A Trip Back in Time:
How to Build a '90s Retro Gaming Rig

Nostalgia trends have been growing and growing recently. The value of Pokémon cards, for example, skyrocketed recently as recent influencers like Logan Paul and Randalph of the Sidemen have gotten involved into collecting. Tamagotchi has been making a comeback and Bandai has even released modern versions of them. Old school anime like Cowboy Bebop seem to revive themselves every year and even old school Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures keep popping up in my timeline. Maybe it’s all a side effect of the Mandela effect (which may or may not have something to do with that big ole’ particle collider).

Naturally, when you follow the nostalgia train all the way back to things like Samurai X, Beetle Borgs, and Power Rangers, you can’t help but think back to old school gaming and the classics that defined modern gaming that would follow. Sure, classics like Duke Nukem, Street Fighter, Sonic the Hedgehog, Unreal Tournament don’t have the incredible graphics and immersive, hyper-stimulating graphics of modern classics like Halo and God of War. But what they lack in graphics, they make up for in powerful story, era-defining combat systems, and all-round fun.

All this being said, if you’re looking for a kick of nostalgia and have some time and extra cash to spend, then this guide is for you. We’ll take a look at how you can put together an old school rig and get back to enjoying the classics that made gaming what it is today.

1. So Why not just Emulate?

If you’ve played a classic Pokémon game on a PC before, then you’re quite familiar with the concept of emulation. In a nutshell, emulators are computer programs that are designed to mimic the experience of classic games or games that aren’t intended for the PC, like Pokémon Yellow.

Unfortunately, however, due to the advancements in operating system and hardware capabilities, a lot of the original gaming experience is lost, especially the audio experience. There’s just something special about hearing game sound played through a square wave generator on an old mother
board.

Now, let’s start diving into the nitty-gritty of putting one of these bad boys together.

2. Let the Game Choose the CPU

As with all ventures in life, the best way to start is with a concrete idea of where you are going. It would be a shame to put together a massive '90s rig just to find out that your game of choice does not run well on it. Get started by coming up with a list of games that you are likely to play on your rig and use that as
a roadmap for building your parts.

In my case, I’d love to jump back into Diablo, Doom, Warcraft II, and Duke Nukem. So, we’ll be taking a look at MS-DOS era parts to get started.

As a computer nerd like myself, it's natural to want all of your parts to be the absolute best and fastest parts available for the time. There’s a counterintuitive twist with regards to retro games though. Due to the way the AI in many games were programmed, faster processors sometimes can mean unbeatable AI. You see, the faster your processor speed, the faster the AI can make a “decision” about how to punish your mistakes. Many games can simply be unbeatable.

Think about playing Metal Slug on the hardest difficulty, except now the AI can act faster than human reaction time. Yeah, not exactly a laid-back way to spend your Friday evenings. You’d probably end up rage breaking your monitor (and if it’s a CRT, you won’t likely get another one)! So, let’s avoid monitor-shattering rage with a wise processor choice.

In my case, the retro PC build begins with a Pentium Pro, which clocks up to 200MHz. Since I’ll be blasting heads in Doom and I don’t feel like fighting AI plugged directly into Skynet, the 200MHz processor is ideal.

If you’re looking for games that are dated around 1998, then try to get your hands on a Pentium III or Athlon, clocked at 1GHz. You’ll have plenty of processing power without the annoying ultra-powerful AI.

3. The Graphics Processing Unit

GPUs are an easier choice to make in a retro gaming rig and actually have a lot of room for shortcuts. Of course, there are a lot of old school 2D and 3D graphics adapters, but luckily for us, there’s a shortcut! By 1998, Nvidia and the other major GPU producers like 3dfx and ATI had produced adapters capable of both 2D and 3D resolution.

Of course, this is overpowering the rig a bit for a game like Doom, but it won’t come with the same annoying AI drawbacks as an overpowered processor.

For this build, I’ll be rolling with the Voodoo3 by 3dfx. This was the most popular adapter on the market at the time but there’s a catch. No 24-bit color. If you want a full spectrum of glorious '90s gaming performance, then look into the Riva TNT2 by Nvidia. You’ll get 24-bit color and a slight performance upgrade from the Voodoo3.

4. Choosing a Mother Board

Motherboards are kind of an easy choice to make once you’ve landed on a GPU and CPU. If you’re going with Intel, then your best bet is to avoid the Intel 820 and 840 like the plague. These motherboards used a “new” type of RAM called Rambus Ram. Rambus Ram was initially heralded to have higher
performance than SDRAM, but performance issues were common, and Rambus RAM would often flop under pressure.

If you’re still committed to Intel, then an 810 or 815 should be ideal.

Dell motherboards are a no-go as well, unfortunately. I know, I know. Those TV ads are popping into your head too. As awesome as it would be to pay homage to the things that once interrupted Dexter’s Laboratory, Dell motherboards from this era used a 6-pin CPU power connector, which has a unique pin configuration. Meaning, that the chances are extra slim that you find the appropriate power supply in 2021. We’re talking struck-by-lightning slim.

For this build, I’ll be rocking with an AMD K6-2 motherboard. You’ll want to ensure that whichever motherboard you choose, it's an ATX board. Otherwise, getting a case for it will be difficult or impossible.

5. Choosing the Rest of Your Parts

Now that we’ve gotten most of the core components selected, it's time to dive into power supply choice, storage space, optical drives and sound cards.

Power Supply Unit

The K6-2 motherboard is an ATX 1x board, which uses a 20-pin power connector. Lucky for us, nowadays there are still low-end Chinese power suppliers that you can find in this format. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a specific example to link to, so this is one of those parts of the blog you’ll have to search through eBay for (and there’s gonna be a whole lot of that happening anyway, trust me).

RAM

Since we’re running a K6-2 motherboard, we’ll need PC100 memory to work with it. K6-2 motherboards use Super Socket 7, and PC100 is the most compatible for it. Try to go for dual-sided modules when picking your RAM. These sticks have low-density memory and usually work better with the older chipsets.

Hard Drive

To minimize load times (probably a good idea considering our social media-debilitated attention spans), you’ll want to burn a copy of your game onto your hard drive. With this in mind, 40GB of space should be more than enough to store the few classics you’ll be playing, with room for plenty more.

Optical Drive and Sound Card

Last on the list we have something which may as well be considered extinct to modern gamers: a CD drive and sound card. Most modern mother boards come with limited CD drive compatibility (if any) and default sound cards at best. This wouldn’t fly in the '90s.

Sound cards and CD drives were mandatory for gaming, at least until you burned the game onto your hard drive. No particular advice on the type of CD drive, just make sure you get one. Technically, you could still download an old ROM and play without the need for a likely impossible-to-find disc.

6. Finding Your Parts

Unfortunately, there’s not a ton of guidance that I can give with regards to finding specific parts. The processor, power supply unit, motherboard and RAM can usually be found on eBay. The processors will be the easiest to find, but you may have to do some digging for the remaining parts.

Searching your local thrift stores, antique stores or pawn shops might yield something. Also, as GaryVee would say, garage sales are huge. There are a surprising amount of retro machines out there just waiting to be sold off for $20. Don’t be afraid to go on a nostalgic adventure, pop in to random garage sales, and start your next retro gaming rig.

VAPOR95 LIVE 4.0 REPLAY

IN CASE ANYONE MISSED THE FOURTH VAPOR95 LIVE STREAM...

We've uploaded September's full show for you here:

It was a privilege to bring thirteen artists together for a visual and auditory spectacle and to share that with our fans and friends was an honor. Thank you to everyone who joined us to talk and vibe with the artists, fellow fans, and supporters!

Special thanks to ΛDRIΛNWΛVE, CVLTVRE, Neon Vectors, Limousine, Pad Chennington, Future Girlfriend Music, Vaperror, Macross 82-99, Flamingosis, Android Apartment, Lola Disco, kissmenerdygirl, and Tupperwave and the Vapor95 friends and family! Follow, explore, and support these musicians if you had a good time at Vapor95 Live 4.0!

We're excited to do more of these shows so stay tuned for upcoming digital concerts by following the DARKNET Recordings Instagram, the Vapor95 Instagram, or our Facebook. You can also sign up for our mailing list on the bottom of our store's homepage.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT: ALEXA

We’re super excited to feature you in the Employee Spotlight this month! What's the first thing that came to mind when you found out you were next to be featured on Vapor95's Employee Spotlight?

Thank you. Excited to be featured! When I first heard I was going to be the next Employee Spotlight I was curious about what the questions would be. They tend to be pretty creative.

First, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at Vapor95.com. What does your day to day look like?

I live in Brooklyn and work remotely, handling marketing and PR at Vapor95, specifically working on influencer strategy and relationship building, managing brand partnerships, creator design collaborations, planning live streams, and events, and reaching out to editors for press coverage. My day to day varies a lot depending on what projects I’m working on. I can say that I do a lot of emailing, researching, and planning every day, and have to be pretty organized to stay on top of everything that I’m working on at once.

How did you find yourself working for the company?

I was friends with River (the founder of Vapor95) before working for the company. He knew that I was working really long hours at my previous job and wasn’t super happy there. He asked me to come work for Vapor95 and it was the greatest work decision I’ve made.

What did you do before Vapor95?

Before Vapor95, I was a Digital Strategist working on influencer strategy for a creative agency. I worked with a variety of lifestyle, beauty, and tourism clients as an account lead for everything influencer related.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a treasure hunter or an actress. I went to performing arts schools and had dreams of becoming a movie star, which is funny to me now because as I’ve gotten older I really don’t like being in the spotlight. When I initially went to college, I went thinking I wanted to pursue a career in creative writing. I later switched gears and went into marketing.

What are your passions and interests outside of work? What's your creative outlet?

Before the city shut down due to COVID-19, I would spend a lot of my time going to shows, mostly to see local Brooklyn bands, but also made sure to see larger bands I love when they made it to NYC. I like to snowboard in the winter, when I am able, but unfortunately didn’t make it out this past year. I wish I could say I have a creative outlet currently. I think I’ve had ‘start writing again’ on my to-do list since I graduated college. I have started getting into genealogy over the past few months while we’ve been stuck at home and have discovered so much about my ancestors. It might be lame, but in general I love doing research and discovering personal histories.

How do you relax when work finishes? What's your ideal weekend?

