The Afterlife of the Honeybees by Carrie Ann Baade
What would you create if time and money were no object? What would you make if all the creative resources you could imagine—not to mention the skills—were at your fingertips? We asked this question of our artists, makers, and creators, encouraging them to get creative (and dream big). We also asked our creators what ultra-ambitious project they’d like to see someone else do. After all, most creators were fans first, and collaborations are rife in Steampunk. Here are some of their niftiest ideas. Some ideas are utterly fantastic; others might just inspire the next big thing.
Big Ideas from Artists and Makers
“I would like to create a baptism machine to take to Burning Man. It would be made of glass tubes and joined by metal and rivets. I would like it to release water over the head of the initiated who wish to cleanse their names and refocus their identities. I’ve performed baptisms for the past few years, and I think it would be striking to have a gleaming, glass machine in the desert.”
—Carrie Ann Baade
“I’d love to make a real automated doll, like the ones I do in photomontage. It would be a full-sized-human scale and fully articulated.”
—Annliz Bonin
“I would love to do a stop-motion animated Mechtorians movie at some point. I don’t animate, myself, so I would need to collaborate with a company who I felt understood the characters enough to do them correctly.”
—Doktor A
“I would really love to design a set for theater, maybe for a play by Oscar Wilde or Shakespeare, but give it a retro-futuristic look. A stage is just a big box, after all.”
—Louise Kiner
“My ultimate goal is to create a world that is based on my alternative-history idea that the Imperial Steamworks imagery has been based on. I want to create an art book that reads like a travel guide to the imperial city in my fantasy world.”
—James Ng
“I want to connect London and Rio de Janeiro. This is more tunnel-through-the-earth than pie-in-the-sky, but equally ambitious.”
—Paul St George
“I’d love to design a whole game world. Games are really unparalleled as an experiential and atmospheric medium.”
—Keith Thompson
“If I were immortal, I’d finish the all-female art nouveau tarot deck I started years ago. The way I draw and paint, seventy-two cards would take a long, long time!”
—Ramona Szczerba
“I want to build a thirty-six-foot-tall giant steambot all out of steel, iron, and brass, standing on my front lawn, posed as if it’s attacking my house. I want it to be completely rusted, as if it rusted in place, and I want a death ray on the roof, pointed at the robot, also old, rusted in place, and broken-looking, with a hole burned all the way through the robot, in line with the death ray’s sights. I also want a patch of the lawn behind the robot (also in line), made of glass like it had melted the earth behind it, so the whole thing looks like it happened years ago and we just haven’t bothered clearing it away.”
—Thomas Willeford
“I dream of seeing a Steampunk carousel one day, and a zoo created by Jessica Joslin, and an insect aviary created by Mike Libby. Actually, I would love to see a Steampunk circus, filled with automatons and creatures made by the artists that I love.”
—Annliz Bonin
“A working, walking (Martian) tripod would be a lovely thing to see. No heat rays, though!”
—Doktor A
“I’d like to see someone build a dirigible: a real, functional Steampunk-style dirigible . . .”
—Herr Döktor
“I would like to see Yoko Ono do a retro-futurism/Steampunk piece. I think she would have a pretty interesting take on it.”
—Louise Kiner
“I would love to see Frank Miller do some Steampunk influenced story or artwork . . . . I can already picture beautifully contrasted black-and-white ink paintings with white smoke and black stylized gears, all done with that Sin City ruggedness and moodiness.”
—James Ng
“I’d love to see the director Carl Rinsch make an adaptation of one of China Miéville’s stories.”
—Keith Thompson
“More Steampunk drones.”
—Danny Warner
Serpent Twins, created by Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate, and their ‘Empire of Dirt’ Crew. Design team Because We Can assisted in fabrication and provided additional support.
From Designers and Fashionistas
“If I had the time and the necessary resources, I would build my own vision of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. This a crazy and huge project, but also a utopian one.”
