“We could clone a sheep in a laboratory,” writes Henry Carroll in his new book The 1990s: A Visual History of the Decade. “But we still relied on the Yellow Pages to order a takeaway.”The 90s, as Carroll’s eye-popping new photo collection reminds us, was a decade of mess and life and culture poised on a tantalizing cusp. The X-Files, ‘Girl Power,’ Tamagotchis, and Mr. Blobby vied for the public’s attention alongside solemn newsreel footage about CFC cans, glue-sniffing, and the Srebrenica massacre. It’s defined as much by memories of people dancing in the ruins of the Berlin Wall as it is by the screeching call of dial-up modems.The London-born, LA-based author, whose Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs series has sold over a million copies, considers the 90s his “coming-of-age decade.” But his 336-page web of sourced images and reflections is not just nostalgia porn but also a roadmap to the present. “We think everything we’re facing today is new, and that it’s spiraling out of control as the world falls apart,” he tells VICE. “But history repeats. Humans are the same. And we’re going to make the same mistakes and right choices as we’ve always done.”The book is Carroll’s attempt to make sense of the chaos of the present by charting the creative trends, socio-political shifts, and pop-culture touchpoints that guided us into the new millennium. Ahead of its October release via Thames & Hudson, the author shared some of his broad observations with VICE.Fred H, 17, Syracuse, New York, 1990 (Adrienne Salinger)VICE: I recognize this image from Adrienne Salinger’s Teenagers in Their Bedrooms series, which captured American teens from all different backgrounds in their own, self-made environments. What does this snapshot tell us about the 90s?Henry Carroll: Teenagers are the product of [their surroundings], but they’re also the ones that are going to shape the future. An explosion of media in the 90s meant that people could surround themselves with artifacts that mirrored their identities. This image captures, among other things, a time when creative Black voices in America were starting to have a powerful influence—from Michael Jordan and mainstream hip-hop artists to publications like Ebony.ravers at a MAYDAY party, Dortmund, germany, 1995 (Tilman Brembs, Zeitmaschine)You describe Berlin as “a hotbed of ecstatic culture” in the book. Why was Germany such an interesting place to be in the 90s in general?When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it signified the end of the Cold War—but also the destruction of a 28-year barrier between Western hedonism and communist repression. The youth, who had been educated on contraband circulating in East Germany, were suddenly able to do what they wanted. They were primed to just go nuts.ravers at elektro club, berlin, germany, 1995 (Tilman Brembs, Zeitmaschine)If you were young and you wanted to have a party or squat in the middle of the city, there were now all these industrial buildings that had been neglected due to the poor economy in the Cold War. It was like a tectonic movement. Clubs like Berlin’s Tresor sprang up in old banks, factories, and warehouses. There was suddenly this infrastructure for raves and parties, and Berlin became an epicenter for LGBT Europe.Gillian Wearing: Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say (Queer + Happy), 1992–93 (copyright gillian wearing, Courtesy Maureen Paley, London, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and Regen Projects, Los Angeles)What broad, sweeping 90s trends affected the daily lives of queer people in the West?During the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s, Western leaders like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were resistant to addressing the hysteria and discrimination attached to gay men, in particular. But by the mid-90s, even as the death tolls were at their peaks, more treatments were finally starting to come through, and the public was becoming better educated. It wasn’t something you could hide, but it became a part of society that was accepted.KAWS, UNTITLED (DKNY), 1997 (Photo: Farzad Owrang. Artwork © KAWS)KAWS, UNTITLED (DKNY), 1999 (Photo: Farzad Owrang. Artwork © KAWS)What are we looking at here? Are these fashion commercials or something else?No, this is KAWS. It’s 90s street art. Banksy’s first work appeared in Bristol in 1997, but at the same time, KAWS was doing something very different [in New York]. He would open up bus shelter posters at night, paint characters on the fashion adverts, and then lock them up again behind the perspex, where they would just