Working remotely, I sometimes have a hard time establishing a good work-life balance, partly because I’m excited about what I’m working on and also because I haven’t set up a consistent hourly routine for myself, so I often work late into the night. To relax, I like to take a bath, journal, read, light candles, and listen to music like Mazzy Star, Beach House, or J. Mascis. Pretty standard stuff I guess. 

My ideal weekend is being outside in the sun, laying and hiking around in nature. I feel so deprived of it after being stuck in a little apartment for months. I think I need to get more plants for my room!

What is your favorite part about working for Vapor95? What are you working on now?

My favorite part about working at Vapor95 is feeling like I’m heard and respected, and that what I have to contribute is valued. I am able to be super creative and try out any ideas I have. There is an opportunity to get involved in all parts of the business that interest me, and I think that’s pretty invaluable.

Everyone at Vapor95 is super cool and easy-going. There is an immense opportunity for everyone working here to grow and learn new skills as the company grows. 

Right now I’m working on a few things: finalizing our marketing calendar for the remainder of the year, launching new influencer merchandise collections that I helped design and am really excited about, managing co-branded collection drops, launching a new women’s collection, reaching out to the magazines about Vapor95 news, and managing our influencer and creator partnerships.

What's a secret about you that your co-workers have never heard before?

This question is reminiscent of having to go around the classroom and introduce yourself with one interesting fact about yourself, but worse. Working remotely I haven’t really had the opportunity to get to know all of my co-workers on a super personal level so there is a lot they probably don’t know about me.

If you had to choose, what is your favorite design at Vapor95, why?

My favorite Vapor95 design is the Severus, a limited edition, embroidered hoodie. I love all of the details that went into the design. I’ve been trying to get River to bring it back forever. 

I’m also a big fan of the Vinne Art designs, especially CyberVision, Prototype, and Always Cute.

We ask this question to artists we interview here. Letʼs say you get full artistic freedom on a billboard on the busiest road in a huge city where millions will see your message. What would your message be? Any combo of words and images is fine.

If it’s possible, maybe a semi-translucent, holographic billboard that simultaneously casts rainbows and the shadow of the words printed on it onto the road below. The message:

Remember Magic

Or maybe just this quote by Ernest Hemingway:

Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the romance of the unusual.

If you weren't working at Vapor95, what would you be doing?

Most likely working for another lifestyle brand involved in the music or snowboard industry doing marketing, events, and influencer stuff.

Where do you see yourself in five years? Where do you see Vapor95 in five years?

In five years, I hope to still be with Vapor95. I think we’ll be doing really big things and I’m so excited to see the brand evolve and to be involved in that growth.

Which year of your life would you like to relive?

Is this a situation where you go back to change something knowing what you know now about life? I don’t know that I would want to relive one specific year in my life, but I do look back longingly at my childhood and wish I could relive portions of it. The simplicity of life, when the most important things to me were playing outside with friends, and logging into AIM as soon as I got home. Summers spent climbing trees, catching hermit crabs at the beach, and believing in magic. When days felt like they lasted as long as my weeks do now, and memories of my favorite times were easy to recall. When I would stay awake all night to devour books and write plays that I’d make my family act out. I would go back to those moments when things felt calm, simple, and happy. 

What message do you have for the vapor95 fans and customers reading this who admire the brand and want to create something or do something similar?

First and foremost, thank you! Thank you for being excited about the brand and a part of our community. The customers and fans of Vapor95 are the most amazing, kind, and creative people I’ve encountered. Working for a brand that you feel good about and connect with is so rewarding. 

As cliche as it sounds, just go for it. Put aside any fear of failure and know that there will always be people out there who relate to and connect with what you’re doing. It may take time, and a lot of hard work, but you will find your audience or community. 

The Birth, Death and Resurrection of Tamagotchi

If you didn’t live through the '90s, you probably missed one of the biggest technological fads in recent human history. In this blog, we’ll be taking a look into Tamagotchi, the fad that took the mid '90s by storm and died a premature death shortly after.

What Was Tamagotchi?

Put simply, Tamagotchi was a tiny plastic egg with a black and white display and three unmarked buttons. In this plastic universe, there lived a digital pet that required care and attention, much like a real pet. Tamagotchi pets required feeding, loving attention, watering, and the occasional poop clean-up.

According to their origin story, Tamagotchi pets are alien beings, who required their plastic cases to remain safe from the Earth’s atmosphere. These pets would routinely alert you to their needs, at practically any time of day or night and should they be left unattended for too long, you could quite literally return to a dead Tamagotchi.

True heartbreak for any child of the '90s.

How it originated

Tamagotchi pets originally found life in the minds of Aki Maita of Bandai and Yokoi Akihiro, who worked for WiZ, a company that specialized in animations and toys. Interestingly, Maita wasn’t a toy designer at Bandai originally, but instead worked as an office manager, presumably helping with HR and logistics.

As the story goes, inspiration struck one day as she was watching TV and she felt the desire to create a pet that children could take with them anywhere and care for at all times. She brought her idea to Yokoi, who helped with the design process and even helped her shape the origin story for Tamagotchi.

How it became popular

Once an initial design was agreed upon, Maita did an incredible amount of groundwork to ensure that Tamagotchi would provide the maximal amount of entertainment and joy for children. Maita took several hundred prototype Tamagotchi pets into the High Schools of Shibuya. Then, they distributed them to high school girls, who she thought would be the primary demographic for the pets.

Once distributed, Maita conducted several surveys to fine-tune Tamagotchi pets into the powerhouses they would soon become. In November of 1996, Tamagotchi was launched in Japan and shortly after that, they took over the world.

Why Was Tamagotchi Such a Hit?

It's crazy to think that in a time where technological entertainment was advancing so steadily that something as comparatively simple as a Tamagotchi would become as popular as it did. By the time the Tamagotchi began its invasion of American shores, Gameboy, Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, and PlayStation 1 had all been released at this point.

Titles such as Super Mario 64, Pilot Wings, Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and Crash Bandicoot had all been released and were thriving. One would think that these titles alone would be enough to satisfy the technological or entertainment cravings of any mid '90s teenager.

However, Tamagotchi offered a type of entertainment and development that was entirely separated from an action or adventure genre.

Tamagotchi Provided the Illusion of Life

For those of us who lived through the '90s or were born before it, we’re probably all too familiar with the attachment we developed to our stuffed toys and action figures. We spent hours playing, constructing story lines, building “houses” and “neighborhoods” for them to live in with pillows and Barbie houses and anything else we could dream up.

We wanted them to live.

Taken out of context, that could seem extremely creepy, but these toys were already very much alive in our minds. The only thing cooler than acting out those stories would have been our toys being able to interact with us as a pet would.

Tamagotchi filled this childhood void, by pretty accurately simulating the demands of a real-life pet. This effect was amplified by the fact that Tamagotchi pets' needs would have to be addressed at seemingly random times, the same as a real-life pet.

Finite Lifespans Heightened Emotional Attachments

So long as you could keep your Tamagotchi functioning, you could theoretically play and engage with new pets for an eternity. However, each individual pet’s life lasted only a finite amount of time. In modern Tamagotchi pets, lifespans can technically be infinite, so long as users avoid making mistakes in caring for their pets. 

The average Tamagotchi of the past, however, would last 12 days or less. Which in effect made every moment we spent with them that much more precious. Every beep for food or play or cleanups meant a little bit more, since there was a chance that it could be the last one for that particular pet.

If Tamagotchi was So Popular, why did it die out?

The exact reason why Tamagotchi died out is still up for debate. There were several contributing factors, but one of the most commonly cited was the fact that they were so damned hard to keep alive for the average kid. Once the rush from being part of the trend died down and children began interacting with their virtual pets in depth, frustration became a common part of the experience.

Given their widespread popularity, many schools in the USA also moved to have them banned for a number of reasons. Most markedly was the simple distraction from the school curriculum. This resulted in a significant amount of cultural upheaval in the suburbs as parents were taking on the additional task of keeping their children's pets alive since they could no longer take them to school.

It’s safe to say that Tamagotchi didn’t die a pretty death…

If you’re Feeling Nostalgic, There’s good News

On a brighter note, there is some good news for those of you who are now feeling that pang of nostalgic hunger. Tamagotchi was recently re-released as a larger, full color version with more functionality than its black and white predecessor.

The new Tamagotchi On allows you to customize your Tama, raise them to adulthood, marry them and give rise to new generations of Tama who are combinations of their parents. There’s even an app that goes with it, allowing for connection with other Tama parents and fun minigames.

Seven Ways To Bring Some Aesthetics To Your Apartment

Apartment design usually seems like a really ambitious project. Repainting, relocating furniture, cleaning up before, cleaning up after. It’s probably seemed, for a long time, like something you can simply do later. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for you, we’ve all been forcefully given some extra time indoors. So, right now might be your best shot at actually getting some work done on your apartment.

Adding some style to your place doesn’t have to be a herculean undertaking though. There are a number of very simple things you can try to get that aesthetic look you’ve been searching for, without a ton of effort. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Full disclosure: many of these come from Vapor95.com.

#1: Philips Hue Lighting

One of the most obvious considerations when redecorating an apartment is repainting. Painting your walls can create a dramatic change in the ambiance of your apartment. This isn’t just a weird psychological trick. There’s actually a scientific basis for why this works.

Physical objects have a tendency to absorb visible light and other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. The color of an object is determined not by the colors they absorb, but by the colors they reflect or fail to absorb completely. So, an object that appears primarily red, is actually all colors but red.

Trippy? Yes, but core to understanding the next point.

The reason the “feel” of a room becomes cooler when you paint a wall blue, is because there’s slightly more blue light bouncing around the room now. This affects how you perceive things in the room, since the colors will appear slightly different.

This same effect can be achieved without all the effort of repainting an entire room by using the Philips Hue Lighting System. This system allows you to fully customize your lighting, switch colors when you’re bored, change the color and intensity for romantic ambiance, or even create epic shows that groove with your music.

#2: Heisei Accent Poster

The word “Heisei” refers to the period of time in Japanese history and culture which started in January of 1989 and ended on the 30th of April 2019, when Emperor Akihito abdicated from the Chrysanthemum throne. That probably sounds way too cool to be true but it’s a fact, not a video game story line.

This period in Japan’s history is characterized by a large expansion in the availability of technology and has thus promoted the spread of Japanese artwork and themes across the globe. This Heisei poster captures something of that period through its use of the color palette and a gun-wielding anime girl.
If you’re looking to add something unique to your room in addition to lighting, this is a solid choice. Given it’s use of color, this poster doesn’t even need lighting to be an accent.

