DESCRIPTION: Few artifacts from the Y2K period embody Austin’s “Keep Austin Weird” identity as vividly as this eccentric promotional panorama of Silicon Hills at the dawn of Y2K.
Instead of the clean corporate campuses and tidy geography found on Silicon Valley ecosystem calendar maps, this poster erupts with visual wordplay: cartoon workers being launched skyward at Catapult Systems, janitors mopping an actual interstate near Interstate Building Maintenance, and chip-shaped rockets lifting off with passengers at Rocket Chips. Even the Outernet cluster drifts into sci-fi territory, with tiny figures reaching toward planets and swirling galaxies placed behind the company’s logo.
The map doubles as a corporate directory and a cartoon stage, with human figures literally acting out company names. Workers climb ladders into the sky, pose as greeters in front of favored start-ups, crowd between competing firms, and interact with floating planets and chip-rockets. These pun-driven scenes have no equivalent in Silicon Valley ecosystem maps, which generally stay anchored in real geography. Here, the illustrator abandons that convention entirely, letting humor and visual wordplay override any sense of place.
Against this surreal landscape, the Y2K calendar along the bottom edge adds a surprisingly earnest note, grounding the piece in a moment of real technological concern. The dense layering of logos, theatrical human activity, and playful chaos captures Austin’s tech boom at its most unconventional—an ecosystem expanding quickly, behaving unpredictably, and proudly diverging from the slightly more polished, sober aesthetic of its California and Arizona counterparts.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1999
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United States
BODY OF WATER: N/A
CONDITION: Good.
Rolled.
COLORING: Process color with foil stamped detail.
ENGRAVER:
SIZE:
" x
"
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION:
PRICE: $500
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