> In your words, what is steampunk?
Steampunk is first and foremost an aesthetic, which hopefully I need not describe for you; mechanical machines, wood and brass, victoriana, etc. However, this name has also come to be applied to a subculture/counterculture. The primary tenets of this subculture are:
1) Fetishisation of the object – For example, acknowledging that a computer is a physical box, not just something that is used for computing. Clothing isn’t just something to keep you warm. This leads to an interest in design and design principles applied to all areas of life (in a functional as well as an aesthetic sense).
2) Self sufficiency – You can and should understand and alter your environment to suit yourself, and encourage others to do so as well. This ties in with “geek” and “maker” culture, and also the open source movement, and commonly a liberal, anti-authoritarian political stance. This is often mistaken for a generic anti-establishment stance (as in traditional punk), but I think it is more nuanced than that; “thank you very much for your assistance, but we work best when left to our own devices”.
3) A predilection for technology and technologically based solutions. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the past twenty years have seen the fastest rate of technological change in the history of humanity. Problems which were originally intractable have become tractable, formerly ideological problems have become operational problems, and not just in our lifetimes, but very quickly on a human timeframe. Steampunks have faith that any given problem can be solved - will be solved! – has already been solved!! – perhaps as yet the solution remains undeployed due to political/social/corporate inertia, but it is only a matter of time.
The majority of steampunk media is set in a stylised victorian, industrial-revolution era. The parallels are obvious – an unprecendented rate of technological and economic upheaval, coupled with the archetypical example of a conservative society. The subtext is also that clearly their technological revolution didn’t solve all their problems! Steampunks are not without self-awareness. Having said that, a lot of it is genuinely about the hope that this technology brings.
> What are the roots of steampunk, besides those old books by H.G. Wells and others? How did it grow from those books to be what it is today?
> What can steampunk music be defined as?
Tricky territory. The unhelpful response is “music made by steampunks”. Things commonly found in the genre are: (western) orchestral instruments, atmospheric/cinematic arrangements, narrative lyrics, and influences from the themes described above. Of course, I find The Clockwork Quartet as a strong example of the steampunk genre, but it must be said that many other major artists who use the term break a lot of these guidelines; many use a lot of electronic instruments and sounds, for example. As a fan of ours once succinctly said “a lot of steampunk music is just rock about airship pirates”. Abney Park is notable for a recurring middle eastern influence.
> What is steampunk architecture?
> How popular is steampunk?
Hopefully popular enough to support at 13 piece band…! Certainly it’s true that it’s become a lot more popular over the last handful of years, especially since the word “steampunk” has become well known and agreed upon by the collective consciousness. There is a lot in a name. Without a name, it’s very difficult for something to exist coherently, especially on the internet, where everything is found, sorted and categorised by text strings (as opposed to e.g. physical locations, physical appearances).
> Why do people like steampunk? What’s the purpose?
I suppose this is could be one of two questions; why do steampunks like steampunk? and why does the internet equivalent of joe public seem to like steampunk?
As for the first question, I think a lot of this is already answered above.
Second question: Most peoples’ interaction with steampunk is limited to seeing images of steampunk objects. I believe that these - and internet memes about modded objects in general - are so popular because, for many years now, we mostly buy objects because of what they can do, rather than for what they look like, and also objects which are largely mass produced and uniform. Something that’s surprised me most is that we haven’t seen many examples of steampunk cars, because that’s traditionally one area with a very large modding community, and also one where people spend huge amounts of money purely on aesthetics.
Purpose? Well… the purpose of any culture is to be shared. People who identify with a particular (sub)culture use it as a way to find like minded people.