—Maurice Grunbaum
“I would like to see the Netherlands artist Jos de Vink create one of his magnificent Stirling engines as large as a two-story house. Made entirely of gleaming silicon bronze (the king of metals), it would literally last forever. Thermal heating could provide the energy source. Finally, it could be tied into an immense astronomical clock. As a piece of kinetic art, I believe it would have no rival.”
—Art Donovan
“I would love to have thousands of Liquid Lights be the backdrop for David Bowie performing ‘Space Oddity.’”
—Tanya Clarke
“I’d love to design and build an entire pub/smoking lounge in my aesthetic. Or a library . . .”
—J. W. Kinsey
“I really want to assemble a group of alternate-history builders who’d like to work on a team of Steampunk street puppets or life-sized marionettes. I think this would be a fun challenge artistically, theatrically, and mechanically. It would be cool to provide each builder with the same basic frame (size, dimension), but leave the aesthetics, mechanics, and backstory to the individual crafter. Once the puppets are all constructed, the group could create a story or play to incorporate them all. That’s not so pie-in-the-sky, really. I think I’m gonna make a few calls. . . .”
—Paige Gardner Smith
“I’d love to see the incredible horologist Eric Freitas build a giant mechanical clock that would fill the entire surface of a very large ceiling—complete with spotlights to cast moving shadows on the floor.”
—Tanya Clarke
“I discovered Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett’s book Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel while vending at a convention called SalonCon several years ago. I was completely taken by the realism in which the main character, a robot called Boilerplate, was portrayed illustratively, and seamlessly inserted into historical Victorian photographs. I would love to see Boilerplate brought to life in full size and in full-metal accuracy.”
—Karen von Oppen
“I’d love to see a Steampunk retrofit on a big boat . Like a yacht or paddle wheel. Maybe this has already been done and I’ve missed it. But if not . . . Ahoy! Someone, get on this.”
—Paige Gardner Smith
“There are too many to count, but one I hope to actually bring about in the near future is a story published in the form of a deck of cards that gets shuffled each time it’s read.”
—Jedediah Berry
“I started some of the research for an alternate-history Steampunk novel in which Toussaint L’Ouverture was not starved to death by the French when they tricked him into showing up for negotiations. This creates a Haiti where Toussaint, who was mixed race, charts a different course than Dessalines. Where the Montgolfier family moves to the first free black Western republic and develops airships, and Haiti (one of the largest economies in the area; Napoleon traded away the entire Louisiana Purchase for the promise of help reinvading Haiti—it was that valuable—thus changing U.S. history) becomes a powerhouse of the Caribbean due to its airship force. And as the U.S. Civil War approaches, Haiti, England, and France have to decide what sides to take, risking a world war.”
—Tobias Buckell
“I’ve realized recently that I’ve written over a thousand pages—about giant lizards from outer space. I don’t know how I feel about that! I’m very interested at the moment in retro-futurism in the sense of 1950s American science fiction, not necessarily Victorian-ish, so I might do something with that. But K. W. Jeter said recently, how there’s never been, cinematically at least, the visual equivalence of Blade Runner to Steampunk. That comment’s stayed with me. It would be a fascinating thing to try. Though I have no idea how!”
—Lavie Tidhar
“First, the ultimate. If I had vast resources and sufficient time, I would create a living Steampunk experience: a neo-Victorian, stylish, self-sustainable compound. In which the life Steamtastic, both Indian and British, is lived 24-7, incorporating DIY projects, fully functional steam engines, art installations, and immersive audience participation events and conventions . Like a living history venue but completely dedicated to Steampunk. Dress code mandatory. Ideally this place would be in grounds that had space for an Indian temple and for other groups of makers and visionaries to come and stay and add their tuppence ha’pennyworth, space for wandering aeronauts and intrepid bandits; not to mention a lake big enough for a working submarine and an animatronic giant squid. A girl can dream . . .”
