Vaporwave as the Pop-Art of Jameson’s Postmodern Hyperspace and Debord’s Spectacle
In his recent article for Dummy Magazine, Adam Harper formally outlines the pillars of one of the most groundbreaking artistic commentaries to develop in recent years: vaporwave as a musical subgenre and it’s correlation with muzak, a pejorative term coined for the kitschy corporate stock music that’s “‘piped’ into insurance offices, ocean liners, hotel lobbies, and department stores,” (Owen, The Soundtrack of Your Life 5). Put simply, muzak is music that is fundamentally a product of capitalism; built and designed in the interest of selling the ideology of consumer culture, muzak exists only to “tap into the airwaves of global techno-capitalism”(Harper, Vaporwave and the Pop-Art of the Virtual Plaza 4). Vaporwave then, as it’s concurrently referred to by critics and enthusiasts, formally attempts to critique such music, appropriating typical generic, corporate stock music into something eerie, unsettling, and ultimately, through analysis of its discourse, enlightening in its rejection of the techno-capitalist attempt to disorient and dispel the consumer to sell a product, a process distinctly reminiscent of Jameson’s description of the Westin Bonaventure. In the following passage, I will proceed to analyze these two tenets, the kitschy muzak of the late twentieth century techno-capitalist plaza, both in Harper’s literal and metaphorical uses, and its droll pseudo-ironic Internet critique, vaporwave, according to Jameson’s concept of the “postmodern hyperspace” (Jameson, Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism 44) and Debord’s conceptualization of “the spectacle,”(Debord, The Society of the Spectacle 1) in its attempt to sell both products and ideology.
Fundamentally, muzak is representational sound created in the needs of capitalism; its sole creation and existence is built on the ideology of selling a product. From its inception in 1922, Muzak, the international corporation from which the name is derived, sought to extend corporate branding beyond the image, using typified music to further target the consumer audiences of businesses around the world (Owen 4). This can be seen as an extension of what Debord coins “the spectacle” (Debord 1). Just as Debord sees the spectacle “as instrument of unification…the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness,” (Debord 3), muzak functions to both unify and debase the commonalities of the human relationship in pursuit of the idealized life. Where Debord sees human relationships shifting from “having into appearing” (Debord 17), muzak functions as an extension of the spectacle, speeding up the process and further reinforcing commodity fetishism and the absence of the authentic social life. Muzak typifies and brands the consumer in a way stylistically similar to advertising in consumer culture, with the end result of each (i.e., selling the product) as the highest goal. While advertising, which is namely the medium (along with cinema) under which the spectacle rose to ubiquity, functions through different means, its fundamental intention to unify consumer culture in the pursuit of the product distinguishes its similarities with corporate muzak.
The spectacle functions to unite all social relations in pursuit of the image. Similarly, muzak follows this same model, using instead the relationships between the consumer and their environment. According to Harper, muzak “fills and creates the space in which the business of capitalism is conducted, be it the motivational seminar on innovation or the propaganda of representation, suffusing them with an artificially purposeful aura…this music belongs in the plaza, literal and metaphorical, real and imaginary – the public space that is the nexus of infinite social, cultural and financial transactions and the scene of their greatest activity and spectacle” (Harper 3). In a literal sense, muzak has historically been used as background music in many incarnations of the postmodern structure, from office lobbies to public shopping malls, always as depthless, vapid, filler music (further characteristic of the postmodern nature in its depthlessness). But as with the metaphorical postmodern hyperspace, muzak thrives on its ability to disorient, and subconsciously promote the tenets of capitalism. Just as the Westin Bonaventure hotel “transcend(s) the capacities of the individual human body to…cognitively map its position in a mappable external world” (Jameson 44), muzak works to maintain this transcendence, further disorienting the human body in its environment. The fact that the two are often pared together is further characteristic of what Jameson sees as the postmodern hyperspace’s surreal attempts to create “a kind of miniature city…(a) new utopian space” (Jameson 40-41) in its disillusionment and distortion of spatial relations. This utopian idealism is the basis for vaporwave’s critique of not only the laughable kitsch of corporate stock music (which is especially distinct in retrospect), but also of the unsettling dystopian undertones of global techno-capitalism in its attempt to reinforce commodity fetishism.
Vaporwave, as it’s collectively referred to by critics and enthusiasts, serves as a critique of the aforementioned muzak, and more largely, the techno-capitalist culture under which it was created. Outlined formally by Harper in his piece for Dummy Magazine, avant-gardists like James Ferraro and Will Burnett (of INTERNET CLUB and ECCO UNLIMITED) initially sought to pitch-shift, heavily process and ‘screw’ corporate stock music in a way that “‘dehumanize(s) hyperreality by focusing on infinite generation of ideals as shown through commodities’” (Harper 5). From a post-modern reading, this appropriation of muzak is pastiche by definition, and its redirection both acknowledges and subverts the intentions of the initial pieces. The name, coined from the word ‘vaporware,’ or “software or hardware projects undertaken by a tech company that is announced to the public but which, after much time passes, never actually comes to fruition” (Harper 4) implies large scale corporate faults and plunders, distinguishing the rejection of muzak’s capitalistic intentions and its pastiche appropriation into its own commentary. Categorized by glitchy Windows 95 graphics, obsolete hardware forgotten in the tech world’s pursuit of the newest innovations, Eastern characters and high-tech skyscrapers, vaporwave seeks to build an alternate reality rooted in the utopia promised by late twentieth century techno-capitalist futurism, whether ironically or otherwise.
