The New Aesthetic

The New Aesthetic project started with a blog post:

For a while now, I’ve been collecting images and things that seem to approach a new aesthetic of the future, which sounds more portentous than I mean. What I mean is that we’ve got frustrated with the NASA extropianism space-future, the failure of jetpacks, and we need to see the technologies we actually have with a new wonder. Consider this a mood-board for unknown products.

The exploration of this continues on a dedicated Tumblr: new-aesthetic.tumblr.com.

Early responses included Matt Jones' essay on the Sensor-Vernacular, and commentaries from Warren Ellis ("it’s really nice to see people looking for what’s next again"), Phil Gyford ("We don’t want people in fifty years’ time to think of 2011 in terms of what we were nostalgic for") and Robin Sloan ("I think it really is something distinct, something you can sort of get your arms around—not just, you know, a bunch of cool-looking stuff").

Since that time, the New Aesthetic has gone on to stimulate a huge range of discussion across many disciplines, inspiring exhibitions and debates worldwide.