Hasta La Gadget!

What if you could travel back in time to the 1970s? What would you do? That is the question asked by Alex Varanese in his wonderful ALT/1977 project. His answer?

[G]rab all the modern technology I could find, take it to the late 70’s, superficially redesign it all to blend in, start a consumer electronics company to unleash it upon the world, then sit back as I rake in billions, trillions, or even millions of dollars

This fantasy is realized in the form of four period-accurate promotional posters. Above you see an MP3 player clad in wood-effect plastic with a twiddly metal knob, an LED spectrum-analyser and some mysterious “mode” and “set” buttons, all paired up with some giant retro headphones and that trademark of 1970s audio, the quarter-inch jack.

Alex’ gallery also contains a notebook computer (the LapTron 64), a clamshell cellphone (the MobileVoxx) and a handheld gaming console (the Microcade 3000). If that’s not enough for you, there are an assortment of semi-abstract artworks based on the products. Anyone who grew up at this time will recognize these parodies as being absolutely dead-on.

I love these pictures, not just as clever re-imaginings but as actual products. With the exception of the Sega Game Gear-alike console, which I’m not so hot on, I’d buy any one of these products to use today. Especially that amazing Pocket Hi-Fi (tagline: “Like a party in your pocket. But not in a weird way.”)

ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME TRAVELERS [Behance via ★]