After a longtime hiatus, and after establishing clear ownership of the much-lamented event known as The Steampunk World’s Fair®, we’re excited to bring it back!
The makers of Evil Expo, including that Jeff Mach fellow, are The Steampunk World’s Fair, the largest Steampunk festival in the world. We take one crazy weekend and make it a home to music, entertainment, joy, and thousands of people. Come to Gilt and Fanfare: A Halloween Circus Steampunk Dream by The Steampunk World’s Fair!
“The quality of wonder is that part of the soul which remembers how to fly; while we yearn heavenward, a part of us is already there, turning glorious circles.”
Attributed to Oscar Wilde
What is Steampunk?
That really depends on who you ask. Wikipedia defined Steampunk as:
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.
But what does that really mean? In the end, my friend, it means whatever you wish it to mean! It is an exercise of the imagination, first and foremost, and can stretch as near or as far as you like it to, for yourself.
What Makes The Steampunk World’s Fair Special?
As we said, we are simply the largest Steampunk event in the world, but for us, our core is not about its size – it’s about being a warm, welcoming place for everyone. We are a gathering of all things wondrous, inventive, whimsical, mysterious, strange, and fantastic – but what truly makes us special and one-of-a-kind is all of you.
You, our friends, family, patrons, and shipmates, make us who we are. Some of you are Steampunk veterans, some are brand new; some are really seriously, some are really silly, some are sure and some are just curious. We welcome you all! You will not find such a smorgasbord of Steampunk delights brought together anywhere else in the world, nor will you find a family as inviting as ours.
Curious? Come on in and be a part of it! We’d love to meet you! The only thing you have to lose is the ordinary.
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Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:
”
Steampunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.[1][2][3] Although its literary origins are sometimes associated with the cyberpunk genre,[4] steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American “Wild West”, where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Steampunk most recognizably features anachronistic technologies or retrofuturistic inventions as people in the 19th century might have envisioned them — distinguishing it from Neo-Victorianism[5] — and is likewise rooted in the era’s perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, and art.[6] Such technologies may include fictional machines like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne.[7] Other examples of steampunk contain alternative-history-style presentations of such technology as steam cannons, lighter-than-air airships, analog computers, or such digital mechanical computers as Charles Babbage‘s Analytical Engine.[8][9]
Steampunk may also incorporate additional elements from the genres of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, or other branches of speculative fiction, making it often a hybrid genre.[10] The first known appearance of the term steampunk was in 1987, though it now retroactively refers to many works of fiction created as far back as the 1950s or earlier[11] A popular subgenre is Japanese steampunk, consisting of steampunk-themed manga and anime,[12] with steampunk elements having appeared in mainstream manga since the 1940s.[13]
Steampunk also refers to any of the artistic styles, clothing fashions, or subcultures that have developed from the aesthetics of steampunk fiction, Victorian-era fiction, art nouveau design, and films from the mid-20th century.[14] Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by individual artisans into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical “steampunk” style, and a number of visual and musical artists have been described as steampunk.[15]”
What do you think?
