#simon stalenhag vibes

[ronthedunedain]

There's something about a lonely human walking in the snow with decaying megastructures in the background that really sings to me.

The Kalyazin RT-64, built to speak to long-dead spacecraft on Soviet Martian/Venusian missions and possible extra-Solar communications.

[cleverpaws]

dead internet theory robot au genloss (i feel like those are the incorrect order for those words to go in) is like. showfall is a collection of machinery and ai putting out the Optimally Efficient shows. even the actors are humanoid androids. the catch is there's literally nobody left alive. algorithmic optimization has spread across the entire world to the point that it doesn't matter there are no consumers, there are just billions of machines doing their jobs to make things that get recycled by other machines or to do basic maintenance on power generators and internet grids. to meeeee because i'm self-indulgent the actors are like digital imprints of real world people so they're the closest thing the setting has to human. it's all very soma.

AUGH im sorry i completely got distracted and forgor to answer this but THIS IS SO NEAT TO ME. i imagine the implication here is that eventually showfalls shows are just going to spiral into being completely incomprehensible bc of. i look at the camera. g. gener . generation . generation lo

[racsow]

after seeing the godawful trailer, I did a reread of the Electric State and i cannot physically understand how the russo brothers did not "see potential" in the story

i'll admit, i underappreciated the writing on my first read! going over it again there is so much richness to the character building and the dread of the atmosphere. There's a vibe that I can only describe as desiccated americana and i love it. The world is rotten and dying, and there is really nothing left to do but go on for going on's sake.

anyway i'm doing a very large essay on Stålenhag's whole body of work, but the Electric State holds a special place in my heart as the first of his books I discovered and the most resonant to me, so i just had to share my thoughts right after the reread.

This is less about the artwork, which i could talk about for ages, and more just a general overview of the story themes specifically!

(Moderate general spoilers? i don't go into much detail, and it's not a story overly reliant on its plot twists anyway)

The hopelessness of The Electric State is rather unique among Simon Stålenhag's works - his other books, set in Sweden, are much more fondly nostalgic, though they of course offer strange horrors of their own - but of a much more physical, immediate level.

The Electric State is different. It takes place in an alternate 90s US even more drowned in consumerism and blind greed than our own. A civilization that is crumbling, not from nuclear war or global crises or meteors, but by its own hand, by capitalism driving itself into the ground. The perfect pleasure machine, the neurocaster headset, leaves people twitching, comatose creatures whose minds lie in vast Silicon Valley servers as their bodies are left to starve.

Michelle does not have the privilege of escapism. She is one of the few left to wander a silent world, an apocalypse without people to see it. She is privy to the horror of watching the inevitable trajectory of a world falling to its death, and feels only recognition that it's probably better this way.

Michelle is never sad about the end of America. She doesn't ever reminisce about how good things used to be, or how we should have "appreciated it while we had it." But she certainly does reminisce.

She has the memory of her foster parents, who derided the government "coddling neurine addicts" like Michelle's mother. She has the memory of her grandfather coughing himself to death in their tiny apartment, irradiated from his lifetime of underpaid work assembling gigantic war drones. She has the memory of her mother overdosing on a drug the government hooked her on during her service in the military. She has the memory of her first and only love, a love which the world hated, how it kept her alive in her foster home of Soest City, and how it was ripped from her by the pastor.

Unlike Stalenhag's other stories, there is no element of nostalgia or quiet undertone of hope. Only disgust for what came before, and quiet fear for what comes next.

The horror of the Convergence, the eldritch machine god hivemind, is not even very relevant to the story - if anything, it's a side plot. When Michelle faces actual danger, it's never from giant robot gods in the mist; it's from cops and hotel clerks, from doomsdayers hoarding guns and a FBI agent hunting her down. She lives in fear of other people, of people who say they want to protect her.

But when she sees the gigantic silent machines wandering through the mists of Oregon, she isn't afraid. It's almost peaceful. The Convergence is beyond understanding. It grew out of the servers where millions of minds seeking oblivion from the world went to escape, and they converged into something unknowably vast who wanders the world in a hundred million thoughtless bodies. It's otherworldly. It does not fear, it does not dream, it does not hope, it does not hate. Maybe that's better.

