Friday, 23 April 2010

The Campaign to Bridge the Gap!

Bridging the Gap! (part two)

My am is to target real Steam events (for next Year 2011), Steam modeling magazines, Traction Engine owners clubs, Heritage railways, Steam Museums (like pumping stations), with Introductory Letters, and articles to bring the different groups together with SteamPunk.

I do not know what the average age of a SteamPunker is – maybe 17 to 23 ? But a lot of an older generation are the engineers and custodians of our Industrial Heritage, they in turn show to their Grandchildren the wonders of STEAM power.

If we all have a conman interest then should we not help each other out?!

More thinking to follow....

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

The Campaign to Bridge the Gap!

Bridging the Gap! (part one)

SteamPunk: like an explosion on the verge of happening.

From the generation of 'The Young Controller' with his real passion for trains and steam engines (like any little boy of that age), all the way to the fond memories of steam from our Grandparents, and Great-Grandparents - the nostalgic past of our engineering greatness spanning over one-hundred years, from giant beam engines powering our industry to steam locomotives on roads and rails.


What of the youth of today, the teenagers and the twenty somethings, rebelling against authority and consumerism, and not just standing on street corners intimidating passersby, will they bridge the generational gap?

With the arrival of the myriad of SteamPunks consisting of Literary fans, Artisans, Contraptors, Idealists in decorum, Fashion enthusiasts of both neo-Victorian and SteamPunk apparel and steam devotees, there is hope to bridge the gap.
Combining Jules Verne's imagination of the1800's (much like the late Walt Disney's imagineers) and Victorian engineering you can create artwork and contraptions, and even Life-styles.
This misplaced generation are finding out for themselves, the skills and crafts of an older generation, the cut of a suit and the allure of the corset, the appreciation of physical machines and mechanical apparatus by reinventing the past, and recycling a future that never was.

With this mixture of sensibilities and ideologies a new sub-culture has been forming, linked by the virtual communities on the internet, now like an explosion on the verge of happening, SteamPunks can be spotted out in the open with their telltale artful Victorian clothes and good manners. Look for them among the traction engines and steam-rollers, among great beam-engines and steam locomotives, on omnibuses and trams, in the grand halls and botanical gardens keeping alive a very different age of Steam!


For the uninitiated, - SteamPunk is the amalgamation of two branches of the same fictional genealogical tree, Scientific Romances the proto-Science Fiction from the 1800's to the early 1900's, and modern authors of a type of Science Fiction using the setting of an altered historical past, usually the Victorian era, SteamPunk has become a sub-culture of craftsmen working in brass and copper and recycled materials; engineers and inventors taking our present technology back in to the past, for instance a computer keyboard that has been re-engineered and remodeled using brass and steel and now its keys are those resembling the round keys of an Victorian typewriter; taking the modern Japanese sub-culture for young adults of CosPlay - the fun of dressing-up to show what type of devotee you are, has grown in to an exhibition of photographic celebrity, (even the now accepted video-gaming culture, has online avatars with SteamPunk fashion accessories).


I hereby invite you to Join the Campaign to Bridge the Gap!

Campaign details to follow.....

Signed

The SteamPunk Empire's devoted servant and protector

The Steam Brigadier