"...attitudes and budgets were much more in favor of science..."

August 28, 2013 8:40 AM

Simon Stålenhag paints digital alternate histories. More here. Previously.
posted by Acey (5 comments total)

This is how animals must see the world, mysterious and vaguely sinister monolithic structures littering the natural landscape. I guess that sort of explains Stonehenge as well. Anyway these are really cool paintings.
posted by stbalbach at 9:11 AM on August 28, 2013 [4 favorites]

I love these images. To me, they are a far more realistic image of the future, much like we experience the broken and decaying remnants of ages past, scattered across the landscape. Brilliant visions.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:46 AM on August 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

1. I quite like this one. It looks as if maybe a huge space station fell out of orbit -- a long time ago. A simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic notion.

2. This one evokes some of the work of John Berkeley (though, unfortunately, not the images in my link -- no time to search), whom I associate with the cover art of the STAR # SF anthologies and magazine ads for Otis Elevator.

3. " . . . decaying science facilities sprout from the harsh Scandinavian landscape."

It doesn't look harsh at all. You just wanted an adjective there. I do wish people would just go ahead and write what they have to say instead of trying to be-a-writer all the time.

"The artwork is impactful . . . "

*sigh*

4. Jeez, you kids . . . everything has to refer back to Star Bores.

5. VOLVOS!! And I would've thought a UniMOG or two would have been appropriate.
 
posted by Herodios at 9:57 AM on August 28, 2013

I noticed these in my feed the other day... He's a very skilled artist and these are deceptively simple. I'm not surprised he was inspired by old sf films as these look like concept art for something back from the 70s, almost Stalker-ish... *gives sigh and shrug and adopts Scandinavian look of stoicism at the realisation that nothing like this will actually be made today*
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:33 AM on August 28, 2013

This one reminds me a bit of Medical Mechanica.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:22 AM on August 28, 2013