#3: Gasmask Geisha Poster

In a weird juxtaposition of traditional culture, beauty, and modern warfare, the Gasmask Geisha can make an interesting accent piece in any room. There isn’t a ton of background info on the poster, though it clearly draws inspiration from anime-styled animation and even hints to some extent at the possibility of violence among the flirtatious musings of the geisha.

Being black and white, this poster can take on a number of tones and work well in pretty much any mood lighting you choose. It’ll also look stellar in a lighting music show.

You can find this poster here.

#4: Indoor, Desk or Tabletop Zen Garden

Regardless of how bland or boring your apartment may be, it’s hard to make a Zen garden flop. If you can afford to get a Zen garden sized for your apartment, setting one in front of the TV or as a centerpiece in your living room can be an incredible addition.

Zen gardens offer a ton of aesthetic value and make a significant contribute to a relaxed feeling in most apartments. If you can’t get a large garden, there are options for tabletop ones that offer similar value aesthetically. You can even make your own.

#5: Himalayan Salt Lamps

True Himalayan salt is harvested from the Khewra Salt mine in Pakistan. The salt here is argued to be millions of years old and gets its distinctive pink color from minerals found in the salt. Lamps made from this salt are believed to be healing in nature and provide a few benefits like:

1. Clean the air in your home
2. Soothe allergies
3. Increase feelings of well-being

While we cannot explore the veracity of these claims in this singular blog post, we can confirm that Himalayan Salt lamps, do lend an awesome, warming atmosphere simply by being placed in a room. If you’re hoping for a romantic movie evening or just good lighting for falling asleep, this is a solid bet.

#6: Miniature Cacti (And other easy to maintain plants)

Small cacti look cool. Nothing else need be said.

Jokes aside, a few well-placed plants can make a tremendous difference in any room, especially if they flower. Normally, the idea of taking care of something is a turn off, if you’re not a maintenance-oriented or care-giving person. The plants we suggest, however, are all easy to maintain and bloom without much difficulty.

They are perfect additions to our aesthetic list of easy things to do to make your apartment a cooler place.

Low maintenance plants in order of coolness:

1. Christmas Cactus
2. Amaryllis
3. African Violet
4. Hibiscus
5. Peace Lily

#7: Cross Room Themes

Cross room themes can be a good way to add some consistency to your apartment and “extend” an aesthetic to multiple places. Take for example the Scanset blanket and beach towel from our site. If your room and bathroom have similar base colors (like beige or white walls), then having this design as a center piece can catch your eye and fill the space nicely.

The best part of using a blanket or towel as a center piece besides the practicality of them, is their cost. Buying a blanket for room aesthetics is far cheaper than repainting and takes way less time to get set up. At the worst, you’ll actually have to make your bed to maximize your aesthetic. Not a bad way to start a good habit.

This combo can be replicated with many of the designs found on our site, since our blankets and towels come in many designs. If you’re feeling ambitious or are just very committed to color, there are a number of posters and framed prints which also fit this aesthetic.

Enjoy!

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
POST WOOK

We're so happy to feature you on our darknet blog! Tell us a little bit about yourself and how long you've been doing art.

Thank you! I am a full-time artist based in Los Angeles, California. My days are usually spent packaging up and placing orders, making art for clients, and making art for myself. I love going on hikes in the mountains here, and going to the beach. When I have free time, I prefer to spend it underwater scuba diving.

When did you start your artistic journey? And what made you dive into the world of collages?

I started making art as POST WOOK in June 2018, but I’ve been making collages here and there since I was 12. I don’t know exactly what sparked my interest in collage vs. other forms of art, but I enjoyed the process of cutting things out and pasting them more than learning how to draw or paint. My grandmother is a classically trained oil painter and after seeing how much time and effort she had to devote to her craft, I respected it but took my creative musings in a different direction. Oddly enough, we make similar art even if its a completely different
medium.

Please tell us about your creative process, how are your art pieces created? Where do you find the components of your works, are they also created by you?

I make my art on Photoshop now. In the early days way before POST WOOK, I used to cut out pictures and textures from magazines but found that Photoshop provides a way more compact and less messy outlet for what I want to do. I find my images all over the internet, and did a deep dive into copyright law before I started posting art publicly. The most important thing for finding art on the internet is making sure it's royalty free. Occasionally, my friends and followers who are photographers will send me their photos to use, and in the future I plan on getting a camera myself and taking some of my own photos to use as well.

How do the external world and current events influence your art and creativity?

I try not to make art solely based on current events but rather my feelings and emotions that derive themselves from whatever I’m seeing and feeling. Sometimes my emotions are inspired by current events, but I’m more so enthralled with the world around me.

Have you ever reflected on what draws you to surrealism? If so, what did you come up with?

I’ve always had an imaginative brain, and I didn’t realize how odd my worldview was until I started talking to other people about their perspectives. I’ve never gotten a medical opinion, but I’m almost positive I have synesthesia -- I can see and feel sounds in a way that I really can’t describe. My boyfriend is an audio engineer and sometimes when he’s putting something together I’ll describe it as ‘the smell of old leather’ or ‘ripping apart bubble wrap’ and he has no
idea what I’m talking about but it makes sense to me. When I look at people’s faces, they look much like Picasso’s cubism portraits which is why I tend to not use people in my art-- I never can find the place for them. When I listen to music, I see a world that looks like my art in a dynamic reality. I guess I make art that reflects the way I see things in a multi-layer, colorful and dysfunctionally functional world.

Could you tell us more about what you're creating/working on right now?

I’m very presently in an in-between phase with my clients, but I am doing a year-long project with the California-based, craft beer company Firestone Walker. I just wrapped up another year long project with the science and space publication, Inverse, and I’m currently working on a few projects I legally can’t discuss! But for myself, I’m planning on expanding my online store a bit more towards the end of summer to include new tapestries, blankets, and notebooks in addition to the maelstrom of prints that my followers and supporters love so dearly.

You have worked with big brands and musicians. Tell us about your favorite collaborations and the process of working with others.

This is such a good question! I really love working with Firestone Walker because the team is so laid back and fun to work with. I worked with Zillow in the very beginning of my career and that was also a very exciting project as well. I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of amazing clients though, it’s hard to pin down a specific project!

The process is just a lot of emails back and forth. It’s not super glamorous, now because of COVID it might be more zoom calls than anything else, but I’m usually just sitting on my couch taking notes and then revising projects. Depending on my direct and physical involvement in the project, something can be as hands-on as traveling for the brand and creating in-person content, or quite literally sitting on my couch revising it. With most things in entertainment, the big picture comes together once the project is finished and out in the public. That’s usually when
I can celebrate the triumph.

If you werenʼt an artist, what would you do for a living?

I actually loved my last day job and would do it again if I had to. I was an assistant for a private events team in a luxury hotel here in Los Angeles, and I really enjoyed that job. I’m an extrovert to my core and enjoy being around people and putting something together that makes them happy. I also love the logistics that go into event planning and execution, and the hospitality industry at large was the best industry (outside of art) that I’ve worked in.

What is your ultimate dream to accomplish with your art? How do you see yourself at the highest point of your career?

I really want to keep making an impact on the surrealism art world, and bring a new perspective to art. I’d love to see my art break into fashion at some point -- seeing my art on clothing in a runway show is definitely a goal of mine. I’d love to diversify outside of just digital art and start making more physical pieces for galleries and public art displays. I guess my tip top goal would be having my art as the display on the Los Angeles Convention Center, or to collaborate by name with a large brand like Gucci or Prada. I try not to think too much about the ‘means’ that lead to the ‘end’ because I’ve found that the path is always different that I anticipate.

Letʼs say you get full artistic freedom on a billboard on the busiest road in a huge city where millions will see your message. What would your message be? Any combo of words and images is fine.

Oh, I have so many things I could say. Before I even made art, I worked in politics and still have a deep affinity for reforming campaign finance because it can be a very dark place, so maybe ‘Overturn Citizens United’ -- or just ‘Vote’ if I’m taking the political route. Without words, I’d probably just make a nice landscape piece that portrays the surroundings of the billboard. I’m also a fan of abstract, almost troll-like art, so knowing me, I’d just put a big mirror on a billboard for no reason.

Finally, what would you say to up-and-coming artists who want to pursue their passion?

There’s so much! The most important thing is to think about the long term and your goals for the future. Invest in learning your craft as much as you can, and honing in your own style that sets you apart. Inspiration is great and can get you on your feet, but finding a new path to carve out will be far more helpful than trying to run someone out through their shadow. Google is a great resource for most questions, and you can learn a lot from different fields and people’s experiences. Become an expert in social media because the days of only getting recognition from galleries is over, and content is king.

Learn how to be your own agent and manager until you can find those people. I think all artists, not just visual artists, think there will be some superman that will do all of the logistical work for them so they can just make art. That might be true later, but learning how to be your own business manager will help you so much -- from correspondence with clients, to negotiating rates, managing a website, and organizing documents like contracts and tax documents. Art and business should go hand in hand if you want to succeed!

✨ POST WOOK ✨

INSTAGRAM
TWITTER
WEBSITE

✨FOLLOW DARKNET ✨

SOUNDCLOUD
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
BANDCAMP

Cyberpunk:
Your Summer Reading List

Postmodern dystopia has fascinated Western Society for years now. Unlike Mad Max, where technological development ultimately destroys us, and we spend decades returning to our baser instincts, Cyberpunk is an aesthetic that explores another version of reality where our first world problems reduce us to a “low life” yet high-tech society whose primary focus is on sexual and drug indulgence. 

Instead of living in a desert on minimal (and radioactive) food and water, we live in metropolitan society, with cybernetic body augmentation and (likely) machine overlords who moderate our behavior through drugs and access to holographic sex, I speculate. 

Like me, you probably don’t actually understand in too much detail what Cyberpunk really is or what it stands for, so here’s a reading list to help get you caught up. 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

The tricky thing with genres, especially ones as obscure as Cyberpunk, is that it's hard to find a point at which the genre becomes a unified whole. Cyberpunk effectively emerged from a movement known as the “New Wave Science Fiction movement”, which explored the impacts of drug culture, the sexual revolution, and the integration of technology into society. 

