Abstract:

“Bedroom producers” have started to play an important role in music production as a result of the development of music technology and the hardware required for music production becoming accessible and portable. While these developments created producers who produce music introvertedly in their most private spaces, they also enabled the effects of individualism to be observed in electronic music aesthetics. The industry, which created accessible hardware and software, has increased individual production in the field of visual design as well as in electronic music production. In these two fields, numerous sub-genres have emerged as a result of this individuality. One of these sub-genres, vaporwave, emphasizes and praises the consumption practices observed from the ‘70s to the ‘90s. In doing so, vaporwave is actually engaging in a form of consumer critique of capitalism. Vaporwave excludes today's technology, rejects high resolution and prefers to remain frozen in time and see the world through the eyes of the past. Vaporwave differs from other retro movements due to its ironic criticism. The aesthetic elements of the vaporwave genre, observed in the field of music and visual design, carry clues to the sub-text and cultural basis of this movement. In this study conducted using a comparative method, the stylistic elements that provide the aesthetics of the vaporwave genre in the fields of music and visual design have been determined. The relation of the vaporwave genre with consumer capitalism has been analyzed based on these elements.

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