This article started with the question: “Why is our generation so fascinated with everything old fashioned?” I searched in vain for arguments for the popularity of granny sweaters and ballet flats, when it dawned on me that one of my favourite art movements was the perfect example, the ultimate old-timey fashion. Indeed, the epitome of “antique,” but with a modern, punk, and goth twist – steampunk.
This movement goes back to the nineteenth century for inspiration, a time when the steam engine was commonly used for technology, thus the usage of the word “steam.” The “punk” part is adopted from the term cyberpunk, a science fiction genre in which new technology is explored, but with a breakdown or radical change in social structures, institutions, and practices. Science fiction is a major contributor to steampunk, in particular, the works of authors like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne from the nineteenth century. In these stories, fictional technological advances, such as time machines, are the catalysts to their plots, and therefore are the beginnings of science fiction. Though steampunk themes have found their place in literature and art since Wells' and Verne's time, the term “steampunk” was first used in the early 1980s among science fiction writers. Since then, the name has stuck.
Steampunk is a fashion movement, but also an innovative form of visual art. There are even bands that comprise the steampunk music genre, such as Abney Park out of Washington state, US. On the band's official website, they describes themselves, and thereby steampunk, as “an era that never was, but one that we wish had been. An era where airships waged war in the skies, and corsets and cummerbunds were proper adventuring attire”. In 2006 and 2007, the band Kinetic Steam Works brought a working steam engine to the Burning Man music festival.
Steampunk art and jewelry is mostly composed of pieces that help machines to function, such as gears. Instead of the gears being hidden inside a given contraption, they are used as aesthetic decoration, and imply the fascination with moving parts and technology. The technology of today, in fact, is commonly made with steampunk in mind, such as the “eye pod”, created by American artist Doctor Grymm. This is a working iPod Nano enclosed in a case with an acrylic half-sphere magnifier over the iPod's display and a glass eye that actually functions as the touch pad of the player. A Victrola horn (think old fashioned record players with the horn as a speaker) protrudes from its side in order for music to be heard aloud; one can also connect headphones. This functional piece of art is on display at the steampunk exhibition at the Oxford University's Museum of the History of Science in England.
“Maker” (as he describes himself) Jake von Slatt has also created an impressive piece of working steampunk technology – in a process too long to describe here and using a flat screen computer monitor, von Slatt created a steampunk computer, complete with keyboard resembling a typewriter that might be found in the late nineteenth century, a stylish metal frame, and brass knobs that adjust the monitor's position. Other controls, such as brightness and colour adjustment, are also possible to manipulate by turning gold painted metal handles.
A sculpture entitled “Clockwork Universe” by Tim Wetherell featured at Questacon in Australia also features gears, chains, and a working clock. It is made of steel and even features a 3D movie of the moon's terminator, made by Antony Williams. Von Slatt also creates light switch plates covered in gears, jewelry made with small gears, lamps with large lightbulbs and brass parts, and a guitar amp similar to an early twentieth century radio for Nathaniel Johnstone of aforementioned Abney Park.
Von Slatt describes steampunk fashion on his Steampunk Workshop website as drawing “inspiration from many modes; it is usually (but not exclusively) constructed on a nineteenth century base and weaves in cultural threads from around the world and throughout time”. It is common to see corsets, top hats, fishnet tights, lace, tall boots, chains, metal buttons, gears, and goggles that resemble the first pilots' goggles, worn during flight due to the direct contact with the air. (Some of my favourite steampunk accessories are cufflinks in which tiny gears are enclosed.) Dark colours are common – many make the mistake of calling steampunk “goth”. While it does borrow gothic elements, it is not exclusively a gothic style.
While the steampunk movement and those involved with it through art, music, fashion, or fiction look back to the past for inspiration, it is interesting that their influences, such as H.G. Wells, looked forward to the future and the technology that was often impossible to create, but very possible to imagine. I have to wonder what Wells would think if he were to see the steampunk movement these days. If nothing else, he would have to accept the great inspiration he created for steampunk fans, who create innovative contraptions and art in honour of him and his contemporaries.