The DamiLee video that’s been making the rounds generated some interesting conversation around the rather muddled aesthetics of solarpunk. It suggested that the lack of a coherent single aesthetic is a weakness for the genre, and I wonder about that.
I’d agree it’s a genre with fewer big visual examples to point to, and which is being pulled in many different directions.
At the same time, I wonder if it’s possible or even worth doing. I think it might be hard to get a good universal aesthetic going, especially in architecture, as solarpunk buildings should be built to fit their environment - what’s practical, energy efficient, and even what materials are locally available will depend on where the scene is set. Our current society, with its wealth of fuel and concrete, tends to drop the same cookie-cutter building into every climate and just burn more fuel to heat or cool it rather than adapt the design. As cyberpunk isn’t aspirational, the societies it depicts can do the same. But solarpunk would have to look very different in the desert than in a temperate rainforest, or a prairie. Similarly, clothing would have to vary as widely as there’s cultures and climates.
The only universal solarpunk aesthetics I can think of are the ones I’m trying to compete with with my own art (generally the impractical utopian megacities with touches of green). I’d wanted to pull people’s first impressions of solarpunk away from thinking it was an empty eco-utopian aesthetic, easy to dismiss like art of moon colonies or flying cities. I wanted to see if and think “hey why aren’t we doing this?” I try to cover locations, industries, and seasons we don’t otherwise see to show the genre has answers for that stuff.
Maybe that’s why I’m asking this - because if the lack of a cohesive aesthetic is a problem at this early stage, then I’m deliberately contributing to it.
Despite my own art goals, I’d actually love to have a visual shorthand to make my art more recognizably solarpunk. I sometimes reference some of the AI art people post to find bits and pieces of aesthetics that don’t change the message but hopefully pull it closer to what people expect (the solarpunk kitchen’s dark wood-paneled interior and red accent wall came from that kind of search).
Over on reddit, someone suggested that architecturally we could try to work out a specific style for each biome, and some elements of design that could be universal to tie them all together somehow.
So what do you think? Can it be done? And does this matter? Is a cohesive overall theme necessary to build the genre and reach people or just a way for marketers and Hollywood to repackage the genre, make it safe, and sell it back to us, the way they did with cyberpunk back in the 90s when they picked it too early? They defanged it by utterly absorbing it, using it to sell everything they could, making it this joke aesthetic with no deeper message. Cyberpunk won in the end, infecting science fiction with its themes and eventually aesthetics, until now it’s kind of the primary voice in the genre. But they pretty much killed it for a solid decade at the least.
I believe the solution for that are symbols. As a really stupid example Hawaii looks rather different the NYC and different again to say Texas, but the US flag is the same everywhere and when you see a lot of them, you are propably in the US. So using the solarpunk flag is a good idea. It can also be a built or painted. That is true for other symbols as well. A cross usually means it is a church or some other christian building. The Communist have red stars and hammer and sickle. You could just use the solarpunk star instead. Slogans are another one and using the word solarpunk in some for might be a good idea. So:
That’s a good point! I’ve thrown the solarpunk sun symbol in once (replacing some decorations on the wagon in the scene of the high speed train) but I haven’t included symbols very often. The airships could certainly have sported some variations, perhaps hinting at different points of origin. I’ll watch for subtle/natural places to include the symbols on my next scenes
In the mountain scene of a ropeway I did, I tried to reference steep-roofed mountain cabins and the kind of wooden visitor centers the state/state parks sometimes build around here for the transfer station building. In the solarpunk kitchen, I made the outside plain wood shingles on a fairly normal looking house. The one in-city scene I’ve done so far was a retrofitted parking garage turned mixed-use apartment building - that probably read the most visually as solarpunk, it was colorful, surrounded by plants, and the concrete had been painted with a mandala pattern.
I really like including art like murals in my scenes but they often act kind of like dazzle camouflage and confuse the scene, so simple patterns that are clear even when they’re faint, seem to work best.
From the existing pictures I studied for the kitchen, dark wood and kind of traditional carved panels seemed to play a role in interior spaces.
Maybe cabin elements in cold places, steep sweeping roofs, big windows occasionally, especially to show plants or other solarpunk elements? Plants showing in greenhouses?
Cities, the mix of plants and grey buildings with splashes of color seems to be somewhat standard so far
I really like the two-layer idea of a few overarching visual themes and more specific biome-specific ones - I will keep thinking on it
For livable and more relaistic purposes, I say a joined aesthetic is almost impossible. Solarpunk has a lot of communal elements in it, so cultural differences would be a big deal, and also, as you say, enviroments can vary a lot, so even the widespread notion of greenery might not be practical in deserts or tundras.
Maybe the more general hints of solarpunk could be man grown plants and some form of green power source, even though it will vary depending on the region. As for the rest, I feel there are too many facets to cover, as you show in your postcards; abandoned cities, small mountain villages, desert plains, so many styles of farming…
As for your art, I would say it’s a second stage inside of the movement. It’s not the type of artwork you show people without context, I would do that with the more green utopia ones with blue sky; but when showing your postcards, I would also show their explanation, they need the context of the movement and of themselves. The first stage is for getting poeple interested with a nice view (and here common themes are more consolidated), but the second one is as personal (or communal) as any implementation of solarpunk features in real life.
(I’m not sure I made myself clear :$, just let me know if I haven’t)
This was a really good response and I think a good point for me to think about with regards to my goals. It makes sense that if I made it in response to that utopian art, that it’d need it for context. (I do often see this project as an attempt at rounding out the genre, which is why I have depriorized some of the more generically solarpunk scenes on my list, in order to focus on elements you don’t see as often. but I’ll still try to tie my photobashes in visually where I can, and hope to get to them eventually).
Some amount of human-assisted plants, and green power sources are a pretty reasonable starting point for visual consistency.
Thanks for thinking this one over, I appreciate it!
They are possible, because modular designs are very efficient and sustainable, however, this being widespread is very unlikely. Nothing will be perfect, therefore it will need to change.
That’s a good idea - I focus a lot on reuse but I wouldn’t mind making new construction look modular - any examples you think are especially solarpunk?
AI art really likes adding greenhouse-like glass structures and geodesic domes in otherwise unspoiled wilderness but I’d want it to look practical
I don’t think it would fit the certain aesthetic that is currently seen as solar punk. My guess would be that it will be a mix of collective and individual living, within box-like modules with large windows. Perhaps even customizable windows, and shading systems that will be more flexible in terms of orientation and probably made of solar cells. I might try and draw up a mockup when I can find the time. Capitalism has been grinding me down to the bone lately.
Best of luck, I hope things get better. I’d love to see the scene you described someday!
