Asylum Steampunk Festival 2017 (The British At Play)

All Images: Asylum Steampunk Festival, Lincoln, August 2017

I’m running a bit late with my posts at the moment, so apologies for this one being already three weeks shy of the event it reports on.  It relates to my recent afternoon spent at Lincoln’s Asylum Steampunk Festival – a repeat of a similar excursion, two years ago.  Just as then, it felt like it would be an entertaining enough way to round off the summer holidays – and waking to one of the sunniest days in August sealed the deal.  So - I jumped in the car and zoomed over to the old hometown.

I have no personal involvement with Steampunk, as a subculture - other than as a spectator.  However, the numerous eccentrics, exhibitionists and fantasists who have, constitute an enjoyable spectacle, as they promenade around the quaint environs of Lincoln’s historic centre.  Investment in a wristband, to gain admission to the various organised events and dedicated venues, would - I imagine, bring one in contact with the movement’s real hardcore.  However, as before, I contented myself with simply strolling amongst the crowds in Castle Square, around the Cathedral, and along Westgate –pausing for the occasional tea break, and  taking numerous photos.  Some of the results can be seen here.

If I’m honest, the initial impact on me was just slightly reduced this time - but I suspect that’s just the result of a certain familiarity, rather than any real lack of enthusiasm or involvement on the part the participants.  Certainly, much raiding of the dressing-up box had still clearly taken place.  I do wonder though, if (as all subcultures must) the Steampunk phenomenon has lost a little of its initial creative spark – possibly defaulting to a set of relatively predictable tropes.  Thus, amongst the copious standard-issue waistcoats, flamboyant skirts, goggles and brass cog accessories, it was pleasing to come across the occasional spark of genuine inventiveness or attention to detail.

Special mention should thus go to the young woman in the slightly ramshackle, but pleasingly alternative, glazed cast-iron headdress.  Another, in an absolutely immaculate, oriental-themed ensemble, also impressed me - not least for the sheer amount of effort that had gone in.  I was not alone, as she became effectively trapped at the Cathedral’s west front - expertly posing for an endless series of impromptu photo-shoots.  I can only hope she won some kind of prize over the festival weekend.

It did strike me that, for many, the more fantastical aesthetics of Steampunk can blend all too seamlessly into a rather more generalised strain of Victoriana.  In fact, as I sipped my cuppa in front of my old junior school, I was intrigued by an overheard conversation nearby.  It revealed that, for one party at least, this gathering was just another slot in a packed calendar of re-enactment events, that might see her dipping in and out of numerous historical periods.  (This week - The Age of Steam: next week - The Wars of the Roses).

This in turn, led me to reflect on how, for the British, so much leisure time is spent longingly projecting into the past.  If Steampunk could be identified as one of the last real subcultural flowerings, it is one with a distinct nostalgia for a supposed golden age at its heart.  Certainly, there is little about it that could be said to actively critique current society (other than a desire to escape from it).  I also sense that, these days any hauntological intent, or sense of an alternative future haunted by the technology of the past, is somewhat diluted.  The overall vibe seems now to have defaulted to do a fairly generic affection for corsetry, brass fittings and quasi-military costumes.

Look a little harder, and more critically, and one’s eye also fixes on the preponderance of union jacks and the unmistakable fetishisation of Britain’s Imperial past.  Is it just me, (possibly squinting too hard through the filter of my current artistic preoccupations) – or is this all slightly problematic in our current, distinctly fractured, socio-political moment?  Certainly, I find it hard to regard any age defined by bellicosity and expansionism as a golden one [1.].  Under the jolly, picturesque surface, could it all really be just another (if slightly alternative) symptom of that defining British disease – terminal nostalgia?

Ultimately though, it probably doesn’t do to get too po-faced about it all.  I doubt many of the Steampunks feel the need too delve too self-analytically into the motives behind their pastime.  And the general mood in Lincoln was seemingly one of relaxed theatricality - rather than of strident jingoism or aggressive xenophobia. It's also important to remember that most subcultures have a darker side.  A degree of transgression is part of the deal, after all.  In fact, it may be that those troubling strands of British consciousness are more likely to be unearthed amongst the civilians on housing estates, in anonymous suburbs, or dining at weekend carveries - than amongst the cheery oddballs at the Asylum.

[1.]:  Given the choice, I'll take the Post War Consensus and The Welfare State (for all their defects) any day of the week.