The Art of Steampunk

As presented by Oxford University's Museum of the History of Science, Steampunk is rooted inthe aestetics of Victorian technology. Yet it is not a nostalgic recreation of a vanished past: its deveices are both imaginative and contemporary. The Steampunk exhibition, curated by Art Donovan, revealed the many possible responses to Steampunk's characteristics preoccupation with the historical and the contemporary, the mechanical and the fanciful. In imagining a Victorian future that has not come to pass, Steampunk artists cast an oblique light ont he present. But their unrealized «futures» are more celebration than commentary. Steampunk revels in the ingenuity and absurdity of the mechanisms produced and the unqualified pleasure increation. It is only fitting that the world's first museum exhibition of genuine Steampunk art premiered at the Oxford University Museum of the History of Science, which houses the world's greatest collection of important scientific artifacts and devices. The popular Steampunk exhibition ran from October 2009 to February 2010, featured the work of 18 international Steampunk artists, and drew more than 70,000 visitors to the museum.