steampunk making from the state library’s collection: cameron morley
TRANSCRIPT
Steampunk making from the State Library’s collection
Moustaches?
• Steampunk is an inspired movement of creativity and
imagination. With a backdrop of either Victorian England
or America’s Wild West at hand, modern technologies
are re-imagined and realized as elaborate works of art,
fashion, and mechanics. If Jules Verne or H.G. Wells
were writing their science fiction today, it would be
considered “steampunk.” www.ministryofpeculiaroccurrences.com
• Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's
Illustrated Primer (1995)
• Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day (2006)
Something is happening here …
• Bookends Scenarios 2009:
– Local, organic, hand-made PLUS connected, tech-savvy,
Global
• Post-modern society – past, present, future all at once
– Hipster Aesthetic, Creative Anachronists, “Artisans”
• The Library as source, inspiration and enabler
How to make and do things …
The Stacks
The real SRL Card catalogue
Steam Engines 1700s to 1900s
Making – Metalwork, blacksmithing (1906)
Making – Dried Fruit (1944)
Making – Barber techniques (1851)
Making – Coach (1902)Popular Australian vehicles
Making – Measurement (1881 / 1879)
Making –Wooden Boats (1944)
Making .. Anything? Perfume, charcoal, stained glass ..
Making - 1884 Beer
… more Cards
Vintage and hotrods
Research Cards
eclectic
eclectic 2
eclectic 3
Boring Machines ?
Trade Catalogues
Trade Catalogues – playground equipment (1938)
Trade Catalogues – Tractors.. Safes
Trade Catalogues – period features
Trade Catalogues– period features
Original Materials – #1880Sydney
Audience
• Makers
• Restorers
• Tinkers, hoarders, collectors …
• Handypeople
• Guilds
• Men’s Sheds
• Creative Anachronists, rockabilly, hot rod enthusiasts, hipsters…
• Historians, Antique enthusiasts, cosplayers, LARPs
• Designers, craftspeople, manufacturers….
Lunch