A few copies of Steampunk Magazine that we have around the community returned to us after having been borrowed (I think for someone to write a dissertation or thesis or some academic type work) for several months. This and that we have been having conversations about Streampunk ever since the party on Saturday has got me musing about things punk, goth and steam. My hesitancy the other day or feeling that asserting a connection between goth and steampunk may be controversial for some was due to some of the iterations of steampunk I have run across on teh interwebs, which to me do not feel very punk or goth, in fact simply feel downright nostalgic. Plus there is that there is a great deal of brown, tan tweed and khaki in steampunk due to the colonist/explorer fashion theme, and the airship/ dirigible pilot etc. At times some interactions seem very far from goth (admitedly there is something analogous between punk and goth, much goth must seem to many a punk as very far from punk and it is true,to my dismay. but I digress thus the parentheses).
So, it was with some joy that I was reminded of subtitle of SteamPunk Magazine: "Putting the Punk back into SteamPunk." Also, that SteamPunk Magazine describes itself as a journal of fashion, art, misapplied technology, and chaos, which is fairly punk and fairly goth as well. Then I was reminded of these articles that have appeared in the magazine: "varieties of the steampunk experience: nostalgic versus maleancholic steampunk", "Green Fairies, Witch -Cradles, and Angel Tongues: Victorian approaches to altered states.", and "Paint it Brass: the intersection of goth and steam."
Interestingly enough in the past few days there has been both talk in the house about the melancholy in this retrieval and recombination given the actually history of industrialization, and about the need to retrieve and recombine and rewrite in ways that subvert the various oppression of the Victorian era some of which remain today or at least we are continuing to reap what was sowed at that time. Such talk is both goth and punk. Certainly Steampunk is its own subculture perhaps broader than goth and certainly punk, but there is that corner of it that does see its roots in goth and punk.
I think my own aesthetics and sensibilities may mean that i am a goth who wanders between punk, steampunk and cyberpunk. But then this is perhaps not surprising for anyone who knows me.
Cool blog. Good to see someone pulling disparate stuff together.
ReplyDeleteI think that perhaps there are two things in particular in the Steampunk asthetic that connect them to Goth. First, there is the Victorian element. As you mentioned, there is a lot of khaki and browns when people dress up steampunk, but that actually comes more from a western steampunk or the airship motif. But steampunk is very much centered in Victorianism.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing is something mentioned by the steampunk band, Abney Park, in an interview I came across with them online. And that is the do-it-yourself asthetic running throughout the steampunk community. Steampunk is specifically a rebuttal against plastic and mass production.
Yes thank you for bringing up Abney Park a great band, whose sounds are reminiscent of a number of bands that could or are identified as Goth, but Abney Park is self-identified as a steampunk band.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is that steampunk tends to draw primarily from the Victorian that perhaps sets itself off from Goth and certainly punk as a related subset of both. Certainly the DIY aesthetic shows its connection to punk, Goths are less reliably DIY.
I guess the DIY aesthetic is more punk than Goth... but it is a reaction against something in society that I believe many Goths are reacting against in their own way...
ReplyDeleteAbney Park definitely seems to have started out as a goth band... and their music style would probably be best described as gothic industrial... but, as you mentioned, they self-identify as steampunk... though I recently read a blog post by their lead singer saying that they were looking to re-define again as post-apocalyptic or something.
What is so odd to me is that when I've read some steampunk fiction, I'm seeing a bit of a disconnect between the fiction I read and the community that has built up around it. The fiction is a lot less punk.
Oh certainly, and goths that retain the connection between punk and goth still have much of the DIY aesthetic but some other factors among goths just make it a muted characteristic.
ReplyDeleteOh Ya I ran across that same blog I think, ya, that's interesting, but what is interesting is that many classic Goth bands never and/or don't self-identify as goth, the most infamous of course is Andrew Eldrich and Sister's of Mercy. So, I wonder do people who self-identify with Steampunk listen to Abney Park and would they continue to do so if their self-identification changes?
Well that isn't so odd to me about the difference between the literary genre and the subculture that is forming. For instance you can and always could make a connection between goth as a subculture and the literary genre of Gothic Roamances but the connection is tenous and slight its there but that isn't what is driving the subculture. So I think that is what is going on with the disconnect you are seeing. It isn't really that the subculture is relying heavily or ever did rely heavily on the literary genre, they more overlap to some degree. And if Steampunk as my experience indicates, emerges out of goth then really its possibly a melding of a number of influences that includes the literary genre, but dependent on none of those influences.