Just What Is SteamPunk?

The author's latest passion is for all things "steampunk." Movies, animations, books, music and fashion - all now have steampunk sub-genres. If you love science fiction, brass, leather, fine-wood and all things mechanical, it's like being a kid in a candy store.

There have been a number of attempts to properly define the movement, and many have fallen short. Just what is steampunk?  And where did it come from?   What's up with the whole "Victorian" thing? The video below is one of the best explanations to date.


So Steampunk is a movement loosely organized around retro-science fiction and fantasy expressed through the style, materials and craftsmanship of the Victorian era. Nowhere has that fantasy world been better captured than in the radical MASKS associated with the genre.

 

Ukrainian artist Bob Basset is the most celebrated.  The author's favorite blog, Boing Boing, has done a fine job of covering Basset's work here and here.

Steampunk has definitely had an impact on fashion. The melding of fantasy Victorian with modern-day technologies - as the Victorians would have implemented them - creates an irresistible science fiction palate that is well-exploited by contemporary fashionistas.

 

 

One of the best media for Steampunk themed storytelling is animation. And the seminal animated short film in that regard (author's opinion) is "The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello." A personal favorite, included below.

"A Gentleman's Duel" is another, outstanding animation - recently voted to the YouTube "recommended" list.

Finallly, Steampunk has had a profound affect on music that we're likely to see more of as this movement continues to catch on. Abney Park is the Author's personal favorite Steampunk band. They're the whole package.

When I was a boy, my father was a devoted deep-sea fisherman. He had an all-wood construction fishing boat that slept four. Among his collection of nautical instruments, he had one of those great metal and glass compasses in a wooden box with metal screws. It was mounted inside on it's own cool frame and the top of the box was lined with purple silk inscribed in gold thread. It made quiet an impression on me. He also had one of those bulky but very cool wrist compasses, with a weathered, leather strap. Steampunk makes me feel like I did then, handling his mechanical treasures. Just like I did the first time I saw Captain Nemo's fantastic ship in the early 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea film; or, watched the original Dune.

The Quest for Authenticity

By now, we've all heard Jessica Simpson utter what arguably is becoming her most famous line: "I totally don't understand it, but I want it." That's the way most consumers feel about authenticity. Don't know exactly how to define it, but will expend large amounts of energy and juice to own it.

So what is really authentic, anyway? That's a big, burning question. In William Gibson's riveting novel, Pattern Recognition, the protagonist Cayce Pollard's vocation is "coolhunter," an authenticity seeker with a keen eye for trends. In a global marketplace, early identification of the authentic is a profound competitive edge.

I backed into my personal analysis of the issue by looking at what authenticity isn't. It is most assuredly not a constant, at least mass perceptions of what is authentic are fluid - changing direction in unexpected and unpredictable ways. But the notion of authenticity is a constant. That which is genuine.

Authenticity is also not spin or affectation, it is not designed by committee, manufactured from focus group data or influenced by polls. Authenticity is not bestowed from external sources, it radiates from a perfect set of internal markers. Over the years, we've charted some of those markers, including: the obvious pride of craftsmanship; quality components; measured, thoughtful construction; and, meaningful impact, to name a few.

Authenticity is also reflected in proper naming and categorization. A tree farm is not an authentic forest. Knock-offs are knock-offs, no matter how you cut it. Categorizing a primitive, but mass-produced piece as "folk art" doesn't make it so.

The perception of authenticity would seem to require some Limbic System activity. That's the region of the human brain that ascribes meaning to situations, symbols, interactions and is the source of emotions. I could be overstating the issue, but for me, authenticity has a "feel," a sense of rightness, value and meaning that makes the moment and all of its attendant associations genuine. After all, one of the dictionary definitions of authenticity is: correctness. I believe that correctness can be perceived and measured, in all its shades of gray. I use those benchmarks in my choices of music, fashion, art and even politics.

I have a former friend who has spent his adult life building an authentic gentleman's estate. A complete eccentric with the taste of a Scottish Earl, he spent several years and some 40,000 paintbrush strokes re-creating a hand-painted highlands clan motif on the ceiling of his small kitchen.

I have other friends and acquaintances that take the quest for authenticity into serious role-playing and re-enactment spaces. Two serious techie friends of mine are members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group of medieval history fanatics that get together in the country with their horses, drink a lot of highly alcoholic Meade and tilt with wooden lances in full body armour. Don't laugh, they're a very serious and dedicated bunch. A physician friend is a prominent member of a national "mountain man" organization that stages an annual backwoods rendezvous attended by unshaven individuals in buckskin with muzzle-loaders in tow. They are all looking to re-create an authentic experience.

Authenticity is inexorably intertwined with history and nostalgia. If it's old, it must be authentic. But, of course, every generation has had its knock-offs. Still, it is accurate to assert that basic traditional products, well-made for everyday people with regular jobs, are quite likely to viewed as the real deal, genuine goods - authentic. Like Filson luggage; Carhart, Pendleton and Daspu fashion; Ebbets Field Flannels sports apparel, African Trader Beads and Irish woolens.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, specialty items made in small numbers for select purchasers have an aura of authenticity. Like handmade bamboo fly-fishing rods; fine Ghanian Kinte cloth; late 60s psychedelic posters, hand-blown glass and single-estate Assam tea.

Cost is not necessarily an issue, value and creativity are. An utterly authentic "look" can consist entirely of thrift-store purchases. The goal is to avoid sameness, formulaic uniformity, mind-numbing mediocrity -- all the sense-stifling emanations of uninspired, mass produced goods.