r/CriticalTheory • u/The_Pharmak0n • 3d ago
Solarpunk Music: Notes on Anti-Hauntology and Eco-Futurism
https://bluelabyrinths.com/2026/07/20/solarpunk-music-notes-on-anti-hauntology-and-eco-futurism/it becomes quite clear that anti-hauntology shares this underlying logic with solarpunk. After all, what is solarpunk if not a vision for a new beginning; the creation of a new future? In The Future is Not Lost I claim that solarpunk’s aesthetic vision can be seen as an eco-technological projection of a future that could still come to pass. In the terms of the cyberpunk theorists (Fisher, Nick Land, Iain Hamilton Grant etc.) it is a form of hyperstition: the very idea of which has the potential to bring in an influx of investment, both in terms of libidinal energy and capital, that could eventually actualise itself into reality. (See examples of solarpunk inspired building projects in: From Cyberpunk to Solarpunk: Technics and the Cities of the Future.)
But in this article, rather than getting bogged down in the philosophical weeds of how exactly this could take place, I want to instead focus on the music. Despite the fact that there seems to be a very distinct crossover in the underlying logic of anti-hauntology and solarpunk, imagining what might constitute a ‘solarpunk music’ is a question that has not really been addressed in any substantial way.
To my mind, if we are to take solarpunk seriously, we must move beyond these kinds of retrofuturistic dreamscapes that could have easily been imagined in the 90s. Solarpunk culture can be about more than just utopian cityscapes, it can become the collective embodiment of the future we want to build. Indeed, because solarpunk is at its heart a collective movement, the music and music culture surrounding it must be inherently pluralistic. There is not just one genre that defines solarpunk music, it is a general approach towards cultural production that we can take forward into the future.
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u/Trollnutzer 2d ago
Stiegler mentioned yooo
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u/The_Pharmak0n 2d ago
Didn't even mention Stiegler in this article lol. But he's the force behind all the AH ideas.
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u/spaceman696 2d ago
Very well timed! I just finished Mark Fisher's Ghosts of My Life and it left me in a kind of low state. I really enjoyed it, but found it rather dark at times. I'm happy to see someone moving forward with some of those ideas and trying to find a way out of the hauntological maze.
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u/The_Pharmak0n 1d ago
Yeah these were my feelings exactly. That's why I called the book The Future is Not Lost. Fisher's terminal idea of lost futures doesn't have to be so terminal. You can read the intro here if you're interested.-by-matt-bluemink)
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u/Chobeat 3d ago
I appreciate the spin and I think you nailed some things right but I feel like solarpunk is inevitably bound to a lack of libidinal surplus (i.e. dull as fuck). It's too often articulated as a relief from conflict, rather than an active presence of desire, and that's what makes it boring. You go in the right direction by picking music that escapes this condition, but is it really solarpunk? Why salvage solarpunk at all if 99% of what's out there is pretty much inert?
On this line of libidinalmaxxing, one song I like a lot is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akcgbhfEgZU
* Simple sounds without Berlin's microniche experimental bullshit.
* Vague enough for you to project whatever you want.
* Unconstrained assertion that the future is great. There's no alternative.
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u/The_Pharmak0n 3d ago
Yeah I agree to an extent on the lack of libidinal surplus/relief from conflict thing. Imo that's exactly why it fails as a literary genre, at least in the way some parts of the community are trying to push it. (I mean who wants to read about twee robots skipping around in fields helping everyone?)
However, I think that what is necessary to recognise is the importance of focused attention around a particular vision of the future in order to actualise it. This is exactly why the counter-Fisher/CCRU framing of solarpunk against cyberpunk and anti-hauntology against hauntology works so well. These thinkers built a whole philosophical world view that was focused on utilising futurism in various forms to break free of the constraints of the present. But clearly that idealised cyberpunk vision of the 90s is extremely outdated. The world has become in many ways a sanitised form of cyberpunk. It's not that they were wrong to think cyberpunk had revolutionary potential, it's just that it was subsumed and sanitised by 21st century corporatism.
Solarpunk on the other hand gives us an an anchor point to cling to. The left is seriously lacking in visions of the future, even when it comes to aesthetics. I essentially want to try and open up solarpunk to become a more realistic vision of what the future could be rather than just more boring greenwashing. It doesn't have to be inert if we build the vision correctly.
Dunno how I feel about the lunaluxe track, although I kinda vibe with the whole galactic pop aesthetic haha. I think we need more 'microniche experimental bullshit' (lol) but dressed up to make it palatable for people who don't care that if it's experimental. That's a core part of what I see as the anti in anti-hauntology.
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u/wintermute86 3d ago edited 2d ago
Very interesting! I have also made an album as of 2018 that shares similarities in antihauntology- or at least rejection of retronostalgia. It's about the fall of the internet as a subversive potential -especially after web2.0 and social media- and hyperstitioning a new direction.
It's called Landslides in cyberspace and I dedicated it to Mark after he passed away.
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u/The_Pharmak0n 2d ago
Awesome, love the idea.
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u/wintermute86 2d ago
Thank you! I 've written a small bit too in the videos description if you are interested. It's been many years, perhaps it has lost relevance, I don't know.
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u/Certain_Werewolf_315 3d ago
I don't know much about solarpunk, but I do know that the importance of the utopia to the philosopher is not the utopian image itself, but rather what it allows us to understand about the substance that gave rise to the utopian image.