The New Wave Science Fiction Movement made a distinct break from the traditional archetypes of storytelling and began exploring a more somber side of human nature. Writers who pushed the genre emphasized the exploration of “psycho-literary ideas, more meta-biological and meta-chemical concepts, private time systems, synthetic psychologies and space-times, more of the somber-half-worlds one glimpses in the paintings of schizophrenics.” 

Though it wasn’t the work that solidified Cyberpunk as a genre, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, would hold every characteristic that would come to define the Cyberpunk genre. This masterpiece, written by Phillip K Dick, is set in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic San Francisco and follows anti-hero Deckard as he hunts rogue androids known as “replicants”. 

These androids were originally given to humans as part of an incentive program to establish off-world colonies following a global nuclear war that eradicated most life on Earth. Finding themselves opposed to confinement and desirous of freedom, six androids violently rebelled against their human leadership on Mars and escaped to Earth, hoping to remain undetected. 

Deckard’s mission inevitably questions the line between human and android and what it means to exist. It would go on to be renamed Blade Runner. Yes, the movie. 

Neuromancer by William Gibson

In 1984, William Gibson released his debut novel Neuromancer, which would come to be heralded as the novel that defined (or redefined) Cyberpunk.  Neuromancer is actually heavily inspired by Japanese cyberpunk, which came to life with the 1982 manga series, Akira.

The story follows Henry Dorsett Case, a now defunct super hacker, currently living in the dystopian city of Chiba, Japan. At the height of his power, Case was caught stealing from his employer, and was subsequently administered a mycotoxin that damaged his central nervous system and prevented him from accessing the “matrix”, a form of virtual reality. 

Having lived on the hit list of a drug lord named Wage, Case is recruited by Molly Millions, a mercenary who also happens to be an augmented “street samurai”. The two find themselves in the employ of Armitage, a mysterious ex-military benefactor, who offers to heal Case’s nervous system in exchange for his services as a hacker. 

Case is healed, only to discover that sacs of mycotoxin were implanted in his bloodstream during the process as an “insurance” policy against his rebellious tendencies. Case and Molly find themselves catching glimpses of a struggle for corporate power as their story explores the darkest aspects of human nature. 

Software by Rudy Rucker

Software explores one of the more interesting implications of neurotechnology and cybernetics, namely immortality and consequently, the ability or inability of robots to truly relate to humans. 

The story is told through the eyes of Cobb Anderson, a retired computer scientist who was once tried for treason for attempting to give a self-replicating type of robots known as “Boppers” freewill. Cobb succeeded to some extent and his robots proceeded to colonize the moon, only to return years later with a twisted offer of immortality for Cobb. 

The story takes a number of twisted turns and features serial killers, twisted mega corporations and an oh-so-essential dystopian nightmare America. 

Ghost in The Shell by Masamune Shirow

You may already be somewhat familiar with Ghost in the Shell since it served as an inspiration for the movie series The Matrix. (Yes, believe it or not, The Matrix series was Cyberpunk.) 

In this manga series, technology has been developed that allows for cyber augmentation of the brain which allows direct connection to global networks. This effectively allows for the transfer of consciousness from the biological to the digital and is emphasized by the main character, Major Motoko Kusanagi. 

As a child, Kusanagi’s body was destroyed and her consciousness was transferred into an artificial one. The story follows her as she tracks a group of ghost hackers taking control of cyborg minds, turning them into puppets. 

Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology by Bruce Sterling

Your best shot at a true overall picture of Cyberpunk is Mirrorshades. It features a collection of Cyberpunk stories that emerged during the ‘80s and as such, covers a broad array of themes and emotional explorations of Cyberpunk. 

Cyberpunk emerged somewhat chaotically, but Bruce Sterling paints a captivating picture in his introduction which serves to provide a context that helps streamline the exploration of this collection. 

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

There is probably not a trippier representation of Cyberpunk on this list than Snow Crash. Written by Neal Stephenson in 1992, the book features thrilling action, a deep and convoluted lore, and a roller coaster of intellectual sleuthing that leads to a satisfying and deliciously dystopian finish. 

Snow Crash jumps into action with the introduction of our main protagonist: Hiro Protagonist. Not a typo. It’s actually his name. (The comedy here is obvious, but don’t let that set low expectations for this novel.)

Hiro Protagonist is an almost obnoxiously perfect cyberpunk hero. He’s a technical mastermind able to hack pretty much anything, a sword wielding genius adept at combat and he delivers pizzas for the mob. Hiro’s interesting relationship with the female lead character Y.T., who saves his life early in the story, and anti-hero personality flaws add a depth to his character and it drags you deeper into the story.

To make a long (and amazing) story short, Hiro and Y.T. team up, track down a mystery drug that is mind wiping people and, in the end, vanquish the bad guy. Oh, and that drug is actually a linguistic virus, personified as the goddess Asherah, who has had her efforts to mind-wipe the human race thwarted by another god called Enki. Enki created a program called Nam-shub, which caused human dialects to break away from the original Sumerian, which remains the BIOS of the brainstem.

This book is full of awesome depth and intricacy like that. Read it. 

Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott 

Trouble and Her Friends is set at the end of the 21st century and features a world based around a virtual landscape, powered by computer networks that hold incredible amounts of data. Computer hackers enter into this virtual space and navigate it via “nodes”. This virtual space and the computer networks that power it are all owned by corporations who defend their property via Intrusion Countermeasures (Electronic) or IC (E). 

Our main protagonist, a former hacker and current system admin for an artist colony, who once used the moniker “Trouble”, finds herself diving back into the world of the “wild days” when someone starts using her old code and nickname to create havoc. 

Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson

Transmetropolitan is a comic book series, printed from 1997 to 2002, which follows the work of Spider Jerusalem, a journalist who has dedicated his life to working against the corruption of two successive U.S. presidents. 

At first, the comic book series is a collection of one-offs beginning with the documentation of police brutality against a group known as the Transient Movement. This group uses the genetic material of an alien species for body modification, thus becoming an entirely new species altogether. The leader of this group is paid to incite a riot, which the police then use as an excuse to clear out the slum in violent fashion which houses the Transient Movement. 

Following the publishing of the story, Spider is brutally beaten by police but insists that he is going nowhere.

The remainder of the story follows the antagonistic back and forth between President elect Gary Callahan, known as “The Smiler” and Jerusalem. Callahan bears a grudge against Jerusalem for what he sees as interference during his campaign and pulls no punches in taking revenge. 

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

Hyperion actually follows the story of seven individuals who have all been sent on a “Final Shrike Pilgrimage” on a world known as Hyperion. In this universe, exists the “Hegemony of Man”, a network of thousands of planets connected by “farcaster portals”. Hyperion is a planet that exists beyond the purview of the Hegemony and cannot be accessed without experiencing significant time dilation. 

On Hyperion, there are a series of structures known as Time Tombs, which move backwards in time and are guarded by a creature known as the Shrike. The story progresses through the individual viewpoint of each character, toward its ultimate end in the following novel. 

Beyond dystopian, this series explores a cultural and religious clash among AI, the implications of time travel, an age-reversing disease, and even the possibilities of genuine love between human consciousness and Artificial Intelligence. 

Metrophage by Richard Kadrey

Metrophage as a novel, is a little challenging to summarize into one paragraph. Truthfully, the plot twists so often and so wildly that you can make a solid argument for the book having little plot at all. For starters, our story (sort of) follows anti-hero Johnny as he ventures through a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles racing a bioengineered plague that is about to wipe out mankind. 

While we watch this adventure, in whatever way we can, we come to discover the horror that has become of the world. An alien invasion is threatening the world economy, cannibals abound and teenagers with switchblades and neural disruptors are the “police force”.

What Metrophage lacks in steady plot development, it makes up for with fun, explosions, action-packed sequences, and an in-depth exploration of an extremely twisted version of Earth. 

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Maalavidaa

We're so excited to feature your art on the Darknet blog and learn more about you! Your art style is really unique and mesmerizing! Please tell me a little about yourself!

Hi! Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, it’s always a pleasure to share about art with others. 🖤

I’m Alycia Rainaud, a 24 year old French graphic designer and digital artist currently living in Montréal, Canada. Some people on the internet might also know me as Maalavidaa. I feel like I’m some polymorph kind of person, as many creatives. Back in 2009, I used to be a hairdresser and somehow, in 2018, I graduated with a graphic design master’s thesis, because, of course, life’s not always considered as a straight path. That’s probably why, in the meantime, I started creating digital artworks under the name of Maalavidaa in 2016. I guess I get easily bored and always need to do several things at the same time :)

How long have you been creating art professionally? And what was the deciding factor for you to pursue it as a career?

From what I recall, I was already working on small client contracts back in 2016 besides school work. Everything came together pretty gradually. The more I shared my work on the internet, the more I had requests popping in my mailbox.

Honestly, I remember having the same feeling of gratefulness as I do now every time someone decides to support and trust my work for a project to happen. I guess it would explain why I became a freelancer right after I graduated in 2018.

To be fair, I felt — and always feel — so lucky that I was able to live from what I enjoyed doing at such an early stage of my life. I didn’t have any true professional experience apart from a lot of internships and it just felt like a blessing to have such creative freedom. There was absolutely no doubt about the fact that this job felt like home to me. I knew it from the beginning back when I started my graphic design studies. There’s something about passion, when you have it, when you find it, you know it and everything just falls into place. It felt like the right thing to do. :)

The way you use color to express mood is so incredible. Have you studied color theory professionally or are you self-taught?

Thank you so much! With graphic design courses, you indeed have to learn about color theory. I remember having quite a few lessons about that topic, it’s a recurring and really important lesson in my opinion. Most of the time we would evoke color theory for technical reasons or communication purposes. Of course, it really lifted my knowledge with colors in general. However, I’m always interested in learning new things and I read quite a few about (color)therapy as well which is such an interesting process.

Please tell us more about your artistic process! How do you go from concept to finished piece? What software do you use?

Somehow, when it comes to artworks, I feel like I don’t have any precise concept in mind. That’s why abstraction is a great tool, to me at least. I just get to go with the flow, listen to myself, and picture the mood I’m in. My process is quite simple and based on the analogy between tangible and digital work. I always start with a mixed media acrylic painting I previously made then digitalize with a scanner or a camera. Then comes the post-production part mostly using Photoshop, Cinema4D or Processing to enhance colors and movements, add some stars, make it spacey.

