117 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

Things from the Loop, pp. 18-19, 2015 © 2016 Simon Stålenhag
VISUAL

Megastructures and
nostalgia for the future.
A CONVERSATION WITH

Simon Stålenhag

BIOGRAPHY
Simon Stålenhag (b. 1984) is a Swedish concept artist. His work combines his childhood
with science fiction visions resulting in a typical Swedish country landscape with
retrofuturistic elements. “Tales from the Loop” was ranked one of the “10 Best Dystopias”
by The Guardian, along with such works as Franz Kafka’s The Trial and Andrew Niccol’s
Gattaca. Stålenhag also illustrates prehistorical landscapes and dinosaurs for the
Swedish Museum of Natural History and the pictures of hypothetical results of a rising
ocean under climate change for Stockholm University’s Resilience Centre.

ESSENTIAL REFERENCES
Stålenhag Simon, Tales from the Loop, Free League Publishing, Stockholm, 2015
Stålenhag Simon, Things from the Loop, Free League Publishing, Stockholm, 2016
Stålenhag Simon, The Electric State, Free League Publishing, 2017

Stefano Ascari
UNIBO
[email protected]

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0075/9124
ISSN 2611-0075
Copyright © 2018 Stefano Ascari

4.0

KEYWORDS
megastructures, dystopia, fictional landscape
 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 118

Where does the inspiration for your visual universe come from?

My biggest influences and inspirations for making The Electric State was
listening to early 90s alternative rock and grunge, especially Nirvana. I was
also watching a lot of early X-Files and mid 90s horror films like The Langoliers1 1. The Langoliers is a horror miniseries
based on a novel by Stephen King (1995,
ABC) network.
and In The Mouth Of Madness2. I wanted to capture something of that era in
2. In the Mouth of Madness (1994) is a horror
terms of mood and culture, in particular the youth counter culture of the 90s. film directed and scored by John Carpenter.
I often start with looking for the right music for the project.

Right now I am listening to a lot of quite scary sounding music, with

modern composers like Morton Feldman, Bernard Parmegiani and Tod
Dockstader. But for The Electric State, and to find the character of Michelle,
I listened to a lot of American alternative rock from the early to mid 90s.
In my early notes of the story I actually called Michelle “Negative Creep”,
after the Nirvana song.

You often cite the influence on your work by Syd Mead3 and Ralph 3. Sydney Jay Mead is an American
industrial designer and neofuturistic concept
McQuarrie4. What is the aspect of their work that has struck you most? artist, known for his designs for science-
fiction movies such as Blade Runner (1982,
They are two artists that had a unique impact on contemporary imagery Ridley Scott), Aliens (1986, James Cameron)
and Tron (1982, Steven Lisberger).
but may be different from each other: would you like to tell us which is 4. Ralph Angus McQuarrie (June 13, 1929 –
March 3, 2012) was an American conceptual
the specific work of each of them that most impressed you? designer and illustrator. He worked on the
original Star Wars trilogy, Battlestar Galactica
I don’t really agree that they are very different from each other, I think television series, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
(1982, Steven Spielberg), and Cocoon (1985,
they are quite similar actually. Both working in opaque gouche mediums, Ron Howard), for which he won an Academy
Award.
and excelling in doing hard detailed renderings of hard surface designs.
If I had to chose one important piece for each, I would say something of
McQuarries from Tatooine, that one where the sandpeople are unloading
the Sandcrawlers at dawn in the desert [Fig. 1].

FIG. 1 Ralph McQuarrie, Welcome to Tatooine, concept artwork for Star Wars (1977) © 1977 Ralph McQuarrie
119 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

FIG. 2 Syd Mead, US Steel, 1961 © 1961 Syd Mead

For Mead, it would probably be the big orange truck from the US steel ad
campaign from the 60s [Fig.2].

Their work (and their contemporary peers’ work) influenced me in my 5. Kurt Gunnar Brusewitz (1924 - 2004) was
a Swedish author, artist and cartoonist.
discovery of Sci-fi art in my mid 20s. but my biggest influences earlier in
6. Lars Jonsson (1952) is Swedish
life was definitely Swedish wild-life artists Gunnar Brusewitz5 and Lars naturalistic painter. He has been included in
Birds In Art at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson
Art Museum since 1982, and he was named
Jonsson6 [Fig. 3]. I discovered their work as a little nature-loving kid, and Master Wildlife Artist there in 1987.
without their influence I wouldn’t even have been drawn to art at all. And 7. Storm Elvin Thorgerson (1944 - 2013) as
an English graphic designer and director. He
then in my teens I discovered the amazing album art of Storm Thorgerson 7
created work for artists including Pink Floyd,
Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel,
and Hipgnosis [Fig. 4] which had a huge impact on my artistic devolpment Genesis and Yes.

in my mid to late teens as well.

FIG. 3 Lars Jonsson, Winterdawn in Ussuriland

 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 120

FIG. 4 Storm Thorgerson, The big groove, cover for “Synrise” album by Goose, 2010 © 2010 Storm Thorgerson

Which is the first image you visualized of the Loop cycle?

