The Breathtaking Horror of 'The Electric State'

Simon Stålenhag has been my favourite artist for ages. His work really is a masterpiece

I was just looking into this book because of this video when I found out Netflix is making a movie about it. I sincerely hope it delivers even half of the world that this incredible book displays!

As someone who spent their childhood living in the Mojave, I think it's the perfect setting for this. There's... nothing out there. Barely any towns, and what towns there are, it's as if they're just clinging to life. There's hundreds of square miles of nothing at all. I love this. In a terrible way, I'd love to explore this world

The concept of people losing themselves in addictive virtual realities is older than many may realize. The first work of fiction to explore this idea was a series of short stories, later condensed into a novel, called "The Man Who Awoke" by Laurence Manning. It was published in 1933. A similar work, "Pygmalion's Spectacles", was written by Stanley G. Weinbaum in 1935. This is certainly not to take away from Stålenhag's magnificent artwork and concepts. Quite the contrary, his work is breathtaking. I just mention it as a point of interest.

The sense of melancholy that Simon Stalenhag can convey simply through art is truly baffling

What I really like is how the main villain, the Intracerebral Intelligence, is only spoken of like 4 times, nothing is known about it except that it exists and it's trying to create a physical body to manifest in the organic world. No explanation as to why it does this, what it wants, what its end goal is. Just it's a thing that is there, and it's not going to leave

I'm mostly just grateful that Simon doesn't feel the need to explain or explore every single detail of the lore and backstory of the world he's created through his incredible art. So many game developers, writers, illustrators, and filmmakers leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to the worlds they create. But that sense of mystery and intrigue regarding the unknown is exactly what makes these worlds so captivating.

Ive actually worked with Simon on a smaller company and I remember seeing his stuff being totally blown away. supernice guy aswell.

This is an artist with some incredible understandings of lighting, light transport, and how photography functions with these elements. I’m amazed by how accurate his lighting is. Even the dynamic range of his hypothetical camera that’s taking these images seems accurate.

A lot of this reminds me of the imagery seen in Half-Life 2. Specifically the idea of old urban areas being overtaken by a sort of alien looking technology, wires, high tech doors built over tenement buildings, abnormal power sources, the awe and fear you get the first time you see the giant Striders (which are essentially huge robots themselves) Top tier stuff all around.

Love how you mentioned Norco. Not enough people have played that absolutely magnificent piece of art.

My wife bought me this book as an anniversary gift after she saw I had a couple wallpapers on my PC from it. What an incredible piece of art.

Your videos are becoming increasingly artistic over time, your passion for the material really shines through. One note though- Raw Fury is the publishing company for Norco, but the developers were Geography Of Robots.

I found this book once in a library when I was too young to understand all of it, but even at the time, I felt that it was something absolutely amazing. I didn't get the book, and just read it in the corner. I left and went home, and I didn't think about it for so long that I completely forgot the details, and I had no idea what it was called, so I couldn't search for it either. I didn't even know how to describe it, and I was beginning to wonder if it was even real. Today I found this video, and it's amazing to see these things that I was starting to wonder if they were just a dream. Now, as somebody with more interest in storytelling, I truly realize how incredible this book is. As somebody raised in the early 2000s, these images have an almost GMod like feel to them.

If you noticed, even the abandoned cartoon type characters that were supposed to be happy and smiling, looked angry and evil.

This really reminds me of the original Siren Head video. I know it seems kind of stupid because of how the internet obsessed over that video, but it really gives off the same feeling of nostalgic dread and of looming lifeless machinery. It shares the sense that whatever these things in the sky are have somehow gone unnoticed for so long despite their incredible size, and only now make their presence known.

This is probably by far my favorite piece of printed art in the last decade. Its very nuanced tale about our current obsession with interconnectivity and the very human things that might get lost with it are just topped by stålenhags iconic art. Every single artwork makes you stop and pulls you in. I have it standing visible in my bookshelf together with things from the flood. Thank you for covering this. It really can’t hurt if it gets a more wider public range. Let’s hope the upcoming TV-Series can draw some more people in. Again Thank you a lot. Great work👍

During the bit where the Neurocasters were compared to the internet, I momentarily felt like the internet was being judged too harshly because I would argue that it's a tool to be used and that we use it for our livelihoods, but now I wonder if the people in the Electric state similarly had to depend on the neurocasters in a similar fashion

Does anyone else think that something like this would make an amazing futuristic-dystopian souls like game? Like you've got the gigantic monsters and the weird zombie-like humans. Combined with a few stranded survivors and upgrades with cybernetic or digital upgrades. I would sell my soul for that game.

What a fascinating segment this was, sci-fi needed an incredible work like this lately..if anyone was curious, the main car that the characters are driving is a 92-94 Oldsmobile Delta 98 which was a great car and considered quite high-end in the 90’s! 🤠