Bob Basset Cofounder Serhii Petrov Talks Techno-Romanticism at TEDxKharkiv 2016

Serhii Petrov, designer and cofounder of Bob Basset studio, gave a speech at TEDxKharkiv 2016. It focused on the side effects that invariably accompany any great idea. Serhii Petrov told the studio’s history, from its inception in 1989 to working with world-famous brands and musicians to exhibitions and collections. He also talked about the peculiar genre favored by the studio and their mission to promote it. “Steampunk or Techno-Romanticism? Steampunk wrote us a blank check when the famous writer William Gibson, who is credited with creating Cyberpunk and later, as a joke, also Steampunk, said of one of our works, ‘[It’s] probably the single best Steampunk object I’ve seen.’ “But is it Steampunk? I think of what we do as Techno-Romanticism. There are lots of people who believe they’re creating works of ‘steampunk,’ ‘cyberpunk,’ etc. But I insist on calling it Techno-Romanticism, and Bob Basset are Techno-Romantics. Not just because it’s a romantic view of technology but also because it’s an art that celebrates the transformation of reality, making it into singular shapes and imbuing it with some kind of new beauty. “There is Nature, which has gifted us with a wealth of various resources; and there is Man, who is capable of transforming reality as suits his evolutionary needs. This is the song of Techno-Romanticism: real things out of fictional worlds.”

Serhii Petrov, designer and cofounder of Bob Basset studio, gave a speech at TEDxKharkiv 2016. It focused on the side effects that invariably accompany any great idea.

Serhii Petrov told the studio’s history, from its inception in 1989 to working with world-famous brands and musicians to exhibitions and collections. He also talked about the peculiar genre favored by the studio and their mission to promote it.

“Steampunk or Techno-Romanticism? Steampunk wrote us a blank check when the famous writer William Gibson, who is credited with creating Cyberpunk and later, as a joke, also Steampunk, said of one of our works, ‘[It’s] probably the single best Steampunk object I’ve seen.’

“But is it Steampunk? I think of what we do as Techno-Romanticism. There are lots of people who believe they’re creating works of ‘steampunk,’ ‘cyberpunk,’ etc. But I insist on calling it Techno-Romanticism, and Bob Basset are Techno-Romantics. Not just because it’s a romantic view of technology but also because it’s an art that celebrates the transformation of reality, making it into singular shapes and imbuing it with some kind of new beauty.

“There is Nature, which has gifted us with a wealth of various resources; and there is Man, who is capable of transforming reality as suits his evolutionary needs. This is the song of Techno-Romanticism: real things out of fictional worlds.”