A construção da nostalgia: o uso de técnicas de design na produção de vaporwave

Abstract

This current work studies Vaporwave, a digital art and musical movement that surfaced by the start of the decade (2010) from the mind of a bored musician. Vaporwave is neither the first nor the only movement organized through Internet communities, but it is one of the only few that survived years after its conception. Through the study of nostalgia, it is possible to investigate the reason for the popularity of retro futurist movements among millennials, and how it could either be the cure or the cause to nostalgia’s anxiety or inadequacy to change behaviour. Vaporwave’s content is mostly based on North America’s 80s and 90s culture, as well as its lifestyle on the same period. However, younger generations, together with people from different regions, report an emotional connection to the genre. Through a brief study of psychological and sociological concepts, shared memories and cultural heritage emerge as an explanation to the influence of the movement in millennial’s lives. This undergraduate thesis proposes a brief experiment to test the capacity of a 90’s Brazilian contextualized Vaporwave video of inflicting nostalgia in a 90’s born audience, using Design techniques to conceive a precise approach. The procedure proved itself efficient in most of the participants, creating an emotional connection between the video and the users. However, to analyse the same effect on other generations it would be necessary a wider range of voluntary interviewees.