Your abstract work is heavily tied to feelings and emotional well-being, can you tell us more about what this means to you? Do you create to release and process your own feelings or to elicit specific emotions in the viewer?

From as far as I remember, emotions and mental health have always been heavy topics in my life. I’ve been quite early diagnosed as a hyper-sensitive precocious child. To say the least, I had to face quite a lot of unpleasant things in life, as a lot of us do. The more I grew, the more things got worse. I met quite an amount of therapists from an early age to 18, mostly because of major anxiety and depression. I feel like being so close to therapy all the time has led me to (over)analyze myself and others in a way that it also became a topic I’m passionate to learn about. I can’t even begin to express how much it means to me, but I found that my work could. I’m always curious to see what would happen if I’d merge topics together. As soon as I felt comfortable with graphic design and art, I tried to imagine how I’d be able to convey emotional intelligence into my work and maybe increase mental-health sensitivity. This thought crystallized itself when I met my latest therapist (she was Jungian oriented).

Jungian therapy encourages creative exercises in order to release and let go of thoughts and emotions. That’s what actually led me to create Maalavidaa and explore abstraction daily in order to have a safe and soothing space to breathe. Somehow I ended up sharing these bits and bobs on the internet and it resonated with people. It’s such an amazing feeling to see that artworks are able to become such strong emotional concepts without having to include any figurative elements. It’s a process you know, we’re leaning on each other, healing with each other, one step at a time. I couldn’t be more grateful.

We know you've done many collaborations! Which have been your favorite and why?

Oh, this is a tough one! I’ve done so many amazing collabs these past few years that it would be so hard to choose any favorite one. They’re all unique and witnesses of beautiful relationships built over the internet with talented humans.

Considering this thought, I’d say that my collaborations with Aeforia would be my favorite ones. Besides being a fan of his work in the first place, he became one of my closest friends. Alexy is so easy to work with and his aesthetic is unique. I feel like our work combined really well in an easy way. Maybe because both of our arts are so heavily tied to emotions. When we collaborate, things just fall into place naturally and I’m always pleasantly surprised with the results. It also pushes me out of my comfort zone with colors and sceneries. Such a pleasure to work with such a talented and caring human :)

Do you listen to music while you create? If so, what kind and how do you see it affecting your finished piece?

Definitely, all the time! It’s pretty hard for me to work without music since — you guessed it — my work is heavily inspired by moods and what a better way to picture a mood than music? Most of the time I just go for my Chilling and Crying on the Internet playlist on Spotify. It’s long as hell and full of artists I love. However, I sometimes find myself too stuck in my own taste. I love discovering new music because obviously, new music means new moods and new inspiration so I actually enjoy browsing other’s playlists. There’s quite a heavy relationship between music and artworks to me. Indeed, most of the time, my art pieces are titled because of a specific song, also because I’m not good with titling. Sometimes it’s easier to borrow other's words to describe a feeling you’re unable to put together.

Where do you see yourself at the pinnacle of your career? What would be your ultimate dream come true involving your artwork?

To be fair, it’s pretty tricky for me to capture myself at such a stage. I guess I’m kind of a pessimistic person. I’m always afraid of things crumbling apart at any moment. I guess that’s why I’m not setting any precise goals when it comes to work except for work more. But if I had to, I’d love to see myself as an honest and successful director. I’d love to share with people, work on the road with other creatives, brands I enjoy and stand for, do workshops, exhibitions, conferences. Take my work to another level, bring it to the tangible world. Maybe do some work for Tame Impala. Most of all, I’d like to see myself happy and mentally healthy.

Letʼs say you get full artistic freedom on a billboard on the busiest road in a huge city where millions will see your message. What would your message be? Any combo of words and images is fine.

Mmmm I guess I’d say It’s part of the process. That’s a message I usually shout. Meaning, it’s okay to feel the way you feel during your journey through feelings and failures. It’s part of the process. Somehow it’s gonna be alright, trust your gut, you have to go through this. Let the universe flow through you.

What advice would you give to passionate up and coming artists who want to pursue a career in graphic design?

Don’t be too harsh on yourself. Sometimes you’ll undervalue your work, and it’s okay. Sometimes you’ll think that there’s nothing more about you than you work. It’s wrong, and it’s okay. Sometimes you’ll not be able to disconnect from work, and it’s okay. Passion takes time to process. Sometimes you’ll not be able to create and it’s okay. Sometimes you’ll have to start everything all over again, and it’s okay.

Stay true to yourself, because when you feel like what you’re doing isn’t worth it, it will resonate with someone, and raise passion into them. Enjoy the circle.

✨ Maalavidaa ✨

INSTAGRAM
TWITTER
WEBSITE

✨FOLLOW DARKNET ✨

SOUNDCLOUD
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
BANDCAMP

Sophomore Year Slideshow

Vapor95 and Darknet Recordings present Sophomore Year Slideshow! 🎞📺📼 An 11 track compilation encompassing the sensations of finding yourself and your place in the world. ✨Featuring some of the most talented producers on the planet and specifically curated for maximum emotional impact, this new compilation by Vapor95 and Darknet Recordings is a hallmark in the realm of nostalgic aesthetics. Come with us on our journey to Sophomore Year Slideshow. 📽

Download

Stream

✨Follow DARKNET ✨
Soundcloud
Instagram
Facebook
Bandcamp

Welcome To The Vapor95
Quarantine Survival Guide

COVID-19 has impacted virtually every aspect of how we live our lives. It is affecting people on a global scale and we are all feeling the effects of measures such as self-quarantine and social distancing. Though these are no doubt necessary to protect ourselves and the global community, adjusting to this new normal can take a toll on our mental health. Luckily we are all in this together. Things like social media and Skype have bridged the gap between us and made something like self-isolation feel much less lonely. Quarantine in 2020 no doubt looks incredibly different than it would have over the years. Let’s take a look back at how quarantine has evolved throughout history.

14th century Venice was the gateway to the West. Ships would come with exotic goods, cargo and sometimes plague. Before they could dock they’d have to wait in the harbor for 40 days to prevent the spread of the Bubonic Plague or “Black Death”. In the Venetian language, 40 days was “quarantena”, which is the origin of the word quarantine. The first quarantine station was built on an island off the coast of Venice and many other European cities began building their own “lazarets” to house sick patients and maritime travellers. 

In 1793 a viral infection known as “Yellow Fever” appeared in Philadelphia and led to the creation of the first designated quarantine hospital in the United States, the Philadelphia Lazaretto. As outbreaks of Yellow Fever continued over time, Congress made the decision to implement the National Quarantine Act in 1878. This shifted quarantine decisions to a national level and we are still seeing the impacts of this in modern times.

Competing media narratives of contagion can drive a mind to the brink. There is much to know and little to do beyond keeping the door closed. If you’re stuck inside like we are, please know that the anxiety you might be feeling in the face of uncertainty is natural. The brain often knows no other way to react to uncertainty than with anxiety. Anxiety is the fear of a future that doesn’t yet exist as such, in the same way that nostalgia is a yearning for a past that never really existed. If you are at home and healthy, take a moment to breathe and remind yourself of the blessing that is your health and well-being.

Whether we end up being here for 40 days or much longer, quarantine is a time in which it can be hard to find balance. If you are lucky enough to have kept (a version of) your job then you’ll have to work, but will also need to find opportunities to relax. We are called in times such as these to reflect on how we maintain the health of our mind, body, and spirit. 

The good news is that there are plenty of ways we can overcome the feelings of anxiety, boredom, and monotony that are inevitable after spending a certain amount of time at home. We’ve compiled 5 expert tips on staying sane during the COVID-19 quarantine: 

1. Map out a daily schedule for yourself.

With many of us out of work or school, we’ve lost a sense of routine and normalcy. By creating a routine for yourself, you can maintain a sense of stability. 

2. Maintain communication with family and friends.

We are all in the same position and many of your friends and family are likely feeling bored and anxious as well. Modern technology has brought us closer than ever and times like these show us how far we’ve come. Keep in touch with your loved ones through social media or Skype.

3. Set a Daily Goal.

Try to map out at least one thing you want to accomplish for the day. It can be anything from practicing a new language, trying out a new recipe, giving your dog a bath, or even just making your bed. But setting and achieving a goal is a great way to feel accomplished.

4. Avoid Too Much News.

It’s very important to stay updated and aware of the unfolding situation, but too much exposure to negative news can take a toll on our mental health and ramp up anxiety. Try to tune out the news for a bit and engross yourself in a book or film. Try out a new hobby. Play a game with your family. Put on some music and dance. Get your mind off of the current situation as often as you can and know that all of this is just a moment in time that will pass. 

5. Try Something New.

Have you always wanted to learn a new language? Have you been talking about trying to write a book for ages but never quite found the time? Want to blow your family’s mind with some homemade lasagna? This unexpected chunk of free time many of us are experiencing is the perfect excuse to take up a new hobby. Turning your boredom into something productive and fun is a great way to make the time pass quicker. 

We at Vapor95 want you to feel supported during these confusing and unusual times. We are in this together. Our staff have compiled lists of films, television series, anime, YouTube channels, books, games, and music to help make passing the time a bit less daunting. Feel free to reach out to us with suggestions of your own! And always remember: you are never alone.

Spawn Wave Media (Gaming news)

Boundary Break (looking at what’s off-camera in video games)

Jim Sterling (video games criticism)

Ryukhar (Super Mario Maker wizzard)

State Azure (for ambient music and hardware lovers)

Andrew Ucles (for Steve Irwin fans)

Frank Yang (for the weirdest, deepest influencer ever)

Academy of Ideas (for learning and growing)

Nerdwriter1 (for very cool analysis of art, people, and ideas)

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Altered States

Reality Bites 

The Darjeeling Limited

Titanic 

Dead Poets Society 

Empire Records

Stalker

Aguirre, The Wrath Of God

American Movie

Brainstorm

Ninja Scroll

Kung Pow

The Matrix

Sans Soleil 

The Big Hack 

Pride and Prejudice

Tomorrow Never Dies 

The Matrix Trilogy (including The Animatrix)

Love Death Robots

Fight Club

Yes Man

Avatar: The Last Airbender 

Apocalypse Now Redux

Mulholland Drive

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Eraserhead

U Turn 

Izo

Audition

The Godfather Part 1 & 2

Birdman

Heat

The Fall (by Tarsem Singh)

Paprika

True Lies

The Tree Of Life

Licence to Kill

Donnie Darko

Valerian

Alita: Battle Angel

Avatar

The Fifth Element

Back To The Future

Interstellar

The Wolf Of Wall Street

Inception 

The Middle of Nowhere by Ruby Haunt

Images du Futur by Suuns

Beach House

The Advertisers 

Fiona Silver 

Miranda and The Beat

 Dirty Fences 

Dinosaur Jr. 

