What is a real steampunk?

Fang Yunan was published on 2012-10-0919:15.

Recently, Tai Chi, a martial arts blockbuster under the banner of "steampunk", was released in China. The most eye-catching thing in the film is the mechanical monster "Troy", which is powered by steam and has an elegant and exquisite shape. It can lay rails and destroy houses. How successful is Taiji's "steampunk"? We don't judge. We only say what is steampunk and what is the core spirit of steampunk with pure flavor. After reading this article, everyone will have their own judgment.

"Tai Chi" Cannes poster.

What is steampunk?

Steampunk is a genre of fantasy that rose in 1980s and 1990s. "Steam" represents the most developed era and region of steam industry in human history, namely19th century Victorian England, which was the peak of the British Empire, filled with luxury, elegance, romance and endless imagination. The rumble of industrial gears resounded through the sky. As the main power source, steam has promoted the rapid development of science and technology, greatly expanded the depth and breadth of people's material world and cognition, and filled them with beautiful daydreams about the future. Punk, on the other hand, means refusing to compromise with tradition and authority, symbolizing a spiritual core of being unconventional and creating a free utopia. The collision of these two unrelated concepts gave birth to steampunk, a novel art form.

Steampunk is almost isolated from the ubiquitous information technology in contemporary society. Through fantasy, it creates such a typical scene: all the scientific and technological achievements in the information age in reality or in the future completely exist in age of steam and have the functions of products in the information age. Its essence is to present a space that does not exist in reality on the basis of industrial revolution science, usually an overhead world parallel to the west in the19th century. The narrow sense of steampunk can be simply defined as: Victorian style plus modern scientific and technological worldview driven by steam. As a new art school, steampunk has been recognized by mainstream culture for a short time, and its influence is gradually infiltrating into many aspects of contemporary society, especially in the fields of entertainment and crafts.

Below, let's interpret the core spirit of steampunk one by one.

The rebels

The spiritual essence of punk is to transcend social norms and oppose everything except punk. It has the tendency of anti-social anarchy and is usually regarded as synonymous with rebellion. Why steampunk is called punk, science fiction writer William? Gibson contributed a lot. His book Differential Extension published in 199 1 shocked the world and promoted it from a fantasy trend to a fantasy school for the first time. Because of its status as "the leader of Cyberpunk", this emerging world outlook is also called "steampunk" according to its characteristics of the times.

Because of the same ancestry, steampunk and Cyberpunk are inextricably linked in the spiritual world, and their common theme is rebellion. However, the rebellious mood of the former is obviously much milder, without the dystopian depiction of the latter, such as advanced science and technology, rampant material civilization, the world ruled by machines, indifferent interpersonal relationships and spiritual confusion and emptiness. Steampunk is not only a rare gloomy tone, but also full of inspiring positive emotions, which is in the same strain as Victorian technological optimism. Steampunk movies such as Atlantis and Steamboat Boy all express their faith and hope with the theme of bravely exploring unknown areas and not bowing to evil forces.

The mechanical spider in Man in the Wind.

The existence of rebellious factors in steampunk works is more in line with the post-modern expression of the overhead world. It often puts together familiar things, such as repackaging the classic characters in the history of science fiction into the overhead world and arranging new adventures for them (the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also known as the hodgepodge of heroes in "Falling from the Sky"), or trying to portray props that are incompatible with traditional concepts in appearance, scientific content and function (the spaceship of the treasure planet and the mechanical spider of the man in the wind), which has caused a refreshing feeling. The mix of future and past, reality and imagination, magic and science can not only achieve the daydream of that big industrial era, but also create a surreal fantasy atmosphere appropriately.

Think of the past or old acquaintances

The Victorian era provided steampunk with elegant and charming nostalgic coordinates. At that time, British industry was developed, science, culture and art were unprecedentedly prosperous, and there were more and more middle classes with emotional appeal and love for fashion. At the same time, it quickly expanded outward and established a huge colony in the world. The empire has become the only superpower in the world, and its cultural output and share have surpassed that of Hollywood today. Today, even outside Britain, this lost era is still fondly remembered by many people, and it has been labeled as classicism and synonymous with elegance and luxury. Original steampunk films such as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, League of the Braves and Back to the Future 3. , all accurately positioned at the end of 19, seamlessly combining classical style with high-tech plot, successfully arousing the audience's nostalgia for that era.

