The way things could have been
“The USSF Jefferson, 1896 ajax class rig” by Larry Blamire
I was looking up something on Jules Verne the other day and, in yet another bolt of synchronicity, since I’m reading Thomas Pynchon’s steam- and crystal-driven “Against the Day” at the moment, I discovered the cult of steampunk. Never knew it existed. Completely out of the loop, once again.
There are even sub-genres to this kitsch-intensive sub-genre of science fiction: Melancholic and Nostalgic Steampunk. I hung up my studded dog-collar a long time ago and could never find any sense in thrash music, but there are obviously other things happening that are interesting. I really do have to get out more.
With Verne supplying some of the Victorian Era-Industrial Revolution artefacts, devotees have created a fantasy world where the future is mechanical, and preferably steam-driven, bells and whistles ready with the alarm.
The above (copyrighted) painting is by the deeply embedded Larry Blamire, who has a website full of this great creativity called Steam Wars. Larry calls himself an “artist, actor and writer-director of the indie cult film ‘The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera’ released by Sony Pictures”.
His is one of the few sites I’ve found that aren’t engulfed in role-playing games. Also lots of fun it the octopus-like cavern that is Paul Guinan’s website, full of tin machines and the adventures of Boilerplate, a mechanical man who saw action in World War I and with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders.
Then there’s Gothic Steam Fantastic by Myrias, which stirs “the gothic, horror, the fantastic, the grotesque” into its steampunk, and Steampunk itself, a Geocities resource site delving into “Victorian Adventurers in a Past that Wasn’t!” Also earnestly amusing: Steampunk Magazine.
Since the genre was officially ‘created’ and exploded there has been a lot of steampunk thats been kitschy or uninteresting.
But the idea had been covered before in different ways that were interesting.
For instance, there was a computer game called Martian Dreams, from Richard Garriott who created the Ultima series. The plot is that during the World’s Fair Percival Lowell is showing a space cannon, and during an exhibition, where many interesting celebrities are attending, there’s sabotage and its sets off for launch, crashing somewhere on Mars. You go on a rescue mission on a second space bullet with a small crew including Sigmund Freud. You find many of those from the first landing in an abandoned Martian city, where the gates are closed because some of the other crew members went mad. You later find out that they only seem mad because they’re bodies are inhabited by Martians, while they’re trapped in a Martian device called a Dream Machine. You have to enter each of their dreams and rescue them from nightmares (Lenin’s nightmare involves dividing money into equal piles, and you can’t, so its uneven, so the solution is to burn it). This traps the Martians back in the machines; and you find they did this because the soil was poisoned. All life on Mars is ‘plantimal’, half-plant, half-animal, and they rely on the soil. You attempt to grow a new Martian pod in the soil, and transfer a Martian through the dream machine, but this proves the soil is still bad. Through the game you go through numerous steps, like fixing reflectors at the polar ice caps, restoring power, and making water flow through the canals again. In one part of the game you have to do something in a mine and deal with malfunctioning Martian robots. The only ‘animal’ life is worms that live in caves, so Martians call humans ‘worms’. You need to chew oxium, mined from oxy-geodes to breathe, and wear warm clothing or you’ll freeze. There are certain berries that give you telepathic powers. Towards the end of the game, once the canals work, you have to get to the Martian who poisoned the soil, now in the body of Rasputin (who sabotaged the space bullet). Something sets off a cataclysm on Mars so you have to get back to Andrew Carnegie who was helping put together a new space canon with materials you gathered from the mine. When you get back to Earth dust storms have covered the Martian surface and wiped out all trace of green. (this is based on an actual series of dust storms and changes in the appearance of Mars)
Its a very rich and atmospheric game with a lot of interesting ideas in it, and not kitschy at all like a lot of these things coming out. The whole fantasy element is a serious ‘camp’ appreciation of Victorian fantasies about technology and space travel. Throughout the game Victorian music plays, your cursor is a gloved hand, and there’s pseudo-Victorian decoration.
Also, look at the novel The Difference Engine by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, which basically started the whole steampunk genre, by supposing Babbage’s computer designs were actually finished and this changed the course of things.
I read the essay you must have on the web, and I understand the terms you’re using now.
I disagree that a non-negative interpretation of what happened is always shallow. First of all, it s based on the assumption of treating everything that we recognize as kitsch as meaningless. Even if kitsch doesn’t have the same qualities of art, it doesn’t mean there aren’t positive aspects of it. The only way to seriously play with kitsch concepts isn’t to be ironic.
In fact the overuse of the idea that the Victorian era was corrupt and decadent itself is cliche. Its possible, very possible, to have a more positive understanding of the Victorian era, and downplay the negative aspects.
The ’steampunk’ I’ve seen that tries to focus heavily on the negative aspects (like in anime), tends, from what I’ve seen, to end up being very cliched and kitschy itself.
The game that I mentioned, Martian Dream, was so fantastic, because it explored all of these things in Victorian culture and cleverly linked them to the Victorian psyche (via Freud and Dreams).
I also think there’s something to be said with taking things that seem campy or retro and using humor or playing with them in an affirmative way thats anti-ironic.
For instance, Powerpuff Girls. A lot of people mistake what its doing as irony, making fun of things like attitudes in the 50s like in the Professor. But the humor is actually kind of an anti-irony, because it isn’t critical, but plays with it. Real humor (laughs) come when you play with things that are un-serious to the point that it becomes fun, it becomes a way of playing. Serious insight an also come when you approach the subject matter in a different way, that isn’t intended for humor.
The whole essay which divided kitsch between nostalgic and melancholic, betrays certain attitudes towards kitsch, the Victorian era, irony, and other things, which are cliched and useless.
My post on the Steampunk forums, On viewing Victorians “correctly”,
http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/bg-forum/index.php?topic=998.0
Well, I’ve been aboard Brass Goggles and remain astounded at the extent of this sub-genre. Your comments are certainly appreciated, Brian, and there is much to explore, but I’d be worried about getting lost in the steam in a place like that.