Fondly I remember devouring each issue of Mondo 2000 as if it held some grand promise of future about to happen.<p>I even bought some "Smart Drugs" and techno t-shirts but it was all for nought.<p>Even more than Wired, Mondo 2000 was this techno fetish fantasy that was never going to happen.<p>In some respects I am reminded of a line of Victor' Pelevin's from "Generation P" where the writer for this high concept underground magazine is in reality a balding father of three with a mortage and 4 starving mouths to feed.
Old guy here... I always thought of M2k as a text heavy, Heavy Metal. And Heavy metal is still going.<p>As an aside... There is a show of 40 years of Heavy Metal art and such in Santa Monica, CA through Aug. 19, 2017 at the Copro Gallery.
Wow. Thanks for posting. Reading MONDO 2K after a 20 year hiatus is a real kick in the eye.<p>My gut reaction is that "Artificial Reality" culture has not served us as well as a more pragmatic vision of the future may have. There is no doubt deep learning, crypto-anarachy, CRISPR, 3D printing in the extreme environment of low earth orbit and many other current wonders were forecast in these pages. But the prophetic illusion that war, poverty, disease, and crime would evaporate away with accelerating growth seems tragic.<p>If a new imprint, say MONDO 3k, were to be started today, a little less airtime devoted to pirate punk rock cable access shows and a bit more on how to solve the problems of displaced workers via automation would be welcome.<p>Oh, and just on page two, already spotted an Easter Egg. The Reduce Productivity with Fractools, an electric kaleidoscope of nature's geometry ad. Distributed by a "Bourbaki, Inc." Named no doubt after the legendary secret math collective in 1930s France!<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki</a><p>Craving even more 1990s alternative nostalgia? Remember Re/Search magazine? Publisher of J. G. Ballard and much more. They have a podcast that mostly consists of talking about the good old days ;)<p><a href="https://www.researchpubs.com/category/podcast/" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchpubs.com/category/podcast/</a>
A must-read for the uninitiated: "A history of Mondo 2000" [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://totseans.com/totse/en/ego/literary_genius/mondo2k.html" rel="nofollow">https://totseans.com/totse/en/ego/literary_genius/mondo2k.ht...</a>
Coincidentally, EXTROPY magazine and its associated brand of techno-libertarianism was more reflective of where we have actually ended up. I have an old issue from 1995 that focuses on digital money that more or less advocates what we know now as cryptocurrency, including an imaginary monetary unit called Hayeks. With that said, stuff like cryonics and immortality is still pretty marginal.
I had all these, bought on the newsstand, and Wired back to issue 1. At some point I just had to clean house, during a move, and they all went. Mondo 2000 was both inspiring and, even to me back at the time, a little bit laughable, especially the fashion parts. But fun.
Amazing how little as changed. Back then, just like today, the magazine was talking about cold fusion, data clouds, 'artificial light' aka VR/AR, viral marketing, and teledildonics.