Toronto Gets Vaporwave Makeover

Eric Godlow, a 28-year-old musician originally from Winnipeg, began creating his retro-styled digital animations after experiencing burnout from making music. Now residing in Burlington, the two passions have intertwined, with Godlow also producing the ambient, lo-fi music that accompanies his 15-second animated loops. His move to Ontario inspired him to recreate scenes of the province, as the architecture and infrastructure, like the TTC subway system, felt vastly different from his upbringing. Each piece is a meticulous process, with Godlow spending nearly 30 hours on a single animation using the free 3D creation software Blender. This is the same program used by Oscar-winning animators, and Godlow has expressed happiness at seeing free software being taken seriously in the professional industry. His subjects often tap into a collective sense of nostalgia, with a focus on defunct businesses like Zellers, and a piece on the former electronics chain Future Shop is on his to-do list. The artwork is part of the vaporwave aesthetic, a microgenre that emerged in the early 2010s. This style is characterized by its nostalgic and often surreal engagement with the pop culture, technology, and advertising of the 1980s and 90s. Visual themes commonly include early internet imagery, glitch art, and a color palette of neon and pastel tones, creating a dreamlike and melancholic feeling. The public reception to Godlow's work has been notably positive, with comments on his Instagram page describing the animations as "the most calming thing I've seen on the internet in a long time." The appeal of his art has reached beyond Toronto, with people from across Canada reaching out to him online. This growing attention has also led to requests for commissioned pieces from both individuals and businesses.