Concept artist, Sheng Lam recently captured the internet’s imagination when he redefined popular online platforms by translating their digital purpose into analogue application.
In a post on Art Station earlier this month, Lam presented in anime format: Facebook as a floppy disk unit, Spotify as a cassette player, Twitter as a morse code sender and receiver, Youtube as a VHS player, Soundcloud as a CD player, Instagram as a polaroid camera, and Netflix as a chunky television unit.
Naming the gadgets suitably as Phasebook, Potify, Tweeter, Yoo Tube, SoundKloud, Instogram, and Netflex, Lam created illustrations of these social media alternates seemingly to reminisce about the retro and thickset roots of technology.
But then again, you could assume, based on Lam’s professional role at Cloud Imperium Gaming – where he is currently working on Star Citizen – and his personal works that more often than not you would find Lam hard at work having fun.
Lam, who goes by the social media handle of 8bitwizard, describes in his biography that he mostly draws and likes to eat delicious food. The result that awaits has historically entailed environmentally-friendly robotic technologies, megalithic machines of domination, medieval science fiction and otherworldly creatures.
In another article that passes commentary on Lam’s recent release, Design Boom places Lam’s artworks as comparable to that of the manga works ‘Akira’ (1988) and ‘Ghost in the Shell’ (1991).
When paging through Lam’s online profiles, you may note that he gives credit to Halo and Cory Hubbell, Kanji logographic Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system, fellow artist Jan Buragay, the Peacock Mantis Shrimp, Italian illustrator Sergio Toppi, and the Octopus as sources of inspiration.