Kurt Vile

Yo La Tengo

Kid A by Radiohead

Massive Attack

Ed Rush & Optical

Carbon Based Lifeforms

Jackie Gleason

Sufjan Stevens

Mozart‘s late string quartets 

Hilary Hahn playing the Chaconne from Bach’s 2nd Partita for violin

All The Way Up by Fat Joe & Remy Ma 

All of Montiverdi’s Madrigals 

Cursebreaker X by Equip

Polychrome by Koan Sound

Rose by Abra

Leaving EP by Skrillex

Untrue by Burial

Vapor95 X Darknet Mixes

Human by Henry Saiz

Nothing Is Still by Leon Vynehall

Destination Unknown by Pig&Dan

Damage Control by Mat Zo

Nuovo Morceau Subrosa by BT

Tipper

kll sMTH

Charles the First

Supertask

String Cheese Incident

Excision

Estas Tonne

Eminem

AC/DC

Two Steps From Hell

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky

Tales of Power by Carlos Castendeda

The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Woolfe

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Beastie Boys Book

The Stand by Stephen King

The Shining by Stephen King

No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins

Wu Tang Manual 

The Last Don by Mario Puzo

The Family by Mario Puzo

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins 

The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown 

Just Kids by Patti Smith

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer.

The Kingdom Of God by Leo Tolstoy

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson

Hyperion by  Dan Simmons

Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

The Rainbow by DH Lawerence 

Art Without Death: Conversations on Russia Cosmism by e-flux journal 

Finding a Form by William Gass 

Futures Past by Reinhardt Koselleck 

Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens 

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Altered Carbon by Takeshi Kovacs

The Spy Who Loved Me by Ian Fleming

Here Comes The Roar by Dave Shaw

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

Anything by Kurt Vonnegut 

The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time by Preston Nichols

The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

Dark

The Office

Mad Men

Halt And Catch Fire

Maniac

Undone

Off The Air by Adult Swim

The 100

Brutal Doom

Fallout New Vegas

Super Mario World

Parasite Eve

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 

Donkey Kong

Nickelodeon GUTS (for Super Nintendo)

The Witcher 

Wild Hunt

Earthbound

Battlefield

Starcraft 2

Fallout 4

Oceanhorn 2 (on Apple Arcade) 

Super Mario 3D land

Kirby Planet Robot 

Mirrors Edge

Far Cry 

Gravity Rush

Need For Speed 

Assassins Creed 

Super Mario Kart

Twisted Metal: Black

Final Fantasy 1 

Def Jam: Fight for New York

Antichamber

Overwatch

Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild

Super Mario Map Maker

Witcher 3

Diablo

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Escape From Tarkov

Forza Horizon 4

Destiny 2

Akira

Paprika

Castlevania

Ninja Scroll 

“I recommend making music (at least trying). It's the most fun and amazing thing to do and if you don't know how to, you now have a lot of time in your bedroom to learn to make some beautiful sounds.”

“Get online design courses."

"Prepare your e-commerce business and strategy and run it out when the world situation is back to normal."

“Buy the dip.”

"Invest in crypto or biotech while the prices are reaching zero, if you can. It’s a win-win for you and the world, because the biotech center is trying to make a vaccine and you will get paid when the vaccine is finally developed and works."

"A good time to start a YouTube channel."

"Write your own book."

 
Comment Below & Tell Us How You're Getting Through This!

Ghost District EP

By MidiEvil

MidiEvil takes us on a journey to the Ghost District with 5 amazing records on the EP. We're very excited to feature this incredible artist and his latest EP today on our blog, DARKNET!   

"You walk through a ruined city. Trees reach out for crumbled ruins, and moss color one side of each structure. Vines crawl the sides of buildings. You are alone. You walk to a stream that runs through this city that has been eaten away by nature. You sit down and close your eyes. As the sun reaches the horizon you start hearing the river murmur to someone, the evening insects call warnings to those of the day and the birds warn you that the night is coming. All seems to create a luxurious blanket of sound. You open your eyes and you are immediately blinded by the setting sun. You realize you are not alone. You have never been alone". - MidiEvil

The first record on the Ghost District EP is Lost Soul. At once the ambiance in the track transports us from the familiar world around us, to somewhere far away from our present reality.  We are on a personal journey to the Ghost District. Small insects give this track a feeling of daylight fading into dusk. The thick synths side-chained as the beat gets louder gives the song a beautiful foreboding sound. Of course, it has to come with a lush 808 bass that strikes at the core of this song. "A lot of my music is made pretty late, and I thought this song gave you that introduction to the night. It is the whole start to the aesthetic.” - MidiEvil 

Next one up is called Hustle Graves. The off-kilter drum gives a wonderful swing to the song, while a reverbed lead breaks away at the beginning of this one. Another side-chain on the back synth gives it swing while the effected organ works with an 808 to give the back bone to Hustle Graves. Lots of open space and cuts give a variety of edges to listen to. A lot of different feelings from this one. “I just couldn’t seem to make her understand…"

Moving onto the next track, we hear Corrupt Files, less is more with this song. The pitch tuning bends that synth just enough to give it movement. Pound it out on the MPC, add some natural bird sounds for the environment and let it ride. The kick, snare, and hat are very trappy in this track, but the synths are very ambient with a little lead. The sounds work so well with each other, it's hard to argue that there needs to be more. Groovy. 

The 4th song on the EP is called Corrupt Files. The song evokes the feeling of being at the bottom of the ocean and is probably the most Vaporwave sounding track on the album. A very lush, rising/falling synth stem is held long enough to hear the movement, and an off step lead creates wave-like effects throughout this song. "Be like water. Go with the flow." - MidiEvil

MidiEvil closes this amazing storytelling EP with a 5th and final track, Boredom. Again, a simplistic track, but the sounds is what really makes it pop. Vocals and reverb work together, and the intermittent lead seems to break up parts of the song. This song has almost a Latin percussion that gives it a different bounce. Boredom symbolizes daybreak and the moment everything seems to end, but instead begins. The ghosts leave knowing that they will return again once the day has its turn. 

INTERVIEW

We're so proud to feature you on our DARKNET blog. Ghost District EP has been getting an incredible response on so many platforms! It truly is a work of art! Tell us a little bit about yourself and your musical background. Where are you based and what got you into music making? 

I hail from Minneapolis Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes. I have been creating music for over a decade, mostly as a producer for hip hop artists in Minneapolis and Duluth, Minnesota. Right now I currently produce and DJ for LOWH1FUNK (Duluth), Strictly Hammers (Minneapolis) and EL.I.BE (Minneapolis). We have toured as far as Jackson, Mississippi and I have opened for artists like Lizzo (In the group GRRRL PRTY, way before Lizzo got to where she is at today), Doomtree and even Afroman to name a few. In the last couple of years, I have been branching out to create more solo pieces and I have been enjoying every minute of it. My start was born out of necessity turned to passion. Common to the Vapor95 DARE style, I had to make a decision of either choosing the party life or creating music for others (and myself) and I chose to create. It saved me and my close friends from losing each other to the scene we were involved in. I picked up a laptop one day, using GarageBand, and created songs note for note. I don’t use that method anymore and have been working with Reason and an MPC. It taught me about the finer details (and the struggles) of music. Now I have my own studio and spend a lot of late nights creating and listening. It is amazing what having your own space can do for your creative outlet.

Where did you hear about Vapor95? Have you always been into Vaporwave music and aesthetics?

You know that little ad that always pops up when you are browsing the internet that targets what you like? Vapor95 is the only ad I have ever clicked on, and that is how I found V95 and its Instagram, Darknet and everything in between. Random, but crazy how it all worked out. I started with a lot of Lo-Fi and trap music, but I have always loved the Vaporwave culture, as I think it has been a vibe that has always spoken to me. The colors, the greek roman marble busts, the Asian culture aesthetics, the anime, the lush wavey sounds of grainy Rhodes synth, I love it all! Whenever I need a break from music I am still playing Rush2049 or Legend of Zelda on my 64. Guess a part of me never left the ‘90s.

Tell us about your musical idols and where you draw your musical inspirations from! 

My first big start from someone who really inspired me was C318, the guy who produced all the music and even the sounds for the original Minecraft game. I used to watch people play and immediately was drawn to the beautiful ambient melodies that seemed to fit the mood of every single aspect of the game. If we go even further back it was the Ocarina of Time (Legend of Zelda) soundtracks. I loved that 8-bit ambiance. I have always tried to recreate that in some form or fashion with my music. Right now, I have been really hooked on artists like Laxcity, REACH., Alex Lustig, Ghostemane, Olswel and Hanz. Each has a futuristic sound with heavy bass. It seems I like to have a very lush sound with heavy 808s, and it seems to transpire into my own creations. My wife has also coined the term I use to describe my sound: Ghost Music. She usually wanders into the studio late and asks if I am making music for ghosts. Ambient synths with trap-like 808s seem to give it that feeling, so I have used the term when describing my sound or genre.

Please tell us about your music writing/creative process? How often do you collaborate with other artists? Who would you want to work with the most?

Usually, the only time I can work on music for extended lengths of time is late night, so I like to put on some anime without any sound (Cowboy Bebop, Mushi-shi, Samurai Champloo are my favorites) and play away. I tend to track everything out with an MPC. I find synth stems or loops that I really like, or make some and just create the melodies as I go. Drums are usually first, so I can loop them and play around with synths as long as I want. I typically start with a sound or a vibe and just work my way around how I'm feeling with it. The anime seems to influencer the vibe as well, as I watch it during small breaks. I have collaborated with only a few producers, but with a lot of hip hop artists and MCs in the midwest area. My dream collab would be with Laxcity or Hanz. Those guys are phenomenal in their workflow. They also do a lot of collaboration with SoundCloud artists, their sound is right in my wheelhouse and everything they seem to touch is gold. Right now, I hope to talk to some other producers willing to collaborate, that would be something I would like to do more.

How do you see yourself at the highest point of your career? What would be your ultimate dream to accomplish with your work and when do you see that happening? 

