Steampunk in Bizarre Magazine

It still seems that virtually no critical work on Steampunk is being or has been undertaken, with the exception of Rebecca Onion's article 'Reclaiming the Machine' and Steffan Hantke's 'Difference Engines and Other Infernal Devices: History According to Steampunk'. Bizarre Magazine, on the other hand, are all over the Steampunk buzz, devoting a significant section of the February 09 issue to various manifestations of Steampunk in the UK and abroad.

The articles cover conventions, fashion, artifacts, music, and briefly delves into literature and sequential steampunk. Some great images and well worth a look if you're interested. I think it is both fascinating and fitting that it is places like Bizarre and in the nooks and gathering points of the internet, as well is in nightclubs that Steampunk is thriving and evolving. When I started thinking about putting together this project, in a way it seemed as though Steampunk as a literary genre at least, was over. What is becoming clear now is that there has been a massive cross media bleed that has served to re-invigorate Steampunk fictions both on-screen and on the page which is in turn feeding back into and refreshing the sub-culture. At no point has it been an easy and simple matter to say 'this is what Steampunk is' and as long as that continues, we're going to see more 'definitive' pieces of work produced by authors and artists alike.

I look forward to it.

Steampunk as virtual coexistence?

Yesterday I was ready to leave behind, at least for the time being, this fixation on Bergson in relation to the representation of time in Steampunk fictions. Today, however, I delved back into Gilles Deleuze's Bergsonism and got swayed again. Best summed up by this sentence:

'The past and the present do not denote two successive moments, but two elements that coexist' (59).

The past and the present as represented in terms of succession would more properly belong to the domain of alternate history (the past is altered but in relation to a linear and successive temporality), time-travel (the past/present/future are represented as existing along a road we can travel along, in both directions, related to each other in terms of succession), and SF (the far or immediate future are portrayed as succeeding the present of the text).

In much Steampunk, is it not correct to say that the two 'temporal' elements coexisting are signified by the technological capabilities of the present and a particular historical/geographical location that is past (a past)?

Bergson/Deleuze describe duration as subjectivity, and it is difficult to square memory (individual) with a communal and fictionalised history. However, the intention for me has never been to map the philosophy onto the fiction - or visa versa - but to show the analogy at work.

The purpose of making the analogy? For the authors and contributors of Steampunk Magazine, it is often political, and expressed most fully in the Apocalypse issue in relation to environmental concerns. The whole of the past is contained in the present and can be utilised. For others, the analogy is accidental but not incidental to the fictions produced.

It isn't Bergson or Bergson-Deleuze that can fully explain the significance of the genre, however. As they expressed, the present is that which never ceases to pass. The contemporary present that Steampunk conflates with its preferred historical moment (a long, century long, moment) is already always passing. Is this adequately represented in the works I am looking at. There may be a case to be made for the ending of The Difference Engine and its projection of a future, or in the retro-futurism at work in Casshern and Brazil. As always, further thinking is required.

Uplifting moments

I had a chat with my Director of Studies today. Doesn't seem like much but it is nice to touch base. It's been a while too, as my teaching on Narrative Skills for Videogames really knocked me for six in terms of the PhD research. I'm only now getting on to my second chapter and it seems like I'm way behind.

The meeting was really just a supportive chat. We're aiming to have me hand over the first draft of the chapter by the end of Easter, which I think is very doable. I was also given a heads up about an alternative history/Victorianan style novel which is by all accounts a great read: The Domino Men by Johnathan Barnes. I'll check it out.


Tasks at hand:
1. Blocking out chapter 2 - 1 week schedule
2. Complete 1st draft - by easter.

Time & Free Will - concluding thoughts

Last night I finished reading Henri Bergson's Time & Free Will. My initial thoughts are that there is room in the text to think around the role of literature as a way of presenting a non-spatialised time. Imperfectly, I think Bergson would say, as language attempts to crystallise what is essentially opposed to crystallisation - our experience of duration. Still unsure of whether or not the reading is warranted or justifiable, I want to read the Steampunk texts I am working on, as an example of thinking time in terms of duration and, in contradiction maybe, of representing the ludicrous nature of eliding time with space...in the case of Steampunk, a historical period with a geographical location (London/19th century).

The main problem I have is strengthening a Bergsonian conception of time as it relates to narratives, especially the genre(s) I am working with. I feel that I can read Bergson through Rocoeur to acheive this and am currently looking at 'Time, Self & Meaning in the works of Henri Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and Paul Ricoeur' by Mark S. Muldoon. We'll see what, if anything, I can make of that.

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I finished the graphic novel Steampunk: Manimatron by Chris Bachalo and Joe Kelley. I hated the main antagonist, I just couldn't buy into him. Also, the lettering used was often confusing...too much font colour and face change to make sense of the words. But the artwork is beautiful and I really did buy into this reconceptulisation of London. I ordered the next in the series Steampunk: Drama Obscura but by all accounts the story ends abruptly there due to a lack of popularity.

I'm also reading The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers (novel). Not sure yet. Both the Anubis Gates and the graphic novel have unnerved me because of the heavy use of the time travel trope. I have been working with the idea that Steampunk is not about travelling from the present to the past via time travel (which belongs to the realm of SF) but that it represents a present that encompasses the past and therefore the two 'moments' coexist. I may need to rethink this.

The Why

Hi.

First, the why...

Following a seminar I attended today at the University of Salford in which Dr. Siân Bayne spoke on the uncanny & virtual learning environments, I decided to set up this blog as a way of analyzing my learning processes and tendencies, to attempt to decipher the connections between my interests and my studies that at times seem very connected and at other times desperately disparate. I have also been influenced by the McKenzie Wark's book GAM3R 7H30RY published online and open for comment as it was being written (pointed out to me by a friend and colleague who found a fascinating interview with the author in the stunningly concieved mechinima talk show This Spartan Life).

I am already into my second year of researching my PhD and so this blog begins abruptly mid-way through my studies. I think this is fitting as the sense of disorientation that I feel at this stage of my research might be equivalent to that of a reader dropped into the midst of my often meandering directions of thought. This blog will therefore be a space in which my anxieties about my learning and attitude towards academia can be managed and reflected upon.

I will include links to online discussions, articles and other content that I am exploring and the focus of this blog will shift between my PhD - centred on Steampunk and the Gothic in fiction - and my teaching and continuing interest in Game Theory. The two may be irreconcilable although the upcoming release of this game may just change that.

What I will not do is use this blog to write about my personal life or non-research related experiences. However, it may be hard to keep this boundary clear especially as I necessarily consume media, reflect, and respond in writing and elsewhere.

I invite comments and connections of constructive persuasion and hope that the process of writing this blog is both useful to me and to others. Time will tell...