The nostalgic style of Indiana Jones.

Of course, many steampunk works are not limited to the Victorian era, and their locations are far beyond Britain and North America, which are deeply influenced by their culture. But remembering and recalling the past is their spiritual appeal. Captain Sky and Tomorrow's World is a tribute to the detective films of 1930s and 1940s, and it restores the cold black atmosphere of the film with the image of steampunk. The future of Chronicle of Variation is similar to World War I due to the retrogression of science and technology. Although some of the past is not so beautiful, there is still reason to miss that steampunk is an excellent carrier and decoration. In addition, steampunk movies often absorb elements of Victorian costumes. In the aerial stories of19th century, the tuxedo, hat, crutch and pocket watch of English gentlemen are all common props.

Machine aesthetics

The combination of rebellion and nostalgia has created the unique machine aesthetics of steampunk movies, and the mechanical style of the big industrial era is vividly displayed. Steampunk artists are dismissive of digital products with contemporary characteristics. The latter follows the practical and concise design principle, polished to the extreme, and inevitably presents the same pallor, lacking the aesthetic enjoyment of the product itself, which is the strength of steampunk aesthetics.

Because the technology it represents is superior to the contemporary foundation, mechanical equipment-including vehicles, weapons, buildings and other props-is usually simple in shape, huge in volume and complex in structure. Driven by steam boilers or original electric energy, propellers, gears, pistons, bearings, knobs and pipes form a dazzling and highly orderly interlocking device, which has incredible imagination. Once started, the steaming steam rises in the boiler, the piston fluctuates randomly, and the precisely meshed gears drive each other to rotate, which perfectly reproduces the prosperous scene of the big industrial era. Watching steampunk movies, from the sniper rifle in Back to the Future 3, to the dashboard of the power plant in Twilight, to the floating spacecraft in Tomorrow's World, and to the Nazi mothership in Steel Sky, all praise the mechanical texture strongly.

Back to the gun design in Future 3.

In addition to playing a huge role in artistic scenes, in recent years, in the field of animation, steampunk has also extended machine aesthetics to the costumes of virtual characters. The alien intelligent robot of Treasure Planet consists of mechanical parts of19th century. "Robot 9" carried it forward. The protagonists are all composed of zippers, buttons, pins and linen heads, and their eyes are bronze steampunk glasses. The huge monster has a panoramic view of the metal material and transmission structure in the close shot, which has the ancient rhyme of Leonardo da Vinci's scientific invention. Generally speaking, the machine aesthetics of steampunk embodies the essence of post-modern art, which is free to talk and imagine, but there are certain rules to follow, showing a visual style that can be seen at a glance.

Heterogeneous world

The world of steampunk is a patchwork illusion, which is independent of the face of any era from ancient times to modern times and constitutes a unique heterogeneous world. Here, the advanced and backward elements obviously belong to different times and different types of movies, which will occupy the same conspicuous position and deliberately create a strong sense of disharmony. In the Valley of the Wind, soldiers in armor fired at tanks with medieval swords worn around their waists. In the steampunk fantasy scene in "Attack Team of Beautiful Girls", the old guns on the battlefield of World War I fought against the walking dead controlled by high-tech biotechnology, and the heroines also used cold weapons and martial arts to destroy the enemy.

The alien world in Girl Scouts.

Here, magic and technology can also coexist harmoniously. Steampunk is a kind of world view that science has just entered people's field of vision, and magical ghosts and gods are still popular in the Middle Ages. In the traditional sense, the boundary between the two is completely blurred. Technology can be advanced magic, and magic can explain the principle of technology. Because of this, many steampunk works can hardly be simply classified as science fiction or fantasy. Hal's mobile castle, which has reached the peak of machine aesthetics, also has an ancient contract between witchcraft and the devil, which combines with each other and is full of interest.

The spiritual core of steampunk is developing with the times. It keeps an avant-garde form while creating a nostalgic atmosphere, so its definition and expression are constantly changing. It is the pursuit of steampunk artists to constantly absorb new ideas and add new elements. The discussion in this paper only outlines the outline of steampunk. To understand the charm of steampunk more deeply, it is necessary to combine the inspiration and visual impression of the article with the specific image.