sit to become talking points. It wasn’t DKNY doing this—he was co-opting their brand to create something postmodern and new.Juergen Teller, Domenique, London, 29th September 1998 (from the ‘Go-Sees’ series © Juergen Teller, All Rights Reserved)Wolfgang Tillmans, me in the shower, 1990 (Courtesy Maureen Paley, London. © Wolfgang Tillmans)Wolfgang Tillmans, Suzanne & Lutz, white dress, army skirt, 1993 (Courtesy Maureen Paley, London. © Wolfgang Tillmans)How were photographers like Wolfgang Tillmans and Juergen Teller changing visual culture in the 90s?In the 80s, fashion photography was a polished, high-budget art form of gloss and glam—but we were going into a recession, and so the party was very much over for a little while. This hungry new generation of photographers was coming of age in the 90s, and shooting their friends on the street with point-and-shoot cameras, using a lot of flash, and weaving everything in with them going out and partying. It was a visual language that was a response to their circumstances.Then, you had this rise in print media with new magazines like Vice and Raygun. Their budgets were pretty tight, but they were determined to establish a new look and attitude, and they naturally elevated that aesthetic and those authentic new creative voices. It was a convergence of economics, frustration, and photography as this accessible, instant means of expression.Google Search Engine homepage, 1997 / Apple Computer homepage, 1995 / MTV Online homepage, 1995 / Antonio Banderas’s homepage, 1995. (Clockwise from above left) © 1997 Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Scott Hassan, Alan Steremberg; © Vanessa DelValle 1995–1996; © Microsoft; Robin Sloan Bechtel. Capitol Records; Heaven’s Gate, www.heavensgate.com; © 1995 Jackie & Willie Production Ltd; © 1995 Apple Computer, Inc; © MTVMark Napier, Riot. wired.com and yahoo.com, 1999 (Courtesy Mark Napier)Mark Napier, Riot – after browsing to several net.art pages, 1999 (Courtesy Mark Napier)Why do these websites look so cool?Between 1994 and 1997, the number of websites increased from 3,000 to over 1 million. But creators could choose from only 256 background colors—and if you wanted to put a hyperlink in there, it had to be blue, underlined, and in Times New Roman font. Today, we see these typefaces and pixellated backgrounds through this nostalgic lens, but there was really no such thing as ‘web design.’ Websites could only look like that.And why do these screenshots look so mental? This was a kind of online artwork. Mark Napier created his own browser where, as you clicked through websites, they’d layer on top of each other. And so you’d get these juxtapositions of everything from porn sites to CNN. He was seeing this information overload and confusion, and thinking ‘How are we going to deal with this access to everything?’ He caught onto that pretty early. Elaine Constantine, Seagull, The Face, 1997 (© Elaine Constantine)One of my favorite parts of the book is the section where you zone in on the prevalence of the blue-sky-and-wispy-clouds motif, found in everything from The Simpsons to the Windows 95 logo. What does it symbolize?This image represents a lot of those aspects of photography I was talking about before. Youth culture. Shot outside. Zero budget. Fish and chips. But it also encapsulates a motif that was everywhere in the 90s. For Microsoft, the blue sky was a symbol of freedom. But it was also locking us into cubicle culture and sucking us into screens. Books like Infinite Jest and movies like The Truman Show then started using this image more cynically, to critique the illusion of freedom. It was a kind of warning, in a way.© Shoichi Aoki / FRUITS, 1997 © Shoichi Aoki / FRUITS, 1998© Shoichi Aoki / FRUITS, 1998Why do these kids look so vibey?There was this real cross-exchange of culture and style in the 90s, with technology and video games from Japan colliding with fashion from the West. FRUITS magazine documented that convergence as it was taking place. You can even kind of see that video game influence being weaved into the magazine logo.Harajuku, in Tokyo, was this photographer’s hunting ground—a place that young people exploring their fashion identity used as a catwalk before the big mainstream brands moved in towards Y2K. If you look at the clothes these kids were wearing, it was a very layered and unique mix of references. And it was this back-and-forth conversation of East and West that was creating this new aesthetic.Follow James on X @jamesbalmontThe post Y2K Fashion, Digital Overload, Teenage Excess: How the 1990s Created Today appeared first on VICE.