If Cirque du Soleil adapted The Cyborg Manifesto

November 4, 2018 4:42 PM

Help me find inspo pictures (especially around home decor/interior design) for this particular aesthetic: if Cirque du Soleil adapted The Cyborg Manifesto.

For ~reasons~ I've been looking at a lot of home decor/interior design books/sites/Pinterest boards and there's this particular aesthetic I can sort of picture in my mind but can't seem to find actual pictures for: a mix of theater, circus, and cyberpunk. It's a bit Hollywood/Broadway glam but quirky and futuristic. Think this theater dressing room, but maybe the mirror bulbs are connected via circutboard-esque lines. Or this dress if the stars lit up and the fringing was made of fiber optic cable

The best example I've found so far is this corset - gold and circusy but there's wires in the middle. This computer rig comes close but update some of the brass to make it more futuristic.

Things I'm drawn to:
- Gold and similar warm metallics
- The lines you'd find in circuitboards
- Sequins & glitter
- Deep shades - red, purple
- Layers, mess, chaos - really "punk"
- Some element of witchy/secret society/mystery
- Things that light up especially if the light isn't so in-your-face (fairylights, fiber optic cable)
- Something that responds to outside stimuli or even just changes in colour/shape/tone
- Stars and star/pentacle shapes
- Camp
- Wires and cable

Things common in either aesthetic that are less interesting to me:
- Neon
- Vintage/aged/old (I thought steampunk/dieselpunk/atompunk would scratch that itch but it's notttt quite right)
- Super clean lines
- Clockwork/mechanics
- Dour post-apoc gritty (like way too many TV shows)

Is there a word for what I'm looking for, especially when it comes to interior design? Any designers that work in this space already?

posted by divabat to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Sort of a weird suggestion but... the video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Wait, hear me out. I'm thinking of things like the ceiling here, or this or this room.

The art director describes the style as "Cyberpunk Renaissance" which is not Cirque du Cyborg but mayyyy scratch some of the same itches.
posted by perplexion at 5:41 PM on November 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Anouk Wipprecht's FashionTech (google image search) maybe?
posted by moonmilk at 6:28 PM on November 4, 2018

Doctor Who episode 'The Beast Below' might qualify?
posted by freethefeet at 6:33 PM on November 4, 2018

This is very much Janelle Monae's oeuvre, I think, at least pre-Dirty Computer. Check out the cover art for ArchAndroid, and if you listen to The Electric Lady as a full album there are delightful robot radio interstitials that have the sort of cluttered punk rebellion feeling to them that really jives with what you're talking about. The Many Moons short film isn't quite on point to what you're talking about but I feel like you'll like it regardless. These days she's more glam and less futuristic but if you look for it there's still an ongoing thread of it everywhere. Example: paneled top at a Star Wars premiere. You might find some inspiration from the set design of some of her music videos, too.

I think also that you'll find a lot of things that ping your happiness receptors if you look into Black Panther inspired stuff. The movie itself was quite fun of course, but there's this combination of royal drama, beyond future tech, traditional materials and saturated colors that really reminds me of what you're trying to articulate. In particular, the scenes of Shuri in her lab wearing very fashionable teen clothes doing comic science things might make you happy, or the slick power of Okoye fighting in a red dress with her gold accessories on top of a holographically controlled car.
posted by Mizu at 7:20 PM on November 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I think you might find some of this designer's work interesting: Joyce Wang.
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 7:25 AM on November 5, 2018