Static Dreams & Digital Decay: Mapping the History of Vaporwave is the first comprehensive book on the culture and history of vaporwave. Focusing on music, visual art, and the digital community, it tells the story of a DIY internet movement that began in the early 2010s, when a group of queer and neurodivergent teenagers from the U.S. started creating weird net art collages and remixing 1980s synth pop, smooth jazz and mall muzak in their bedrooms and sharing their works online. Vaporwave emerged from the ashes of short-lived subgenres such as chillwave, witch house and seapunk. Often interpreted as a post-Marxist commentary on consumerism, the niche genre evolved into a framework for digital art that explores pop culture nostalgia and the distortions of human memory. Static Dreams & Digital Decay draws on a pool of interviews with over 50 artists and activists from all around the world. For the first time, a book succeeds in providing a real overview of vaporwave's evolution and subgenres, its key themes and techniques - told in huge parts by some of the most important protagonists of the scene.