The first image I made was actually a dinosaur in an orchard.

I did it in 2011 and it was the piece that let me think of ways to write a
story where robots and dinosaurs could exists in the same place while
also being set in my childhood. So I started writing about a very strong
secret particle accelerator deep underground the small town that I grew
up in, and I tried to imagine how it would have been if that facility really
had existed when I was a kid and what memories I would have had from
that time.

FIG. 5 “The arch towers at KlÖvsjÖ”, Simon Stålenhag, Tales from the Loop, p. 15, 2015 © 2015 Simon Stålenhag
121 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

FIG. 6 “The sky was vaguely bluish, and out there in the morning light we passed a never-ending stream of small towns and suburbs”,
Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State, p. 46, 2017 © 2017 Simon Stålenhag

Which technique do you use? Where does your creative process start
from?

All my color art is digital. I do the occasional ink drawings, but the bulk
of my work is digital. I take a lot of photos of things around me. I go for
long walks with my camera, and I think a lot of the ideas start there -
outside somewhere, probably in the countryside.

The characters of your works are often children. Why?

I think I feel most confident writing about the experience of being a child
or a young person [Fig. 5]. I’m 35 now, and I don’t have any kids of my
own, so in a way I still feel like my teenage years aren’t that far behind me.
The experience of being in that age is still very clear in my memory and
I wouldn’t dare writing about any other age yet. I don’t feel I have the life
experience.

Why are technological or architectural structures of your images

gigantic and ruined?

All my books are set between the late 80s to the late 90s, and
the architecture and mechanical designs are mainly a way for
me to play around with the aesthetics of that era, or of science
 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 122

fiction of that era. I’m not really concerned with speculating about
the future, I think my work is more of a twisted echo of the past.
Most of the man-made stuff we see around us is old and used. I mean,
in the lifecycle of a man-made structure there are many more years that
they are going to look old and used rather than shiny and new. It just
makes more sense that you would encounter it when it has blended
in with its environment. And in terms of the “ruin” bit - I think it has to
do with the mystery of ruins. It’s just a mood that I love to explore. It
raises questions, it gets your brain working. In the end the landscapes
of Electric State are much more about consumerism, not industrialism.
I’m hugely inspired by the architecture of post-war Sweden. That is what
you see in my art - most of it are real houses and buildings that exist
in Sweden. I just proposed hypothetical architecture a few times in my
artistic work and it’s oftentime based on that era of Swedish architecture
-50s-60s-70s.

For what concerns your works, the adjectives hauntingly and dystopic
are often used. What do you think about this?

I think it’s accurate to some degree. With my first two books I didn’t
really imagine that world to be very dystopian. It’s more a reflection of
my own childhood, so to me it’s also a quite well functioning society, and
also a very free society, just as Sweden is and was when I grew up. As
for “hauntingly” I think it has to do with my preference for twilight and
gloominess, which concerns the weather in Sweden I guess. That’s
how I grew up. The Electric State is definitely dystopian. It’s almost post-
apocalyptic even [Fig. 6]. Unlike The Loop-books, something has gone
really bad with society as a whole, whereas in the Loop books, it’s just the
one facility and a small town.
123 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

Megastructures and
nostalgia for the future.
GALLERY

FIG. I “The three cooling towers at Bona were a constant presence in the landscape on Mälaröarna. They rose from the fields far out
on northern Munsö, in the small community of Bona. The main function of the towers was to release heat from the Gravitron, the
core of the Loop that provided the facility with the enormous amounts of energy it required. The middle tower was an im-pressive
253 meters in height, and the towers were a characteristic landmark visible from all of Mälardalen.”, Simon Stålenhag, Tales from
the Loop, p. 11, 2015 © 2015 Simon Stålenhag
 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 124

FIG. II Things from the Loop, pp. 12-13, 2015 © 2016 Simon Stålenhag
125 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

FIG. III “The apartment was at the bottom of the Hägerstalund’s Diving Tower, one of the twelve vertical cities in Mälardalen. They
were built between 1965 and 1970 ad a part of a major public housing program, and Hägerstalund alone consisted of about
1,500 aprtments. The ground level held a subway station, library, school, daycare, and shops. The tower was crowned with the
characteristic water tower.” Simon Stålenhag, Things from the Loop, pp. 16-17, 2015 © 2016 Simon Stålenhag
 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 126

FIG. IV Things from the Loop, pp. 22-23, 2015 © 2016 Simon Stålenhag
127 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

FIG. V Simon Stålenhag, Things from the Loop, pp. 48-49,, 2016 © 2016 Simon Stålenhag
 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 128

FIG. VI “Whole apartment complexese that looked like they were getting their energy from salvaged suspension engines had sprung up
there”, Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State, p. 41, 2017, © 2017 Simon Stålenhag
129 Megastructures 3 | 2018 | 1 | Visual

FIG. VII Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State, pp. 78-79, 2017 © 2017 Simon Stålenhag
 Stefano Ascari Interview with Simon Stahlenhag 130

FIG. VII Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State, p. 92, 2017, © 2017 Simon Stålenhag