Atomic power was projected to be very cheap. We were going to have electricity coming out of our ears! We would not have to import oil from crazy foreigners or dig up whole states looking for coal. Utility companies and government agencies around the world took up the chant of the mighty atom. Nuclear power plants were seen as a springboard for third world countries...
No modern technology has ever had such a schizophrenic and complicated identity as Atomic Energy. It is often presented in mystical terms. A Pandora’s Box of knowledge that cannot be unlearned. The magical Genie that can do both help or harm but cannot be returned to his bottle. Nuclear Power is the ultimate parable of modern science. With the use of atomic bombs at the...
Charles Schridde’s illustrations from the early 1960s for Motorola is a great example of the future that never was. The ads were often featured in Life Magazine and depicted a lush, comfy and elegant future, conveniently centered around various Motorola products. I for one, wouldn’t mind living in a pad like the ones Mr. Schridde envisioned. I guess the closest thing would be Disney’s House...
“When a fresh-faced guy in a Chevy offered him a lift, Parker told him to go to hell.” – Richard Stark, first line from The Hunter On one side of a coin is James Bond, a suave secret agent with a license to kill. A connoisseur of many things, Bond enjoys fine food, fine women, and martinis shaken not stirred. A champion for Queen and...
As the technological miracles of the 20th Century exploded- so did our imaginations. Where would all this science take us? Up, out and beyond our normal mundane lives to New Worlds where anything was possible! The vast and limitless horizon of outer space! In a time before television and jet airplanes the technical label of astronaut had not been invented. The men and women that...
Fellow fans of Ultra Swank are well aware that we are revelers in a cultural period of technology supreme. Be it Hi-Fi or Hydrogen Bomb if it had push buttons and chrome it was an object of desire! Few artists captured this ‘age of the machine’ better than Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965). Immigrating from Russia to New York City in 1919, Artzybasheff’s career included over 200...
The weekend is around the corner and to inspire you here is artist Robert McCall’s vision of man exploring Mars, scanned from the October 1964 issue of Life Magazine. McCall did many illustrations for NASA in the 1960s as well the movie 2001 by Stanley Kubrick. Have a great weekend!...