Steampunk Bizarre Gallery Show

Well, the gallery show is approaching and some changes have been made. Most significantly the addition of some local, talented guest artists I met recently. I had originally intended on the show being a group effort, but finding other Steampunk artists proved to be difficult. These additions to the show will give us a wider range of art and styles and will help to bulk up the show visuals. Below is a write-up Allison and I put together for the marketing flyers.

Steampunk Bizarre: May 1st - 24th with a reception on May 1st, at the MAC 650 Art Gallery, 650 Main Street, Middletown, CT

Steampunk: The scholar’s Science Fiction.

Born from the imaginations of H.G. Welles, Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Nikola Tesla and several others, Steampunk offers a melding of late 1800's aesthetic with scientific discovery and other-worldly technology. Though Steampunk reached a tipping point recently, it is not just a current trend. The Steampunk aesthetic has been woven through our media and consciousness for more than a century in books, film, music, fashion, and art.

Today, the Steampunk movement is alive with artistic creation and ideas to bring “a world that never happened” into reality. Steampunk artists create an alternate world not bound by the modern millennial conventions of physics, science and convenience technology. Steampunk is a chance for artists to build with their hands and their imaginations, just as the great innovators of the Industrial Revolution did.

Hosted by The Libertine Collective and SteamGearLab.com, this gallery art show will harness just a tiny cog in the great machine that is Steampunk. The show will be alive with sights and sounds of ingenious and strange contraptions. The mission of this show is to give both a history and a premonition of this art form by bringing together local artists to share their vision of what Steampunk is and will be.

I hope the show will be a big success for all involved. Who knows? We shall see.

Ciao,
~Doctor Grymm

Stop the presses!

Well look at that. I woke up and found some publicity about my work!
Mybadpad.com put my Blood Transfusion Device I built for Red Scream Films Vampyr and Cleric movie, in their "7 Most Awesome Appliances" list.

And boingboing.net gave props to the Steampunk "Eye-Pod". They are quoted as saying,

"The "Eye-Pod" from Steam Gear Lab incorporates a hidden gen-1 iPod Nano and is a work of sheer genius!"

It does help the old self esteem!

~Doctor Grymm

Look into my Eye-Pod

After many sketches and drafts I have finally created my Steampunk iPod! Although modding actual products in not my usual forte', I have long wanted to create this piece using my now archaic first generation Apple iPod Nano. The design is inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I wanted to create a MP3 Player that would seem fitting in the laboratory of Dr. Victor Frankenstein (given the technology).

The "Eye-Pod" can be worn on the wrist via the leather cuff, or placed on it's custom Victrola base. All functionality of the iPod remain intact an a hidden USB cord retracts from the base to either a wall charger or your computer. There are hidden pressure plates that when touched send a strobing "static charge" into the quartz crystals on either side of the magnified viewing portal. Music can be heard either through the Victrola horn or though a portable personal hearing apparatus (in progress). Yes, the music actually plays through the horn, and no, there are no other external speakers.

The piece was handcrafted using various metal pieces from old typewriters, formed brass and steel, leather and quartz crystals. The magnifier is an acrylic half sphere and it is tinted a sepia tone to give a slightly blurred and tea-dyed look to the screen. The most difficult part of the contraption was the new controller which is built from a glass eye, steel and a precision cut brass mechanism I developed to enable the controls to act as they should; including the menu and volume features. After several tries I finally got the tension just right so it moves and rolls fluidly when selecting music. (Incidentally, the current "plague-list" includes over 8 hours of classical music).

The base was configured from an old brass lamp base and an old bicycle horn that I added some sculpting work to such as the face. I then gave it and the casing a rich patina and grimy weathered look suitable for the time it was pulled from in my mind.

This contraption will be one of the many featured at the Steampunk Bizarre Gallery show in May at the MAC 650 Gallery, Middletown, CT.

More pictures and perhaps a video are coming soon. for now, it's back to the Lab with me.

Grim as always...

~The Doctor

Steampunk Apple Logo