I see myself producing for up and coming hip hop artists and creating more solo EPs on a higher level. I kind of like staying out of the limelight, but just close enough to it, if that makes sense. I just want a lot of people to enjoy my music as much as I do, I think that would be the highest point in my career and my ultimate accomplishment. I have created music that I truly enjoy as an individual and I have had to battle internally to stay confident in what I do, especially when it comes to reaching others. My music has always strayed from the mainstream path and I have found some people don’t like to wander off that far. I just want to create music that people can vibe to on repeat. That would be huge for me. This EP has kind of had that feel to it, and the response has been amazing. I would like to keep pushing that further. No better time than the present, right? Huge shout out and thank you to Vapor95 and Darknet for giving artists like myself an opportunity to reach people who search for music like mine.

How often do you perform and where could we see you live? Can you tell us a little about your upcoming shows? 

My next show will be at Cadence Coffee and Records in St. Paul Minnesota with EL.I.BE April 11 at 7 p.m., which will have Marcel P. Black coming from Baton Rouge. Louisiana. Marcel P. Black has been touring with his theme “Real EmCees don’t rap over vocals”. The next one I have on the books is a wonderful event called Homegrown Music Festival in Duluth, Minnesota. This event is a week long music event spread across many bars and venues throughout Duluth. My group LOWH1FUNK will be playing Dubhlinn’s Irish bar Friday, May 1st. This event is a Duluth staple and has a variety of genres, bands and entertainment throughout the entire week. We are talking a couple hundred bands and over fifty venues during that week. This will be my sixth or seventh year playing the event and I couldn’t be more excited, so if anyone is in the area I highly recommend coming out to see a lot of that event. Thousands of people come to this event and it seems to get bigger every year. Libbfest will be rocking this summer as well, a festival held by Bear Lake in Brimson, Minnesota and hosted by some of the coolest people in Duluth. They hand build their stage every year and have some great experimental bands that usually end up collaborating with each other late at night. If anyone in the Minnesota area is looking to learn more, feel free to send me an email in my SoundCloud bio. 

Finally, we would love to ask, what would you say to up and coming artists who want to pursue their passion?

Make music for you, first and foremost. Yes, music is meant to be enjoyed by everyone, but if you can’t enjoy your music fully, then the music will not be as meaningful -or create something more for you. Don’t let what’s hot determine your style of music. Take the pieces you like and incorporate all your favorite sounds into a track and EXPERIMENT. Try something new and don’t tell yourself no. One more thing- music is like anything in life: if you really want to be good at something, put in the time to do it, even when you don’t feel like doing it. Some of my best tracks have been created on nights I just wanted to be lazy, but told myself I had to at least give it some time. I have found myself on those nights three hours in and bobbing my head. Keep consistent, work hard at it and love what you do!

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Nick Kempton

1. Nick Kempton aka Nickjaykdesign, one of the most aesthetic visual artists in the world. We're super excited to have you featured on our blog DARKNET and be able to share your incredible work! Can we go back to when you first decided you wanted to make art? Tell us your story! 

So basically, I have been around computers since I was very young, maybe 6 or 7, and I have always played around with graphic tools like Paint.NET, GIMP & Photoshop. I can remember making wallpapers when I was about 12 that I would post on DeviantArt. I have a lot of passion for graphic design and just being creative in general. I started the 'Nickjaykdesign' project back in 2017 to try to learn more tools and get back to creating.

2. The world in your art is very aesthetic and dreamy through sets, environments, and color schemes. Tell us about what goes into the process of creating your art? Tell us where the inspiration for your characters, textures and the world come from?

I am heavily inspired by movies, music, and the world around me. Often times, I will start a project just by looking around for inspiration on Pinterest while listening to some music. A lot of my art is also inspired by photographs of neon cityscapes. They are just something so beautiful that I cannot get over them no matter how much or how often I look at them.

3. How long did it take you to achieve your very distinct style? And what kind of softwares do you use to achieve the final version of your work?

I would say it took about a year and a half to achieve the capabilities to be able to create my own distinct style, but I feel it also took a lifetime of being inspired to achieve it. I use Cinema4D, Octane Render, Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects most often to create my work.

4. Do you listen to music while you create? If so, what kind and how do you see it affecting your final product?

I absolutely listen to music while I create. Music is a part of who I am. I think I pretty much always have music playing around me at some capacity. I listen to a lot of different kinds of music but most often it is probably EDM. Music is a beautiful thing because it can make you feel anything. It can make you feel happy or sad at any moment. I think that's why it's special to me. It affects my work as often times emotion can be seen shining through the art and those feelings are generated depending on what I'm listening to.

5. Your work and name spread fast in the music scene through the artworks you made for certain artists. Is there any upcoming collab you would like to tell us about? and also, how often do you collaborate with a visual artist?

I have so many projects that I will be showing soon but none that I can currently say :( I don't typically collaborate with other visual artists. Maybe I should do that more often :P

6. How do you see yourself at the highest point of your career? What would be your ultimate dream to accomplish with your work and when do you see that happening?

Honestly, I think working with some of my favorite music artists is all I want. I love seeing my work shared with a big platform and seeing reactions and emotions from viewers. Also, a big motivation for me is inspiring others to create. When someone tells me that my work inspired them, it's really a big deal to me.

7. Do you work on other projects besides Nickjaykdesign?

I don’t really work on other projects, I try to focus my time on my Nickjaykdesign project to really perfect my craft

9) Finally, we would love to ask - What would you say to up and coming artists who want to pursue their passion?

Be inspired. Look at everything you can. Read books, watch movies, look at photographs. Go out and explore. Let the things you see be your motivation. Always listen to your heart and don't let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do...

✨Follow Nickjaykdesign's Instagram ✨

or

✨Visit nickjaykdesign.com for more! ✨

VAPOR95 SYMPOSIUM 2019

On the weekend of July 5th, 6th and 7th Vapor95 hosted its second pop up shop experience: The Vapor95 Symposium 2019. Held in Los Angeles, the 2019 Symposium featured a three day Vaporwave shopping mall experience, a runway fashion show, and dance party, all in the surrealist Creatington Studios.

The Symposium featured Vaporwave design and art installations by eminent Los Angeles art gallery Chewing Foil as well as artists Internet Paradise, Tara Noir and Lordess Foudre.

Day One kicked off with a one-of-a-kind aesthetic shopping experience fulfilling all of the shopping desires you came to expect from Vapor95, with racks of clothes, pins, shoes, blankets and nostalgia inducing times.

We wrapped up the first day of shopping with Cherdleys' fashion show while Alain de Saracho provided the retro auditory bliss for the catwalk. Journalists and press abounded while our models showed off their aesthetic fits.

It was amazing meeting so many fans, customers of Vapor95 and supporters of our brand and cause! We are so thankful for everyone that came. 

Day Two. Racks and racks of your favorite Vapor95 fashion. A statue of h e l i o s pierced into the souls of those who entered. The iconic V everywhere.

After day two's all day pop up shop we had the official Symposium after-party with a plethora of DJs. This was made more epic by a spectacular light display on the dance floor and TV wall curated by Paul Plastic and Chewing Foil. Cyna started off the night with some spectacular synthwave, Baja Ajax played us his pure all original set of Vaporwave, Frank Javcee got the dance floor moving with his late 90's, early 2000's pop hits playlist. Corbo dazzled with his surrealist Vaporwave set played on a modular synthesizer, and Spook Daddy ended the night with some throbbing Caribbean booty music and breaks.

Day Three was a sad day, but all good things must come to an end. Experiences end but feelings are everlasting.

What a splendid way to spend three days. Fashion, art, music, design, nostalgia, and bliss.

Make sure you check out this killer video to get a taste of the fun we had.

Go ahead and subscribe to our official YouTube channel so you don't miss out on fun stuff in the future.

Don't feel bad if you missed this pop-up, like we always say, 'the aesthetic revolution is only getting started'.

Stay tuned for news about our next pop-up experience.

Wanted Dead or Alive

by Katherine Murphy Sanchez

Dead malls. Vaporwave. Niche interests, to be sure. A neon-lit, Muzak-accented little corner of the internet where it’s always 1994 and where the ache of nostalgia both awakens and nurtures pleasant feelings. When asked what exactly piqued their interest, members of these communities often say something like this: The music and accompanying imagery make them feel lonesome for a time that never was, a childhood they never had, a place they remember without having actually experienced it. Fact of the matter is that it’s hard to put into words. Like ASMR, you either get it or you don’t (and full disclosure: I definitely don’t get ASMR).

For many, discovering the dead mall and Vaporwave communities is like coming home to people who feel the same way they do. It’s a feeling that has lived in them always, and stumbling upon these communities finally gives them the words to talk about it.

As kids, my brother and I discovered a shared love for these spaces many decades before we ever talked about it, too.

Growing up in Albuquerque in the early 1990s, the Wyoming Mall was a major fixture in our lives. We’d trek there with our mother at least once a week, because that’s where Furr’s, the grocery store, was located.  Behind the scenes, she and our father budgeted very carefully, but we never knew it.

What we did know was the sticky fizz of the store-brand lemon-lime soda that would clunk down when you deposited 25 cents into the machine. The slightly scandalous and always educational  explorations of 49-cent video rental section, gazing in silent wonder at the covers of movies we weren’t allowed to watch, like “Pulp Fiction.” And on a sauna-like day, the kind that only New Mexico can make, nothing beat stepping into the tiny refrigerated floral department. I can still smell it - garden hose and carnations.

Outside of grocery trips, our father would take us to the Wyoming Mall in the evenings after he got home from work so we could browse the dimly-lit Everything 99 Cents and the brightly-lit Service Merchandise. We’d go there on Saturday afternoons with our mother, too-- a fabric store was located at one end of the mall and it was there that she’d stock up on fabric for our handmade Halloween costumes, the ones we planned out months in advance, drawing up blueprints with Mr. Sketch scented markers.

The Wyoming Mall was home to Planet Fun, the location of countless birthday parties we attended in elementary school, and Sandra’s School of Dance, where I took exactly two tap-dance lessons before realizing I possessed no coordination whatsoever.

And (this just has to be pointed out): In addition to Furr’s supermarket, there was also a buffet called Furr’s Cafeteria. They were of no relation and were not owned by the same people.

