May 08, 2008
Steampunk Gains, er, Steam
Ruth La Ferla in the NYT:
If steampunk has a mission, it is, in part, to restore a sense of wonder to a technology-jaded world. “Today satellite photos make the planet seem so small,” Mr. Brown lamented. “Where is the adventure it that?” In contrast, steampunk, with its airships, test tubes and time machines, is, he said, “sort of a dream , the way we used to daydream. It’s like part of your childhood’s just bursting forward again.”
For some of its adherents, steampunk also offers a metaphoric coping device. “It has an intellectual tie to the artists and artisans dealing with a world in turmoil at the time of the industrial revolution,” said Crispen Smith, a Web designer and photographer in Toronto, and a partner in a steampunk fashion business.
Now, as in the late 19th century, “we have to find a way to deal with new ethical quandaries,” Mr. Smith said, alluding to issues like cloning, the dissemination of information and intellectual property rights on the Web.
Steampunk style is also an expression of a desire to return to ritual and formality. “Steampunk has its tea parties and its time-travelers balls,” said Deborah Castellano, who presides over salonconvention.com, which organizes neo-Victorian conventions. “It offers an element of glamour that some of us would otherwise never experience.”
Posted by Robin Varghese at 11:27 AM | Permalink
Comments
I looked at all the pictures in the Steampunk article and not one displayed an image of a beautiful steam engine which would be more beautiful than any of the images shown. The Steam engine is one of the most ingenius inventions of all time. It is simple, runs on virtually any low grade fuel, including anything that releases energy to heat water to steam. It does not require a fancy control system and has so much torque at low RPM it does not require a transmission in most cases. Almost all industrial equipment was once operated with steam engines. Locomotives used them for about 150 years. Many ships still operate on steam engines. The nuclear submarine has a steam turbine engine, since, after all, if one sought to make a "nuclear" piston engine directly, the nuclear explosion would simply melt the engine providing no conversion to mechanical power at all. But the nuclear process can be used to heat water to steam and hence run a steam engine. Many power generating plants also operate with steam turbine engines. It is an unfortunate accident of history that the internal combustion engine basically won the original competition for application to transportation over a century ago, vs. the steam engine. Had we had a century of developement of the steam engine as applied to the automobile and truck and bus and airplane, etc., we would likely be energy independent today. Of course this wouldn't necessarily solve the problem of CO2 in the atmosphere which results when anything is burned to produce energy, but one cannot be expected to solve all problems at one time. Just solving the oil dependence problem would be a major contribution wouldn't it? But most mechanical engineers today have long forgotten the steam cycle in thermodymanics class, let alone how to make a simple steam engine. And most could care less. Do you observe the ASME seeking to get us off the oil train for transportation? NO, only silence from them. But the genius level inventor, the late Bill Lear, inventor of the Lear Jet and hundreds of other inventions, spent about $100 million of his own resources proving it could be done before his death. We need to follow his lead and pronto before our civilization is destroyed by the oil orgy. If Steampunk truly celebrates the Steam Age, perhaps its most important contribution will be to bring long needed attention to the engine which might be our salvation after all. Otherwise it will likely be a passing fancy like the long forgotten but so beautiful and elegant and simple ( and yes, dangerous if you take the cap off your car radiator when hot and observe the skin peel off your face) age of Steam.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | May 8, 2008 7:23:50 PM
I became a fan of the movement after watching the 2005 Academy Award-nominated animated short film "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello".
If an enterprising electronics designer could combine the functional capacities of a Voyager or iPhone and the artistic and status-symbolic potential of the Victorian pocketwatch I'm sure a lot of money could be made.
Posted by: Will | May 8, 2008 8:32:54 PM
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