I was scared. But I also felt something else when that thing stepped out of the mist in front of our car. I can't think of a better word than awe. Like when you suddenly become aware that you've walked into the wrong part of the woods and come face-to-face with a gigantic wild animal. Beyond the grotesque, there was also something else - something majestic.

And in its wake, the citizens of Point Linden, hundreds of people linked together, their neurocasters connected to the oily god in the mist, floated across the ground in front of the car, and they looked almost happy. Calm and peaceful, they moved past the car and formed a single group again behind us, and soon disappeared into the mist again.

[mushimaster]

ok this is actually so sick

Ninja with some sort of device on their heads with thick wires attached to a wall is like

so fuckin simon stalenhag meets dimension bomb and i would love to see a redrawing of this with more detail and more dystopian vibes because holy fuck this is so cool

[skuletoyama]

I want to do a small 3d project as a sequel to THE HOST.

At least an origin or something like that so that if people are interested, they can investigate and compile some of the "lore."

I like Simon Stalenhag, and he is part of the inspiration. I'm still learning from several things. I'm unsure how long it will take me and what the vibe or look will be.

For now, I will focus on writing down ideas so I don't rush out of nowhere and forget in case of obstacles.

Image from the book "The Labyrinth."

[cybron2166]

ever since i learned about this place in geography i always wanted to go there gives me simon stalenhag vibes

girls go to college to get more knowledge. men go to svalbard to die in the polar night.

[maltypass]

Reading Tag

Thank you for tagging me @hedwig-dordt

Current: The Electric State by Simon Stalenhag. It's more of an art book, really runs of vibes

Recent: The Terror by Dan Simmons. It runs a different course than the show, I 'enjoyed it', and had no problem motivating myself to give it an hour+ of my time for a few weeks (it's a behemoth) but it is truly harrowing and I had to read Moominland in Winter straight after just to feel something like hope after.

Future: This is How you Lose the Time War is up next as I try to work through some shorter titles

It's nice to be reading again after what feels like a long break!

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

painting practice with a photo scorpy posted to his insta story a while back because i really liked the vibes. version 2 is inspired by “the electric state” art book by simon stalenhag (i have the book and i love it). 

[heedra]

zdislaw beksinski, shaun tan, and simon stalenhag are the three artists i feel like have influenced my inner creative mindscape the most, and the vibes i generally want to capture whenever i think abt doing creative work usually fall somewhere in the triangle between the way i feel when i look at their work

[vintagerpg]

Tales from the Loop is one of my favorite RPGs published in recent years. There’s just something so perfect about it.

Based on the world revealed in the paintings of Simon Stalenhag, this is a game about kids having adventures in an alternate 1980s, but while investigating the mysteries of wild science may seem like the focus of the game, the real star is how the game centers much of the action on the everyday lives of the kid protagonists.

The game mechanics are simple. Stats and skills translate to a pool of six-sided dice. The more dice, the better. To succeed most tests, you need to have a single six come up on one of the dice. Statuses like fatigue and injury modify your pool total. And while kids can be injured, they can never be killed. Easy.

While the overall plot of Tales from the Loop is charted by a GM, the game turns on a concept called Trouble. Trouble is anything that might prevent the kids from doing what they want to do, be it a booby-trap at the entrance to mad scientist’s lair or a mom who is intent on enforcing curfew. Trouble is a collaboration between player and GM, much like a storytelling game, and it involves improvisation that naturally fleshes out characters and relationships as the game goes on. It won’t be long before your kids are ensnared in a whole host of entanglements with parents, teachers, siblings and bullies that make dealing with giant robots all the more difficult.

Much of the nostalgic 80s atmosphere of the game is conveyed through Stalenhag’s artwork. They mostly depict life among the robots and other technological wonders that have become commonplace because of the Loop (a Hadron Collider that has spurred international innovation and top secret weirdness). Most of his work is set at dusk, capitalizing on his supreme skill at capturing that magical lighting. 80s songs and Stranger Things comparisons are one thing, but that light – that marks the border of freedom for the day, having to abandon adventure to go home when the street lights come on – is the vibe the fuels the whole game.

[mendelpalace]

Okay, now it's your turn. I challenge you to tell me how you would describe your aesthetic in your own words.

Iguess since I bugged you to answer this, I should give it a trymyself.

