. 60147.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Braidotti, Rosi. ( 2013), The Posthuman, Cambridge:: Polit Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Butler, Judith. ( 1997), Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Chun, Wendy. ( 2011), Programmed Visions: Software and Memory, Cambridge:: MIT Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Foucault, Michel. ( 1982;), ‘ The subject and power. ’, Critical Inquiry, 8:4, pp. 77795.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. France, Lisa R.. ( 2018;), ‘ Voter registration reportedly spikes after Taylor Swift post. ’, CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/09/entertainment/taylor-swift-voter-registration/index.html. Accessed 18 March 2021.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Gilles, Deleuze, and Guattari, Félix. ( 1977), Anti-Oedipus (trans. R. Hurley,, M. Seem, and H. R. Lane.), New York:: Penguin Group;.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Gilles, Deleuze, and Guattari, Félix. ( 1987), A Thousand Plateaus (trans. B. Massumi.), Minneapolis:: University of Minnesota Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Harper, Adam. ( 2019;), ‘ Personal take: Vaporwave is dead, long live Vaporwave. ’, in N. Cook,, M. M. Ingalls, and T. David. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Music in Digital Culture, Cambridge:: Cambridge University Press;, pp. 11923.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Healy, Chris. ( 2006;), ‘ Dead man: Film, colonialism, and memory. ’, in K. Hodgkin, and S. Radstone. (eds), Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts, New Jersey:: Transaction Publishers;, pp. 22136.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. hooks, bell. ( 1992), Black Looks: Race and Representation, Boston:: South End Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Immortalyear ( 2013;), ‘ Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe (FULL ALBUM!!). ’, YouTube, 25 December, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCq0P509UL4&t=0s. Accessed 2 April 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Jameson, Frederic. ( 1991), Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham:: Duke University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Keenan, David. ( 2009;), ‘ Childhood’s end. ’, The Wire, 306:1, pp. 2631.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Killeen, Padraic. ( 2018;), ‘ Burned out myths and vapour trails: Vaporwave’s affective potentials. ’, Open Cultural Studies, 2:1, pp. 62638.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Kurdtbada ( 2020;), ‘ Real estate (Vaporwave mix). ’, YouTube, 9 March, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqESyZWz0T8&t. Accessed 1 April 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Lazzarato, Maurizio. ( 2015), Governing by Debt, South Pasadena:: Semiotext(e);.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Norris, Christopher. ( 1990), What’s Wrong with Postmodernism?, London:: Harvester Wheatsheaf;.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Ottum, Joshua J.. ( 2016;), ‘ Anthropogenic moods: American functional music and environmental imaginaries. ’, Ph.D. thesis, Athens:: Fine Arts of Ohio University;.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Spivak, Gayatri. ( 1988;), ‘ Can the subaltern speak?. ’, in C. Nelson, and L. Grossberg. (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Chicago:: University of Chicago Press;, pp. 271313.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Tanner, Grafton. ( 2016), Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, Alresford:: Zero Books;.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Trainer, Adam. ( 2016;), ‘ From hypnagogic to distroid: Postironic musical rendering of personal memory. ’, in S. Whiteley, and S. Rambarran. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality, USA:: Sheridan;, pp. 121.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Vapor Memory 2 ( 2016;), ‘ 猫 シ Corp.: SANDRAWAVE. ’, YouTube, 14 May, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ao97vrAkF8&t=0s. Accessed 3 April 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Wachowski, Lana, and Wachowski, Lilly. ( 1999), The Matrix, USA:: Warner Bros. Village Roadshow Pictures;.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Whelan, Adam, and Nowak, Raphaël. ( 2018;), ‘ “Vaporwave is (not) a critique of capitalism”: Genre work in an online music scene. ’, Open Cultural Studies, 2:1, pp. 45162.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Guignion, David. ( 2020;), ‘ Vapor Memory, or, memory in the ruins of history. ’, The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture, 9:2, pp. 16578, https://doi.org/10.1386/ajpc_00025_1
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/ajpc_00025_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error