Originally published in Matrix 188 on 20.06.2008

by Kim Lakin-Smith

While continuing to pay homage to its literary origins, noughties’ Steampunk has evolved into a veritable subculture in its own right. Dark aesthetics, combined with a flare for antique fashion, laboratorial curiosities, cybernetics, and the reengineering of all manner of rogue mechanicals, were always destined to appeal to the goth, punk, cyber and industrial contingent. But Steampunk has also cast a wider net; its