Instituttseminar: Espen Helgesen

Om foredraget (på engelsk)

With recent developments in digitalization and miniaturization, advanced technologies are more easily available to us, yet also increasingly out of reach. This incongruity is most forcefully experienced when our digital gadgets break down, and their smooth surfaces discourage any layperson from attempting to investigate the malfunction without the assistance of a specialist. A number of responses to this gradual disempowerment of technology users have emerged in recent years, including do-it-yourself-movements that promote slow living, manual labour, and handmade crafts. This paper addresses how the Neo-Victorian aesthetic movement known as steampunk has gained prominence in contemporary popular culture in Norway. Guided by key predecessors such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, creators of steampunk-themed films, video games, and novels draw and expand on 19th century aesthetics and technology.

Steampunk fiction pays particular attention to how the future has been imagined in the past, offering retrofuturistic perspectives that, according to its proponents, allow us to reflect—and act—on the contemporary world in new ways. By imagining a pre-petroleum era dominated by steam engines and mechanical cogwheels, steampunkers reclaim control of technologies that in our digital age have become invisible and therefore unavailable to us. In steampunk cosplay, participants further explore the tactile dimension of mechanical technology by crafting and wearing costumes, turning fiction into make-believe as they act out their idiosyncratic characters together. Attention to detail is highly valued in steampunk cosplay, and video sharing websites such as YouTube offer detailed documentation of 19th century aesthetics and technology. These websites also constitute hubs for collaborative creativity, where cosplayers share videos of their costumes and performances. This paper explores how steampunk cosplay, as it traverses online and offline spaces, offers playful responses to a question that is simultaneously simple and profound: What if?

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