Guest Post by Sir Frederick Chook: "Etch Out a Future of Your Own Design"

Etch Out A Future Of Your Own Design (Well Tailored To Your Needs), by Sir Frederick Chook

Penned upon the 20th of June, 2010

First appeared in FrillyShirt (www.frillyshirt.org)

 

Is there anything deeper to steampunk than some pretty clothes, toys, and a touch of bluster?

Now, I’m not one to talk – I’m a grandiloquent fop with zero engineering experience. But – how many steampunk gadgets actually do something? One in a hundred? A thousand? Less if you count objects which were practical before they were steampunked – casemods and decorations. More if you count goggles, which presumably work admirably to keep foreign bodies out of the eyes. Still: how many are actually machines, and how many are costume parts?

Nothing wrong with pretty accessories – or with cosplay, for that matter. Do they warrant the title ‘steampunk,’ though? Punk implies real-world relevance, social commentary – even, as developed in the original punk movement, serious effort at putting radical ideals into practice. That’s not to say that steampunk has nothing like a Dial House of its own – there are some brilliant serious steamy sorts, including our own Antipodean League. Perhaps if they weren’t setting the bar high and showing what potential the genre has, we wouldn’t even be talking about this. In any case, the vast bulk of the movement is becoming, like gothdom, an aesthetic with no underlying philosophy or practical application. A shame and a damn waste.

Where there isn’t a philosophy, there is a budding mythology – a grand alternate universe of Victoriana, of aether-hackers and sky-pirates. Stories of zeppelin-navies and ray-gun tyrants, well, they’re jolly good fun – I’ve told a few in my time – but they’re more, to borrow the excellent Foglios’ phrase, gaslamp fantasy than steampunk. Nine times out of ten, what they have to say is more universal-human-spirit than techno-punk. Their stories (good stories! I’m not doubting their merit) could as easily be told with wizards, warriors or more conventional navies and pirates. Such stories are timeless, perhaps, where steampunk is temporal – tied so closely to Progress, and its children Development and Disorder.

The daft thing is, there’s so much room for expansion where steampunk is already most prolific – Victorian fashions and greater geekery. I’m always reminded of an example from, appropriately enough, William Gibson’s Idoru – a near-future story which includes a technologist commune who produce beautiful and infinitely-recyclable hand-crafted modular computer cases. Steampunk creators should be leading the market in making available such low-waste alternatives – the internet’s brought the buying public to the artisan’s door.

In fact, here are some ideas – accessories which combine old-fashioned style enough for the most hardened Victorian-goth with radical environmental applications. For one, self-winding automatic watches are about as old as watches themselves, but the relatively modern kinetic technology has not yet, as far as I’m aware, been brought to pocket-watches. Gadget canes, too – everyone knows sword-canes and flask-canes, but barring duellists and alcoholics, they wouldn’t be of much use to most of us. Thing is, though, there have been canes for most every pursuit and profession – technical or hobbyist’s tools built right into one’s favourite accessory/movement aid. I’ve seen measuring devices, writing kits, game sets, medical models and hiking equipment. For something of use to almost anybody, why not a cane which includes a device ingenious in itself; the shake torch? Batteryless, human-powered lights; one could easily be fitted to screw into a stick or fit in a pocket, as per one’s needs.

In short, I don’t mean to denigrate anyone’s creations, but steampunk as a whole needs to be more Bauhaus or Arts & Crafts Movement – it needs to get into the workshop and the college and get some serious experiments going. And, yes, I say this as one who couldn’t invent the toothpaste lid back onto the tube, but we’ve all seen enough pop fashion fads. I’m all for the aesthetic – of course I am, vainglorious clotheshorse that I am – but without a solid core, it’s a bubble, and it will burst.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sir Frederick Chook is a foppish, transcendentalistic historian who lives variously by his wits, hand to mouth, la vie bohème, and in Melbourne with his wife, Lady Tanah Merah.

When not reading Milton and eating Stilton, he writes, ponders, models, delves into dusty archives, and gads about town. He has dabbled in student radio and in national politics, and is presently studying the ways of the shirt-sleeved archivist. He is a longhair, aspiring to one day be a greybeard. He has, once or twice, been described as “as mad as a bicycle.”

FrillyShirt is a compilation of articles, essays, reviews, photographs, artworks, question-and-answers, promotions, travelogues, diatribes, spirit journeys, cartoons, ululations and celebrations by Sir Frederick, his friends and contributing readers. Irregularly regular features include Teacup in a Storm, an etiquette column, and How to be Lovely, advanced speculations on the aesthetics of the self.

Other topics that pop up include fun things in and around Melbourne, art, nature, history, politics and schnauzers. Sir Frederick’s favorite color is all of them. Enjoy his writing? Drop him a telegram at fredchook@frillyshirt.org.