It seems to me that
this thread and
its corresponding blog post merit an in-depth response that addresses the literary and thematic issues of the various *punk schemes and tropes. And while I might be as much a fan of the visual aesthetic of Guillermo del Toro or Nick Gever, I find that this sensibility ultimately lacks a certain
je ne sais quois present in "Gabba, Gabba, Hey." That is to say, the
das Ding of *punk lies not in the trappings, but in the social, psychological, and ontological space *punk inhabits, even carves from the very depths of our collective consciousness.
This is not to say that FarSky, or any else, is incorrect in any absolute sense; rather, it is to note that the popular fascination with what many people consider the visual aesthetic, the formal sensibilities of *punk (and Steampunk in particular) contributes to the much maligned and often frustrating attenuation of schema that speak to a peculiarly Western and American ethos. But, perhaps I get a bit of ahead of myself, when I mention that the appeal of all things *punk lies in their ontological proximity to the defining social and cultural mythos of the Post-American and Post-Colonial world.
So, I ask you, mostly rhetorically, what is *punk? What separates the pseudo-alternate realities of Cyberpunk, Steampunk, Magepunk, and Dieselpunk from that which is? What delineates the fantastic from the mundane in this sense? Is it that technology or magic or knowledge takes some alternate form in a world much like, but not quite our own? Is it the probability of such possibilities emerging now or in some undisclosed past the manifests the palpable attraction of such forms? And from where does the broader than Geek appeal in these permutations arise? It helps, I think, to consider that impetus which creates all thing *punk, even the Ramones: the hunger for a frontier.
Societies, by their very existence, require evolution and expansion, lest they find themselves buried under the inexorable march of some other society they could not stop. And to this end, societies are always braving the frontier spaces of their world, their existence, their mythology, their fiction, their art. But ontological frontiers find themselves problematic, in any sense they exist, because there are only so many metaphors or allegorical engines for new spaces in creation. The mode of a story can be altered, but the story itself remains the same when stripped of its trappings and localizations. So, We (in a very collective sense) create new modes in which stories can be realized, even if the story has been told a thousand times prior. In this sense, *punk is really the grand metaphor of fictive ontology; it is the materialization of the many philosophies of arts and communication made fantastic (at least, fantastic in the very non-peacock meaning of the word). *punk is the folklore of a world that exists in a curious simultaneity: lacking physical and philosophical frontiers but desperately needing a space (or even Outer Space) that it can explore, conquer, and maybe even tame.
I offer these brief definitions of the various *punk modes:
SteampunkSteampunk explores the frontier spaces created by a society's industrialization, as evidenced by the very beginnings of Science Fiction itself. H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, C.S. Lewis and Edgar Rice Burroughs, are the very source of those sensibilities we call Steampunk. And their influence cannot be ignored. Wikipedia defines Steampunk as such (and this definition is greatly lacking):
Quote:
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction, that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes fictional works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era Britain—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, often featuring anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as the people of this historical period would have envisioned them to look like, i.e. based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer, but occurring at an earlier date.
Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of "the path not taken" for such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers (such as Charles Babbage's Analytical engine).
The trappings themselves are not what makes this mode of story telling compelling; the form of technology is not inherently Victorian. Indeed, to confine Steampunk to that realm is to cut it short, because Industrialization itself is an always changing frontier. How things are made; how manufacturing works; how resources are refined, reshaped, and altered to fit the creative and societal needs of man indisputably influence those things which are Steampunk. Engines need not power themselves with Steam; Locomotives need not be time machines ...
The complexity with Steampunk is understanding that the mode itself is as fluid as the state of society is explores. Consider this,
Dollhouse is more Steampunk than Cyberpunk: in a world where cloning has become possible, genetic manipulation is a given, and neuroscience has buried Freud, Jung, and Lacan in favor of cognitive sciences, neurobiology, and MRI's, the industrialization of the person and identity becomes the newest frontier of how things come to be. In a society where making a person is more science and technology than biology, the Ghost in the Shell becomes an issue of industrialization.
CyberpunkWilliam Gibson, in all honesty, finalized "cyberpunk". Those bleak, near-future worlds wherein technology and communication integrate themselves into the cellular realities of human beings. But what did Gibson really explore? What frontier does Cyberpunk challenge in its various incarnations that range from
Neuromancer to Thomas Pynchon's
The Crying of Lot 49? What is Cyberpunk if not the trappings of
Blade Runner and Anarchy Online and
Tron? I suggest that Cyberpunk is that fiction, that creative thought which explores the frontier spaces of epistemology and how knowledge is shared. That is, Cyberpunk deals with the very real, every evolving manners in which we transmit knowledge between people and the repositories of what is known. While Steampunk deals fundamentally with the ontological frontiers of post-industrial societies, Cyberpunk is about the epistemological frontiers of man. To this end,
The Screwtape Letters might very well be the first true cyber-fiction, even if computers and cell-phones and the digital tethering of our persons was to come a century and a half later.
DieselpunkThe Road Warrior,
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow,
The War of the Worlds, and our much beloved
Firefly, these things are all Dieselpunk. They are about carving out new frontiers, new societies, new families, new existences in worlds, galaxies, countries, planets whose dominant societies have moved past themselves. Post-apocalyptic realities are not mandatory, but they are common. Dieselpunk deals with the frontiers created by cultures and societies in decline, but it also deals with the frontiers created by cultures and societies as they evolve.
MagepunkHowl's Moving Castle is probably the most widely known example here, followed closely by
Fullmetal Alchemist and maybe a little
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But this mode of story-telling deals with the frontier spaces of the unknown and the unknowable. Everyone is fundamentally agnostic in front of the mysteries of existence. The supernatural, at least in this case, can be either threat or salvation, but it is the last frontier for a world whose collective knowledge constantly reduces the amount of things which cannot be explained. The quest for new understanding and mastery of the unexplainable and unexplored puts the mundane in contact with the mystical.
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