—Suna Dasi
“I have a group of characters (and associated fantasy world) that began when I was twelve as pretend games I played with my sister. Over twenty years, I’ve filled countless sketchbooks, notebooks, and computer files with their exploits. I’d love to find a way to tell the story and do it justice, but at that point it becomes so big and detailed that even though I took a small part of it and managed to write a novel that I think is pretty good, when I mention it to anyone, it still feels embarrassing, like I was invited over to someone’s house for lunch and brought seven suitcases of stuff with me.”
—Jaclyn Dolamore
“I would like for Tom Waits to narrate an audiobook recording of Dr. Seuss’s Sleep Book.”
—Jedediah Berry
“I’d love to see a brilliantly written, funny, high-production-value Steampunk movie come out of Hollywood. Something charming, whimsical, and honest to the genre that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Something similar to the way Clue tackles the cozy mystery genre, or Firefly handles the space opera western. Possibly with a romantic element.”
—Gail Carriger
“I think the Cthulhu mythos is possibly well overdue for being made into an epic Hollywood film, and not a modern reimagining of the works of Lovecraft, but instead one rooted in the world he really knew.”
—Kit Cox
Embellished ukulele on display at Timeship Records, recording studio and world headquarters of the Steampunk band The Cog Is Dead. Photo by John Mondelli.
“Can Neill Blomkamp or Duncan Jones adapt my novel Warchild for a feature film? Or better yet, develop it à la the reboot of Battlestar Galactica for Syfy so it’s not limited to a two-hour narrative. Let nobody say I don’t dream big.”
—Karin Lowachee
“I’d like to see Dan Chaon do high fantasy ( Game of Thrones – style), I’d like to see Murakami do some sort of heist, Ocean’s Eleven–type book, and I’d like everyone who worked on Pushing Daisies to make it come back for several more seasons.”
—Lev Rosen
From Musicians and Performers
“I really want to do another performance art piece/story and take it to the next level of having fire dancing, silk aerials, acrobats, and other choreography in a much bigger space than what I’ve previously worked with—like a mini Cirque du Soleil.”
—Crystal Bright
“The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, the movie. And it will happen. In another reality, it already has.”
—Emilie Autumn
“A Steampunk Bollywood musical. Definitely. If anyone out there wants to give us a wedge of cash to write that, we’d be happy.”
—Sunday Driver
“The pie that I’m baking right now is a participatory musical about a techno-utopian space colony. It is a theater piece which is also a giant multiplayer narrative game.”
—The Lisps
“We’d love to gear up a bit more and incorporate larger aesthetic components into our live shows, like a life-sized Mechanical Turk or a skyline of a burning Paris with geared zeppelin zip lines. . . . We’d also like to do a high-powered music video for our song ‘Oscar Wilde, Super-Spy,’ replete with motorized-velocipede chases, sword-cane battles atop dirigibles, and fiendish death rays.”
—Bad September
“I’d really like to see someone make an epic series of films based on the Godhead Trilogy by James Morrow: Towing Jehova, Blameless in Abaddon, and The Eternal Footman.”
—Matt Dallow, Amour Obscur
“Live theater with music of Clark Ashton Smith’s The Empire of the Necromancers.”
—Shelby Cinca, The Cassettes
“A permanent international Steampunk museum would be good, showcasing and archiving the work of the best creators around the globe.”
—The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing
“Does Guillermo del Toro finally making At the Mountains of Madness count?”
—Richard, Unextraordinary Gentlemen
“I don’t think we’ve really heard any ‘Steampunk’ music, especially when it comes to instruments and how they have been recorded. . . . I’d love to work on a project that would involve tools from the age before the first studios. Taking the knowledge we have and developing an alternate-reality Victorian studio. For example, wire-recording was invented already in the 1890s. If we bend the rules a little, we could have vacuum-tube technology (first amplifier invented in 1906). With amplification, the possibilities would be endless, both with studio tools and with instruments.”
—James Spectrum, Pepe Deluxé