Similarlyto what you said about your own aesthetic, I don’t think I’veever consciously tried to garner a particular style or aesthetic,though over time I’ve probably made conscious decisions for what Ireblogged for aesthetic reasons. I don’t know if I’ve ever stuck toone clear, obvious aesthetic style, not the least of which I don’treally have the patience or interest in doing a proper “aestheticblog,” filtering my reblogs into a specific look. I like text poststoo much to be one of those textless image dumps, I could never be astraight “cyberpunk” blog because I sometimes just wanna postkitschy stuff or pics of my pets or what have you.

Iremembered as I was writing this that I did try to do a “what is myaesthetic?” type post about a year back. The guts of that postwere:

Animeimage sets of mundane, cozy locations – doubly so if they’re from“futuristic” series. Abundant, delicious food. Garrish neonlighting in its many forms = city lights, darkened arcades,carnivals. Old technology, the chunkier the better. The glow of oldCRT monitors. Synthesizers. Chiptunes, pixel art, low poly models –creativity and beauty eked out within specific limitations. Peaceful,snowy nights. Salvagepunk – in concept and aesthetic at least –creating something new with the remains of the past. Alloyed ideas.The blending of varying sources to create something new. Theunavoidable datedness of futurism and how this affects the look ofart and technology. The chunky, analog look of late 70’s-early 80’ssci-fi. The aesthetics of a lot of Simon Stalenhag’s art, which isbasically odd sci-fi phenomena dropped into mundane andhyper-realistic settings circa the mid 90’s. The dissonance betweenour imagined futures and where we actually wound up – “Thiswasn’t the future we dreamed of.” Nostalgia approached with bothenthusiasm and extreme wariness.

Unironicoptimism in the face of ugliness.

Therewas this trio of “aesthetics” posts too, where I compiled handfulof images that felt like a representative of the overall aesthetic ofthe blog somehow.

Alsoquite a while I made a post asking what movie you’d most associatewith me, and @highway62 chose the original Alien, with the reasoningbeing: “Old and new, new from old. Constructed to be more than amillimeter deep on screen. Still looking at horrible-fidelity CRTs inthe future because it’s cooler than hi-def.” And I thinkbetween these two takes, it covers a lot of the things I’m interestedin:

Imaginedfutures and how they compare to reality

Theinteraction between the mundane and the strange, the real and unreal.

The fusion of old and new. 

Nostalgia,while still keeping in mind that nostalgia can be painful andmisleading

Thequote: “I don’t believe another world is possible, because I knowthat all things superseded stick around and stink as unwelcomereminders of that we have to deal with, so another world is necessary but only built from the gutted hull of this one.”

Pullingapart things I love to better understand them and why they matter.

Ilike people making cool things out of specific limitations, even ifit’s impractical.

Ilike clutter, tactility, things that seemed lived in and not tooclean.

Ialso spend WAY too much time organizing my queue so that the posts Imake have some semblance of internal logic, though I don’t know ifthis comes across to anyone but myself.

Iwanted to keep my blog itself pretty straight forward, so it’s basic black andwhite, with the addition of the fuzzy Mendel Palace title screen gif, whichis a cropped version of a gif I requested from @threechainlinks. I’vebarely played Mendel Palace the game, but I was stumbling around fora name that in some way connected to my general interests and I likedthe way the title sounded. The CRT fuzz also fits with the overall interests and vibe of the blog pretty well while still fitting in the with simple layout. I also like the name a bit because I like the idea of this blogbeing a place, a palace of… something.  

Iguess a big part of why I asked about my aesthetic is that I’m stillfiguring out what matters to me on an intellectual and aestheticlevel. Once I really wanted to be a writer, I still do really, but Ifeel like for a long time (before I even started this Tumblr blogback in 2011) I haven’t really written much that wasn’t foracademic reasons. The few times I’d tried to get back into writing,I had no idea where to start because it’d been so long since I’dwritten (and I had so few examples of my previous writing that didn’tembarrass me) that I had no idea what my “style” or interestswith regard to writing were, and I’m bad at self-evaluation. 

Also I probably spend WAY too much time on this site, so I guess I want to justify that understand why all this stuff matters. 

[birdbugs]

Also reblogging to recommend the tabletop rpg Tales From The Loop, which features a lot of Simon Stalenhag's art and vibe!