Friday question!

[princess]

I'm going to try to remember to do one of these every Friday, since I like weekly things! I'm going to toss out a question which people may (or may not, if my questions suck ;) ) wish to discuss!

This week's question: What is "steampunk" to you?

(My answer in the comments when I get home from work.)

Comments

[elisem]

(I'm going to answer this before looking at any comments. Then I'll come back and read what everybody else has said.)

We were talking about steampunk -- don't recall exactly who, don't recall exactly why -- and one of us said something like, "Ah, yes: the inviting smell of machine oil, the patina of hardworking metal, the romance of rivets, the goodness of gears...." "The romance of rivets and the goodness of gears" became my descriptive shorthand for steampunk aesthetics from then on.

Also, to me at least, steampunk celebrates the kind of tech that could be fabricated by a single inventor working in a home-based workshop, as opposed to mass-produced tech. The involvement between artisan and each piece of work allows for -- no, encourages -- personalization and those artistic technological fillips that are the mark of engineer love. Each device is purpose-built and hand-fabricated, rather than stamped out as a lowest common denominator gadget which encourages lowest common denominator problem-solving.

Huh. Hadn't realized it before I wrote that, but I guess philosophically speaking, steampunk might be the unholy and delightful love-child of William Morris and James Watt. Wouldn't they be surprised?