Synthetic Nostalgia: Imaginary Propaganda, Advertisements, and Events
This series, published in the renowned Italian comic magazine Alterlinus, explores a fictional world where echoes of mid-century Chinese propaganda blend with fabricated advertisements and staged event posters. Generated through AI and meticulously refined using Photoshop and Illustrator, these compositions evoke a nostalgic sentiment for a past that never existed.
The visual language draws from socialist realism, commercial aesthetics, and theatrical promotion, merging them into a surreal narrative of self-sufficiency, collective progress, and an illusory golden era. The Chinese texts, thoughtfully selected and carefully reviewed by my Chinese students at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, add an extra layer of authenticity to this alternate reality.
For decades, Alterlinus was the sister magazine of Linus, showcasing the most significant adventure and fantasy-themed illustrated stories from Italy and beyond. Founded by Oreste del Buono in 1974, it shaped the world of comics, inspiring and influencing numerous publications.
Until 1987, Alterlinus was a benchmark for international magazines such as Métal Hurlant and El Víbora. Unlike linus, which focused on humor and comic strips, Alterlinus embraced long-form, visionary storytelling with historical and fantastical themes. From the start, artists like Corben, Moebius, and Druillet captivated readers, leaving a lasting imprint.
As a student at Bologna’s Academy of Fine Arts, I eagerly drew inspiration from this legendary magazine. Now, my friend and mentor Igort, Artistic Director of its revival under Edizioni Oblomov, has invited me to contribute my artwork—an honor filled with both satisfaction and nostalgic reflection.
With AI-powered tools, creative possibilities and inspiration are elevated to an entirely new level, offering an almost inexhaustible reservoir of material. However, the real transformative power emerges when these new possibilities are combined with a foundation of experience in traditional analog techniques—drawing, painting, photography, graphic design, artistic avant-gardes, and classical aesthetics.
This fusion does not replace traditional skills but amplifies them, allowing for a dynamic interplay between human intuition and machine-generated potential.
It is a second (or perhaps third!) renaissance of creativity, where past and future coexist, generating unexpected perspectives, new visual languages, and innovative approaches to storytelling. Just as the great artistic movements of the past were fueled by new techniques and materials, today’s creative revolution is powered by artificial intelligence—an engine room of boundless inspiration that reshapes the way we think, create, and imagine.
I am always eager to take on new projects and explore exciting opportunities. For this reason, I am more than happy to have a conversation or delve deeper into potential collaborations.