In Jameson’s acknowledgement of the futurist accelerationism of the Third Machine Age, he cites the rapid development of new technology in cars, high-speed rails, guns, televisions, computers, and even high-tech architecture as fuel for the post-modern, existential disillusionment and detachment from the ever-racing modern society (Jameson 35-36). Vaporwave, through the appropriation of such imagery, turns this accelerationist angst on the attack; its use of corporate imagery, samples, and motifs pushes capitalism faster and faster towards insanity, causing liberation, revolution, or simply ideological destruction in the process (Harper 1). This accelerationism is a recurring characteristic of the dystopian cyberpunk genre mentioned by both Harper and Jameson and the parallels between the cyberpunk genre and the futurism of global techno-capitalism, which vaporwave attempts to critique, are especially distinct. In some sense, the postmodern hyperspace is distinctly dystopian; the disregard for the human body’s ability to locate itself in attempt to “transcend all the older habits of bodily perception” (Jameson 45) can be seen as an example of the multinational corporate conglomerate attempting to rewrite human relations in their own interest. Using architecture to rewrite human relations in the interest of selling a product is inherently dystopian and distinctly characteristic of cyberpunk dystopias in films like Blade Runner or The Matrix and, as often the case with the protagonists in cyberpunk works, vaporwave works to undermine, or at least openly distinguish, the attempts of a domineering corporation to systematically control the populous. This dystopian attempt to rewrite the relationship between the human body and its environment in the interest of the corporation correlates the postmodern hyperspace with the cyberpunk influence mentioned by both Jameson and Harper.
Just as the Westin Bonaventure hotel transcends the relationship between bodies and their environment, vaporwave’s ability to disorient and alienate creates a chasm between reality and representation. Both the postmodern hyperspace (and corporate muzak by extension) and vaporwave attempt to reject reality in favor of the ideology they profess. Just as the Westin Bonaventure “ought not to have entrances at all” (Jameson 40) since entrances link it to the rest of the city and reject the notion of the postmodern hyperspace as its own city, a typical vaporwave track often “loop(s) out of sync and beyond the point of functionality or standing alone”(Harper 4). Both of these instances bring the faulty seams of ideology to the forefront of the product, emphasizing the significant chasm between ideology and reality. Since the hotel cannot function without accessible entrances, this fault in ideology is minimized and displaced as much as possible within the design. However, since vaporwave functions namely as commentary, it loops, pitch-shifts and ‘screws’ the utopia of the virtual plaza, creating a harsh, grating sound in a way that brings each muzak sample’s faults to the forefront of the track.
Take for example, James Ferraro’s 2011 album Far Side Virtual, which is often regarded as a formative work in the subgenre. The album redirects the kitschy ‘retroisms’ of hypnagogic pop into a pastiche collage of the twenty-first century (Harper 2). Even the cover art furthers this commentary, with an Apple iPad and a Google Street View image stylized with the bright colors of kitschy late 1980s and early 1990s pop culture. With track titles like “Starbucks, Dr. Seussism and While Your Mac Is Sleeping,” “Google Poeises,” and “PIXARnia and the Future of Norman Rockwell,” Ferraro attempts to distinguish and alienate the techno-capitalist influence, with specific reference to multi-national conglomerates like Starbucks, Apple, Google and others, that have become so enthusiastically welcomed in the everyday life of the twenty-first century. Tracks like “Global Lunch,” “Solar Panel Smile,” and “Sim” make direct plunderphonic refrences to the tasteless sounds of Skype call tones, Nintendo Wii startup music, and Sim City computer game background music through the direct sampling of such music and tones. In one interview with the music blog Altered Zones, Ferraro described how he initially conceived the album as 16 ringtones, a medium he saw as a perfect representation of global techno-capitalism’s encroaching influence, hidden behind the millions of screens inside each consumer’s pocket (Emilie Friedlander, Artist Profile: James Ferraro). He uses the muzak of the postmodern hyperspace as a reference point to comment on the current widespread proliferation of global techno-capitalism in the twenty-first century.
From these lines, the correlations between Ferraro’s masterpiece and Jameson’s postmodern hyperspace are easily evident. In the aforementioned interview, Ferraro says, “‘I’m drawing from these things that have been psychologically tweaked to make us happy…these are little expressions that tie us all together as a globalized thing’” (Friedlander). Corporate muzak is fundamentally created to sound optimistic, light, and cheery, but executed in such a utilitarian way that it provides no distinguishable joy to the listener. Similarly, the postmodern space is presumably created in the interest of the consumer, creating the most efficient transport systems or decorating the interior with elaborate fountains or art, but these embellishments are ultimately just a referential extension of corporate affluence and add nothing of artistic value to the interior. Ferraro emulates this groundless optimism, tweaking it through a lens of twenty-first century idioms and making something eerie and dystopian from this notion of artificial optimism.
Vaporwave, specifically as critical opposition to the corporate mood muzak of the late capitalist plaza, illuminates the faults of global techno-capitalism, bringing them to the forefront of its discourse in a way that is indirectly referent to both Jameson’s qualms with the postmodern hyperspace and Debord’s conceptualization of the spectacle in its attempt to sell both products and ideology. Muzak functions to both unify and debase the commonalities of the human relationship in pursuit of the idealized life, just as Debord’s spectacle encourages continual commodity fetishism by reinforcing “reciprocal alienation” (Debord 8) in pursuit of the idealized image. Vaporwave loops, pitch-shifts and ‘screws’ the utopia of the postmodern hyperspace into something eerie and grating, a pastiche rejection of the techno-capitalist’s attempt to disorient and dispel the consumer in the attempt to sell a product. This musical subgenre brings both Debord’s conceptualization of the spectacle and Jameson’s postmodern hyperspace to the forefront of its discourse in a way that illuminates contemporary issues with capitalism on a global scale.
