The Amelia Earhart Navigational System - Brainstorm Series 1

As promised in an earlier posting, I will now begin to shed some light on Doctor Grymm's "Brainstorm Machines" that were featured in the Steampunk Bizarre this month. As an artist and a fan of science fiction since my youth, I was always fascinated by the use of "the Brain in Jar" found in 50's and 60's pulp B Movie films and comics. However, I never felt that the topic was fully flushed out to it's full potential. Hence, the creation of the series of Brainstorm Machines. Two of the five planned were on display this month and received rave reviews from astonished on-lookers at the gallery. For these were not your typical brain in a jar.

My concept for these pieces were simple at first; "If you had access to the brain of someone significant in history, what could you make it do, and what would you need to power it". The brain after all, is a super computer and I felt that it's output would depend on it's input. Having chosen my specimens, I then set to work of finding not only the story of the person, but also the interesting loop-holes surrounding their death. My first two chosen specimens were Amelia Earhart and Edgar Allan Poe. Having an admiration for both in their former lives made easy choice of what would become of their knowledge in the after-life. I was astounded by the little facts that I didn't know about these people and it was those little jewels that fanned the embers of my mind to create the back story for these machines, using one part history and one part science fiction. Each of these machines use elements of their biographies which were strange enough without alteration. My machines just sort of fill in the blanks of what history could not account for.

To focus on the Amilia Earhart Navigational System for a moment. Although I consider this piece to be more "Decopunk" than Steampunk, It is basically my version of a 1930's GPS System. After all, if it were not for the landmark strides Amelia made in redefining and evolving navigation, we may not even have GPS today. What an amazing woman! How could I not use her tenacity, strength and sense of adventure to help tell a story? Of course when it comes to her unfortunate death, there are many wild insinuations. Doctor Grymm's is no Exception...

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*From the Journal of Professor Geuseppi Grymm Sr.*

Amelia Earhart: July 24, 1897 – missing July 2, 1937 -

"During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937, Mrs Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island. Asrumor has it, Mrs Earhart was secretly working for the American Government to find and relocate items (Artwork and religious Artifacts) that were previously stolen and hidden by the German Nazi Army. Her mission took her around the globe to single handedly remove the items from enemy territories and relocate it to secret U.S. Government locations across the globe. It is believed that this assignment directly led to the disappearance of Mrs Earhart.

Although it was concluded that her plane was shot down, the search for her body remained a mystery. This is however until The Grymm Science Laboratory was contacted by some most unsavory characters of the German influence in late August of 1937. These men possessed the still living brain of Amelia Earhart, were on a quest of a scientist that would conceive of a experiment to gather knowledge stored within the brain.

One could not pass up the opportunity to build such a contraption, and so work began. Knowing full well that the human brain must have personal memories as a stimulus to further engage the memory banks of the brain, work began on a crude but functional navigation system built from a steam engine, radio parts and aviation mechanics. As vacuum tubes are of the plenty, they provide sufficient power to keep the brain functioning once directed into the nerve packets within the brain.

Several months of tinkering and testing proved that through precise tuning, the transmission of Mrs. Earhart's thoughts can be heard on some of the low end frequency channels. Although it is clear that she is not aware of her current circumstance and seems to be in a constant "flight pattern" from her journey across the globe. This contraption will allow communication to Mrs. Earhart by use of a telegraph key unit for the input of longitude and latitude coordinates. Through various testing it has been concluded that Mrs. Earhart not only has information about practical global locations, but also locations that have been deemed of the "Paranormal Interest" by some scientists and religions.

As this experiment has been a complete success on several levels, I am remiss to pen the fact
that further testing was cut short by the return of the men who originally commissioned this
experiment. Further testing was cut short and the machine was forcibly removed from my laboratory as well as most of my notes. Had I been given a chance to properly explain the outcome of my tests, these men would have come to realize that the information they seek to gain from Mrs. Earhart will most definitely remain a mystery, and may even lead to the disappearance of any foolish pilot that may take her false direction. As the this woman may not be aware of her current state, that does not seem to have effected her strong spirit and determination. It would seem that with my help, she has set a trap from beyond the grave for these men, and their search will only lead to a preconceived watery grave instead of the location of stolen treasures they seek."

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Pictures and video of the machine in action are here, and the full sound track by Mark Adams Sound Design can be heard here. Special Thanks to P. Vanderway for doing an amazing recreation of Amelia's voice!

In my next few posts, I will discuss the back story to the Edgar Allan Poe Nightmare inducer. Thanks for reading and taking a peek into my twisted mind.

~Doctor Grymm