STEAMPUNK WEIRD WEST MOVIE
Diana Vick, the vice-chair and co-creator of Steamcon, says that in trying to explain Steampunk to an audience that might not be conversant in Wells or Verne, any reference to the giant mechanical spider in the Will Smith movie always strikes a universal chord. Though the movie was not a critical success, its outlandish mechanical creations made a lasting impact.
STEAMPUNK WEIRD WEST SERIES
The series spawned a feature film of the same name in 1999, starring Will Smith in the James West role. Grant with the aid of a dazzling array of ingenious gadgets. Conceived as “James Bond on horseback,” the show features these two agents traveling the 1870s West in an elegant train car to fight crime and to protect President Ulysses S.
STEAMPUNK WEIRD WEST TV
The 1960s TV series, The Wild Wild West, stars Robert Conrad as Secret Service Agent James West, with Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon, his inventor-sidekick. Though some purists claim that a Victorian London setting is key to the genre, one of the best examples of the essential Steampunk conceit-anachronistic technology in a 19th-century milieu-is set in the Old West. So, in essence, Steampunk has no “punk,” but the term rolls off the tongue a lot quicker than, say, “Neo-Victorian, retro-futurist technofantasy.” His website, the Steampunk Scholar, breaks down the essential elements of this aesthetic to include: “neo-Victorian”-drawing from the time period of roughly 1839 to the beginning of WWI “retrofuturistic”-how the Victorians saw their own future and “technofantasy”-anachronistic technology, either ahead of its own time or not yet possible. Mike Perschon, a college English instructor and doctoral candidate who is writing his dissertation on Steampunk literature, defines Steampunk as an applied aesthetic to be found in a wide array of expression, be it film, costuming, art, gaming or home décor. The book is set in an alternate 1850s London in which Charles Babbage’s mechanical computer becomes a functioning reality and dramatically changes the British industrial revolution. Gibson and Sterling even went on to contribute their own entry into Steampunk literature in 1990 with The Difference Engine. Steampunk novels, in contrast, are more often set in a re-imagined, steam-driven 19th century in which all manner of fantastic inventions are posited to exist and technology, in the grand tradition of the Victorians, is viewed as an exciting and positive hope for the future. Cyberpunk stories typically take place in a dystopian future. Jeter, who suggested, in a letter to Locus magazine in 1987, that the speculative Historical Fiction he and some of his fellow Science Fiction authors were writing should be labeled “Steampunk,” in contrast to the popular “Cyberpunk” novels of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Wells and Jules Verne, the name itself evolved as a joking play on words by fantasy author K.W.
Though Steampunk is often associated with the Science Fiction novels of H.G. Steampunk embraces not only its own literary and dramatic genre, but it also has become a style of dress, an aesthetic movement and even a type of music. The growing cultural phenomenon of Steampunk that attracted 2,000 participants to Seattle, Washington, is often described as “Victorian Science Fiction,” but that sound bite does not truly capture these Steam Age enthusiasts. This transportation phenomenon that tamed the vast distances of the Old West frontier was finding a new and admiring audience at the “Weird, Weird West” Steamcon convention in November 2010. Steve Hauff, noted train historian and author, was the only man in the room of Steampunk enthusiasts not dressed in funkified Victorian garb, but you could tell from his authoritative voice that he loved to share the history of the steam locomotive.
People who like to role play will find any excuse to do it as much as possible.” When asked what he thinks cowboy action shootists and Steampunkers have in common, Willeford responds, “They want to live in adventure…. He recently dressed a character for a Steampunk episode of ABC’s Castle. His love of the Victorian-era period clothing got him interested in Steampunk, and since he was not the best shootist in the end, he shifted gears and became a purveyor of handmade corsetry, leather goods and other Steampunk accessories at Brute Force Studios. “I didn’t have the best shot,” he admits, “but I would show up in a different costume every time.” With his degree in Victorian history, history and physics, Thomas Willeford found a new hobby in blackpowder shooting and he became a cowboy action shooter with SASS’s West Shore Posse in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from 1999-2001. Steve Hauff, was the only man in the room of Steampunk enthusiasts not dressed in funkified Victorian garb
0 kommentar(er)
