{"id":13488,"date":"2013-08-28T18:15:24","date_gmt":"2013-08-29T02:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/?p=13488"},"modified":"2013-08-28T15:56:26","modified_gmt":"2013-08-28T23:56:26","slug":"a-day-in-the-life-of-dystopian-sweden-art-by-simon-stalenhag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanmoher.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/art\/a-day-in-the-life-of-dystopian-sweden-art-by-simon-stalenhag\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day in the Life of: Dystopian Sweden (Art by Simon St\u00e5lenhag)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"Art\"Art\"varselklotet_verge_super_wide\"\"Art\n<\/div>\n

\nWelcome to rural Sweden, sometime in the late ’80s. Citizens go about their mundane lives and children explore the countryside. But something isn’t quite right. Robots and hovercrafts are commonplace, and decaying science facilities sprout from the harsh Scandinavian landscape. There’s even a rumor circulating that dinosaurs have returned from the dead after some failed experiment.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a huge fan of Valve’s Half-Life<\/em> series, and particularly Viktor Antonov’s relentlessly haunting, but startlingly believable, visual direction and world building for a dystopian future, I was immediately drawn to St\u00e5lenhag’s art. Where Antonov’s vision was used to flesh out a videogame that, for the most part, requires the lead character to shoot his way to safety, St\u00e5lenhag explores a similar world, Sweden, post-disaster, and takes a snapshot of what civilian life might be like under those conditions.<\/p>\n

In a profile<\/a> of his work by Dante D’Orazio, St\u00e5lenhag explained that “the only difference in the world of my art and our world is that … ever since the early 20th century, attitudes and budgets were much more in favor of science and technology. D’Orazio described St\u00e5lenhag’s world and a future that looks, in many ways, like our present. “Despite developments in robotics and ‘anti-grav’ technology, the difficulties of the modern human experience haven’t changed,” D’Orazio said.<\/p>\n

St\u00e5lenhag juxtaposes the looming threat of the decaying glory of a dystopian far future with the mundanity of everyday life, that effectively illustrates the idea that life happens<\/em> no matter what else is going on around it. Children are featured in many of St\u00e5lenhag’s paintings and its through their eyes that we are shown the grandeur and lost history of a world that crumbled under its own weight.<\/p>\n

More of St\u00e5lenhag’s artwork can be found at his profile on The Verge<\/a>, or by visiting his portfolio<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to rural Sweden, sometime in the late ’80s. Citizens go about their mundane lives and children explore the countryside. But something isn’t quite right. Robots and hovercrafts are commonplace, and decaying science facilities sprout from the harsh Scandinavian landscape. There’s even a rumor circulating that dinosaurs have returned from the dead after some failed… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1285,713,59,711,712],"class_list":["post-13488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","tag-art","tag-dystopian-fiction","tag-science-fiction","tag-simon-stalenhag","tag-valve"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n