It’s an aesthetic. And yes aesthetics are political, but I think this is one of those ones that can go either way, in fact I feel that way about most “Punk” genres. There’s been progressive and reactionary cyberpunk, steampunk, whatever.
Some of solar punk seems to be “hey what if we did Soviet brutalist commie blocks but with more greenery”, so a more naturalistic and whimsical version of dense, organized, urban-proletariat society, which I think is kinda cool. Other times it looks more like an idealized version of what “techno-feudalism” would look like, a quaint, pastoral, sustainable version of being petite-bourgeois.
It’s also telling that one of the major artworks used to “promote” the aesthetic is literally a yoghurt commercial, but since it’s a cute animation, it gets a pass.
Soviet brutalist commie blocks but with more greenery
Of course, when you look at pictures of Soviet brutalist commie blocks that show the whole street instead of a single weirdly framed building, a lot of them fit that definition already (or at least they did until the 90s when the funding went away and nobody maintained the green spaces anymore).
It’s an aesthetic. And yes aesthetics are political, but I think this is one of those ones that can go either way, in fact I feel that way about most “Punk” genres. There’s been progressive and reactionary cyberpunk, steampunk, whatever.
Some of solar punk seems to be “hey what if we did Soviet brutalist commie blocks but with more greenery”, so a more naturalistic and whimsical version of dense, organized, urban-proletariat society, which I think is kinda cool. Other times it looks more like an idealized version of what “techno-feudalism” would look like, a quaint, pastoral, sustainable version of being petite-bourgeois.
Or as I like to call it, “Hobbitcore.”
It’s also telling that one of the major artworks used to “promote” the aesthetic is literally a yoghurt commercial, but since it’s a cute animation, it gets a pass.
Of course, when you look at pictures of Soviet brutalist commie blocks that show the whole street instead of a single weirdly framed building, a lot of them fit that definition already (or at least they did until the 90s when the funding went away and nobody maintained the green spaces anymore).