Bruce Sterling

A poignant experience on two fronts — via BoingBoing and Slashdot, William Gibson’s 1992 “Agrippa (a book of the dead)”, an electronic poem that came on a 3.5” Mac floppy and which, once it had been read, would encrypt itself into illegibility. Much to love about the concept (see Wikipedia for more info).

The researchers who captured the original Mac experience posted a video of it. Their website is currently slashdotted, boingboinged, and dugg into oblivion, so check out the currently vaporized post and video in a few days.

Meanwhile, you can read the poem at Gibson’s site. His introduction:

“AGRIPPA, A Book of the Dead” is a longish poem written in 1992 for a multi-unit artwork to be designed by artist Dennis Ashbaugh and “published” by art-guy Kevin Begos. Ashbaugh’s design eventually included a supposedly self-devouring floppy-disk intended to display the text only once, then eat itself. Today, there seems to be some doubt as to whether any of these curious objects were ever actually constructed. I certainly don’t have one myself. Meanwhile, though, the text escaped to cyberspace and a life of its own, which I found a pleasant enough outcome. But the free-range cyberspace versions are subject to bit-rot, it seems, so we’ve decided to offer it here with the correct line-breaks, etc.

“Agrippa” is the name of the particular model of Eastman Kodak photograph album my father kept his snapshots in.

On a semi-related note, check out the fun “Dr. Gunn’s Organic History Supplement for The Difference Engine”, a dictionary of terms for the Gibson and Sterling novel.

And it’s The Future!

So my PC is like a towel. Cheap and old and the dullest thing in the world, I have always had one. “2008, computer pioneers, they still think computers are exciting!” They don’t get that computers in 2043 are like brick, forks, toothbrushes, towels. I researched that subject, and yeah for an old fashioned audience, a mid 21st computer is cool. So here it is [dishtowel] General Electric personal mediators, very stable, five years old. No full functionality in 2008 because we don’t have the cloud here yet. It tapped into something called Window Vista when it got here and gave up, gone all limp, nothing left on here but this frozen screensaver pattern. So I will have to walk you through it instead.

From Bruce Sterling’s keynote at the Austin Game Developer’s Conference. Full transcript. Via /. Bruce Sterling On Gaming in 2043

It’s always weird to see the mainstream press picking up on a subculture. Kind of like when your parents drop the latest slang: it doesn’t quite feel right. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see Steampunk get some respectful publicity.

The LA Times blog Jacket Copy had a post Saturday from Nick Owchar, the inevitably titled “Working up a head of steam”.

Steampunk is another entry point into the Victorian era by way of a wormhole: a subculture movement that is the result of an “intersection of technology and romance,” as it was reported in some East Coast newspaper this week. Philip Pullman’s alternate version of the world—with zeppelins, golden compasses and anbaric-powered gadgets—in “His Dark Materials” taps into it; so do the stories of Jules Verne and the movie “Brazil”; William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s “The Difference Engine” anticipated it.[…]

According to Owchar, there’s a new Steampunk anthology from Tachyon that looks interesting.

The “some East Coast newspaper” referred to is the NY Times and its more sedately titled article “Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds”, which does more tracing of how Steampunk has been embraced by various groups for various purposes, but all in good, artistically spiffy fun:

It is also the vision of steampunk, a subculture that is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, one that embraces music, film, design and now fashion, all inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped protosubmarines. First appearing in the late 1980s and early ’90s, steampunk has picked up momentum in recent months, making a transition from what used to be mainly a literary taste to a Web-propagated way of life.

To some, “steampunk” is a catchall term, a concept in search of a visual identity. “To me, it’s essentially the intersection of technology and romance,” said Jake von Slatt, a designer in Boston and the proprietor of the Steampunk Workshop (steampunkworkshop.com), where he exhibits such curiosities as a computer furnished with a brass-frame monitor and vintage typewriter keys.

Happy birthday to Jules Verne, born this date in 1828. He’s recently become one of my favorite writers.

The past few months I’ve been catching up on a bunch of literature from the 18th and 19th centuries, including the mighty duo of Verne and H.G. Wells. Here’s a little of what I wrote about A Journey to the Interior of the Earth last November:

What struck me most was how modern much of the writing seemed, at least for the time period; the author’s voice, though strained through a translator’s filter, seemed to evidence an inherent humor and friendliness.

The characterization of the two main people was superb — both the professor and his nephew were well-developed personalities, more than making up for the relative cyphers of Hans and the few other characters. They had a depth (appropriately enough), with Professor Liedenbrock a brusque, haughty scientist whose compassion could still shine through when his nephew was in danger. And Axel, a scaredy-cat who can come up with all kinds of reasons why their adventure is foolhardy, but still maintains his scientific curiosity and a bravado when it counts.

Thanks to Project Gutenberg, many of his works are available online to read.

Tangential update: Bruce Sterling has a theory about the current Undersea Cable-Severing Conspiracy —

Captain Nemo did it. Better send Professor Aronnax out to investigate.

Bliss!

Via Bruce Sterling, who had this to say:

If I were a contemporary musician, tinkering with my MySpace profile and wondering how on earth I could ever scrape up enough money to maintain a productive career in music, I’d be really scared by a clip like this. It must be like — I dunno — like being a member of the contemporary US Congress and going to visit Mount Rushmore.