Why Steampunk is an important trend

Imagine, for a moment, that the English mathematician, engineer and inventor Charles Babbage (1791-1871) had pursued his vision and created a fully functional personal computer. Imagine, also, that instead of silicon Babbage had done it with brass, steel and leather. Insane? Romantic?

Steampunk is the name of a movement. It’s not new. It’s lineage goes back at least 30 years and even beyond to HG Wells and Jules Verne. William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are probably linked in too. So what is it?

The idea is essentially a fixation with Victorian technology. A romantic mix of steam, metal, gears and mechanical engineering. But it’s not what it is but what it represents that fascinates me.

The reason that Steampunk is interesting is that it is highly relevant to our times. It is a response to the realities of modern life, especially the fact that parts of our lives are out of control. It is a counter-trend to the fact that life, especially in developed nations, is atomised, fast-paced, over-loaded with information, choice and needless innovation.

For example, a Kindle gives no clue as to whence it came. It is a perfect product so complex that aliens might as well have created it in a distant galaxy. We have no idea how it really works and cannot fix it when it breaks. Steampunk is to consumer electronics what Punk music was to Disco music. It makes the hidden visible. You can play with it, fool around with it, subvert it, hack it and touch it. Most of all anyone can do it.

That’s what I think is missing nowadays. We want to understand how things work but most of all we want to touch things and use our hands as well as our brains.

6 thoughts on “Why Steampunk is an important trend

  1. “Steampunk happens when goths discover brown.” — Jess Nevins

    You do see a lot of steampunks at Maker Faires. As long as they don’t start extolling the virtues of yellow pea-soup fogs and early-Industrial-Revolution labor conditions we should be okay…

  2. Steampunk – the use of pressure. pressure helps to touch the world. in music schools do not teach to play the keyboard. there are taught to press the keys of real musical instruments. So it was with me.

    so we were not in danger, yet in some areas alive steampunk.

    Incidentally, it is necessary to know. may have taught music on synthesizers or iPad

  3. At times I get very distressed by the fact that nearly every product we touch these days is either disposable or has a built in obsolescence. I too wish things were much more simple, mechanical and built to last.

    However, I’m also inspired by this quote from Patton Oswalt:

    “I think a lot of the problems we’ve been experiencing come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people—steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates—feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded, and drab. That our world has lost some sort of “spark” or “basic value system” that, if you so much as skim history, you’ll find was never there. Even during the time of the Greeks, there were masses of people lamenting the passing of some sort of “golden age.” But I’d never go back and live in any other time than teetering on tomorrow; this is the greatest time to be alive.”

  4. Or…

    “Nostalg’a is like a grammar lesson; you find the present tense, but the past perfect” – Owens Pomeroy.

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