Baroque and Roll

[caddyman]

Finding the baroque goodness that is the steampunk keyboard for my last posting, I have been thinking about technology and how dull so much of it is. A number of people commented along the lines that the keyboard is 'gorgeous' and some said that they want all their tech to look like it. Well, so do I.

Going back for a moment, to the mid 1980s, I used regularly to sit in the pub amidst pools of beer and clouds of smoke with boroshan (back in the days before he was, indeed, boroshan and before I was caddyman or any of the roots that name derived from)and regularly lambast his computer-programming soul with my frustration at the small green and black screened terminal in the recess at the end of the corridor at work. He told me a number of times that my descriptions of my trials with that unco-operative brute made him think of a darkened cell containing a large gothic thing with a small screen, teak and ivory keys and large brass piping leading off into the ceiling like some cathedral organ, probably with faint airs from Bach being played on the edge of hearing. We agreed then and there that technology should look like that; I don't know if steampunk had been devised at that point, but I wasn't aware of the concept as such. Nonetheless, it felt right and it feels right now.

There is a lot to be said for modern minimalist design, but a bit of rococo gilt still has its place and I don't see why technology shouldn't be disguised to look more homely and inviting.Why shouldn't we be able to switch the telly on by flipping the head on an ornate bronze statue and pressing a button concealed in the neck?

Comments

[fencingsculptor.livejournal.com]

Yeah I like the idea of overhauling high tech stuff to give it that retro look.

I loved the Wood-paneled Console room in the Tardis back in the days of Tom Baker. They harked back to it in the 1996 Movie where the console room was all steel girders and victorian desks and smoking room.

I also loved the Time Machine from the film of the same name staring Rod Taylor, and that great Capsule featured in the First Men in the Moon from around the same time. While the Nautilus from 20,000 leagues was cool the rest of the props were somewhat lacking.

One of my Fav designs is the movie version of the Rocketeer created by Dave Stevens. Awesome Art Deco 30's look to a high tech concept !

And at some point in the coming year an alien is going to get the same ArtDeco treatment....

But It would be cool if you could get Bakelite Phone or PDA covers. I've long thought that modern cars designers could easily market cars which closely resemble the sleek aluminuim and wooden interiors of 30's and 40's racing cars.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Steampunk postdates Cyberpunk, and that really wasn't a literary movement until about 1985 or so, with the publication of Mirrorshades and Neuromancer.

So I think you can claim some kudos for your early adoption of the feel.

[fredlums.livejournal.com]

Considering the number of broken erm I mean useful bits of computer(s) that grace our home - I for one am all for them being made to look more homely and inviting rather than grey and sinister.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

There was a TV commercial several years ago for (I think) printers by Hewlett Packard, (or one of those computer companies), that showed how shiny, modern and efficient the printers were compared with the earliest ones made by some other company. The commercial depicted the latter as clanky Heath-Robinson monstrosities festooned with silly moving parts sticking out in all directions, wobbling about like drunken moonrovers or Brains's failed inventions from Thunderbirds. The problem with the commercial was that the supposedly comically inefficient contraptions were much more endearing than the boxy new printers with all the personality of ... well, a boxy new printer.

New and featureless is not necessarily better than something old and stylish.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

We will have to agree to disagree. The Victorian SF giants were doing steam, certainly, but punk? That required the new wave.