Domains 2017: The Poster

The Buffana has swept away the festivities here in Italy, so I guess it’s time to shake off the holiday sleep and get back in the swing of things on the bava. I’m heading back to America for the next few weeks, so that should wake me up a bit. It’s been a fairly busy break between setting up servers and entertaining my awesome nephew Liam from California. A kid who is full of pleasant surprises and happens to be a spitting image of his father.

It’s kind of surreal to spend time with your nephew and constantly see your older brother’s visage straight out of your childhood. It’s difficult because you realize how much of his life you missed, while at the same time there is a comforting sense of continuity and familiarity. I can faintly see my own childhood through him, as well as what which will come after for mine. And while nothing is clearer to me than it was 27 years ago when I was Liam’s age, it is nice to see it is all still there.

Anyway, that’s where my mind has been, but the first order of business I attended while attempting to get back into a work rhythm was chat with the great Bryan Mathers about the art for the upcoming Domains 2017 conference. Bryan had been sharing some versions of his work on twitter, and I dug the vision of a person in a bubble on top of a record.

Now then, I like this idea (thanks to my son for the hand!)
I wonder how different it might look with different hands?#domains17 @jimgroom pic.twitter.com/LBMesWy9V3

— Bryan Mathers – @bryanmmathers (@BryanMMathers) December 14, 2016

That went through some discussion on Twitter, and the real life hand beneath it was kind of an interesting blurring of the cartoon with reality in Bryan’s work. But the idea of the sphere and the hand made me think of Sci-fi art from the 1970s. In particular, it made me think of one of my favorite Twitter/Tumblr accounts, you guessed it, 70s Sci-fi Art.

I pointed Bryan to the site, and we discussed some of the colors and designs, as well as the exploration of scale and landscapes. Soon after that he came back with a quite brilliant poster for Domains 2017. Feast your eyes on this masterpiece:

For me it captures the spirit of the conference beautifully. An homage to pop scifi art from the 70s that imagined a future equal parts fantastic, technological, and dystopian—although there is even room for a couple of visions of future Utopias 🙂

I’m loving this poster, and it is getting me fired up for more. And luckily we have more to share about the conference this week, including our super special keynote!