Simply put, the Wyoming Mall is inexorable from our childhoods. Our memories don’t exist without it. It was more than a shopping center. It was a part of our lives. And on the day where we discovered a (in hindsight, super a e s t h e t i c) tiled hallway with a fountain that connected some of the shops from the inside, we got that same feeling you get when you have a dream that you’ve found a new room in your house. By the early 1990s, that part of the mall was already dying. The main anchors -- Furr’s and Service Merchandise, and to some extent, Everything 99 Cents and Planet Fun-- lived solely in the strip mall sections.  So discovering this whole, unexplored section of a place almost as familiar to us as our own home gave us a shared feeling we couldn’t really name, one that we couldn’t place until decades later when we discovered the dead mall community online.

I know I said it can’t really be put into words. But I’ll try.

That small, tiled hallway, lit by fluorescent bulbs and blue neon, accented by potted palms and a rushing fountain, made me step outside myself at age 6, made me wonder “is this all there is?” Something about that hallway made me aware of my existence. And for me, so much of what appeals to me about dead malls and Vaporwave is that they straddle the line between ignorance and awareness, innocence and experience, optimism and realism. They form a pastel line straight through my early 90s childhood all the way to right this very moment, reflecting the fact that no matter how much I’ve changed, I haven’t really changed at all.

Upon learning about dead malls, and in seeing photographs of spaces so similar to the ones I experienced in my childhood, I immediately went in search of information on the Wyoming Mall. I came up empty-handed. So did my brother, and his search went much deeper than mine. He scoured the internet, of course, but he even dug through the archives of the Albuquerque Journal. All he could come up with was the fact that the mall was established in the late 1960s. As far as photos, all he could track down was a single image of the mall’s back corner by the parking lot, a painted cinderblock building under a cloudless New Mexico sky.

We decided that someone out there must have pictures and information about the mall, so I posted to two Albuquerque-memories Facebook groups: “Does anyone have any photos of the OLD Wyoming Mall (intersection of Wyoming/Menaul)? The land is now home to a Wal-Mart, but it used to have Tom Young's gym, Service Merchandise, Planet Fun and Everything 99c, just to name a few.”

While the groups had a combined membership of 60,000, I didn’t really expect anyone to respond. But answers flooded in, one after the other, ping ping ping until I had to turn off the notifications when they began to distract me as I worked.

So many people remembered the mall! And not just remembered. It was a vital part of so many lives. Some of the commenters had worked in its stores, hung out there as teenagers or were taken there as kids just like I was.

One woman responded that she saw the very first “Star Wars” movie at the movie theatre that was already long gone by the time I was a child. One man revealed that he had rolled his car in front of Woolco long ago, and another told stories of bartending at a dark restaurant called El Patron. A couple of people shared stories of meeting their spouses at a nightclub there -- marriages now going on 40 years.

I got what I asked for, too -- photos. Beautiful ones. A shiny black Corvette Stingray in the parking lot, the blue and white Wyoming Mall sign behind it on another blazing, sun-drenched New Mexico afternoon. A teenage boy with a shiny brown bowl cut in 1976, smiling in his rust-colored shirt outside the record store his father owned inside the mall.

For a community that essentially exists only online, the whole experience showed me how little we truly know about dead malls, even the ones with a heavy presence in the community. And especially the ones that virtually don’t exist on the screen, no matter how deep the Way Back Machine goes, or how many pages of Google Images you sift through.

Outside of these two threads in private Facebook communities, Wyoming Mall essentially doesn’t exist. There’s a Wal-Mart on that land now. The mall itself was demolished at least a decade and a half ago. I’m not sure exactly when. Perhaps that’s a question for another Facebook post.

If nothing else, Vaporwave and dead malls reinforce that almost instinctive feeling that time isn’t linear.

The writer Mitch Albom said: “The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, I’m a five-year-old, I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, I’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.”

If this is true, then do the places we lived stay with us, too? I think they do. We are, each of us, tender webs held together by the faint strings of everything we’ve experienced and everywhere we’ve been, both alone and together.

I think that dead malls aren’t dead at all, that they’re very much alive in the hearts and minds and memories of a great many people. Just in the time it’s taken to write this, 34 more people have commented with their memories of the Wyoming Mall.

As for my brother and I, we have grown up and moved away. Neither of us live in New Mexico -- I’m in Seattle, he’s in New Zealand.

Last time we were both in Albuquerque, we drove over to that Wal-Mart, and around the perimeter of the parking lot, looking for who knows what exactly. Some reminder of what was once there? The weathered-shingle apartments across the street were the same, and so was the tan, Brutalist miniature office park that gazes down onto the corner of the parking lot where the fabric store used to be.

But there was nothing there - at least nothing that existed the way that it used to. Just the enormity of memories. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. The mall’s not dead at all. Close your eyes, the fountain turns on. It’s alive.

It lives in me still.

Katherine Murphy Sanchez is an animal lover, a road-trip taker and dead mall enthusiast, and she's been writing stories since childhood. She is an advertising copywriter and the author of 41 plays for children. Her favorite Vaporwave album is Dan Mason's "Miami Virtual." She lives in Seattle with her husband, Chris. 

The Science of Nostalgia: Reasons We Love Looking Back

Nostalgia is a bitter-sweet feeling that can often be just a bit more sweet than bitter. If you’ve ever stumbled upon a sentimental token from your childhood and found yourself in a dreamy reminiscent state, you’ve experienced nostalgia.

Technically, nostalgia is defined as: “A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s homeland or to one’s family and friends.”

But a technical definition doesn’t capture the magic that a moment or two of nostalgia can bring about. Seeing an elderly couple dance to a favorite song from their youth or remembering your first trip to Disney while you “nom” on some cotton candy can put you in a good mood for days.

Nostalgia is, for now, as close to time travel as we can get.

(Or so we’re told…. *Cue Twilight Zone Music*)

For a brief moment, a passing smell, an old catch phrase or a TV show re-run can take us away from the present stresses of life and can transport us back to a blissful time. No worrying about finances, no stressing about your job, it’s simply you and pleasant memories to indulge in.

Far From Home?

This occurs because a part of our brains called the reticular activating system is helping us identify meaningful occurrences to us. The RAS is a group of nuclei located in diverse areas of the brain. They are primarily responsible for transitions between wakefulness and sleep, but also play a big role in our behavior. One of the reasons that business coaches encourage people to visualize things, write goals, and use affirmations is because these things activate your RAS and help you discover opportunities that you may have missed before.

Have you ever bought a pair of shoes you thought were unique, then started seeing them on EVERYONE? It’s not that the shoes weren’t there before, but now that they have meaning to you, your RAS has gone to work locating them around you.

The Bliss of Childhood Levity

Almost every '90s baby (myself included) has spent at least SOME time thinking about how much better cartoons were back then compared to today.

(Note: I still stand by this...nothing beats coming home to Samurai X, Dragon ball Z and Pokémon in one action-packed block after school. Dragon Ball Super is amazing though, so maybe there’s an argument to be had.)

If we were to somehow measure the quality of cartoons in the '90s, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they were comparable or identical to those on TV now. Sure, there’s something to be said about the classics, but with the advances in technology we’ve had, it’s no surprise that more and more amazing shows are being developed.

One of the primary reasons we remember the '90s as being so amazing- besides Pokémon Yellow- is because we were children. We perceived the world around us in a relatively limited way. Our biggest concerns were getting decent grades, meeting people like us, and the crazy stuff happening to our bodies once puberty hit. Our experience of the world, thanks to our parents, was relatively untainted and thus, we had way more room to simply enjoy being alive.

We Tend to Remember Things Better Than They Were

As we age and move on from past experiences in life, we tend to reflect upon them with rose-colored glasses. This phenomenon is actually referred to by psychologists as “rosy retrospection”. As explained by Scientists Terrence Mitchell and Leigh Thompson, we often rewrite our pasts positively in order to build our self esteem.

This ties in very closely with our experiences of nostalgia and why it’s such a pleasant occurrence. In hindsight, that first kiss, first beer, or first date seems even more phenomenal than it may have actually been.

This isn’t a bad thing, or something that needs to be corrected. In fact, feelings of nostalgia can be a sign of a normal and healthy human psyche.

We Only Experience the Present, But That Doesn't Mean the Past is Dead

It seems crazy to think about, but there is both a scientific and a philosophical reason that the above statement is true.

Let’s start with the philosophical one.

Perception is Everything

Regarding the human experience, perception and perspective are king. Our reality is ultimately subjective, since we all see through our own pair of eyes. Sure, we can practice empathy and exercise our imaginations to approximate where someone else is coming from, but ultimately we construct our own views based on information we have at hand and our own perspective.

Following this logic, we can both agree that a red flower is red, but we’ll never be certain that your red is the same as my red. The point here isn’t to explore the idea of intimacy of mind-our inability to directly share thoughts or memories- but to emphasize that the human experience is subjective.

This subjectivity is what keeps the past alive in many of us. Our perception of events etches them in our memories in one form or another. Some people stay afraid of dogs their whole lives because of a single bad experience with a puppy as a child. Is that memory somehow dead?

Does its occurrence being isolated in time somehow render it inert?

No.

Our memories are very much alive when it comes to our own human experience.

Now for the scientific perspective. If you thought things were cool so far…buckle up.

Everything You Have Experienced and Will Experience is Happening Right NOW

Quantum physics is the branch of scientific exploration that deals with the nature and behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic levels. Without going into too much detail on the basis of quantum theory, let’s highlight a concept that evolved from the study called superposition.

Superposition is the ability of a physical system to be in multiple states at the same time until it is measured. This idea is the basis of the Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment.

Allow me to illustrate.

If we were to put a roach into a completely sealed box and enclose it with some poison, we are unsure if the roach is dead or alive until we observe it. Until we open the box or detect the odor of decay- the roach is both alive and dead at the same time.

When observing the minuscule particles that make up matter, this situation is rather common. These particles “seem” to blink in and out of existence constantly, which is why electrons are described by probability and not by location and time. At least, that’s how things seem from our perspective. In the “3D world” where time is mostly invisible, flow is perceived by the change in objects moving through it. It’s a bit like seeing a flower age, a house under construction or ice melting. If we were somehow able to see objects in “4th" Dimensional reality, we’d see every possibility that exists for a particular object. Thus, from the fourth dimensional perspective, all of our possible past(s) are LITERALLY alive in the “now” just as much as all of our possible futures.

Tell us, what gives you that nostalgic feeling?