HANDS ON GUIDE

Jake Von Slatt: Artist, inventor, family man

Maker of the phenomenally popular Von Slatt modified keyboard, Mr Von Slatt mods for fun and pleasure, not for money. He's written tutorials on how to perform electrolytic etching on brass, using a portrait of Lady Ada Lovelace, daughter of Byron and the woman known as the 'first programmer' for her description of how to program Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. You can find out more at his website http://steampunkworkshop.com.

Q: Mr Hieronymus Isambard 'Jake' von Slatt, would you explain what draws you to Steampunk?

A: I've always been fascinated by technology, and even more so by the way it impacts on society. Not in the big geopolitical ways, but in the little, personal ways. For instance, who could have imagined that a project to build a computer network for scientists and researchers funded by the Department of Defense would result in online personal journals and social networking sites? History is full of strange and wonderful episodes during which technology touched people's lives in unexpected ways. Did you know that street lighting in some 19th-century American cities was accomplished not with rows of gas lamps on each street, but with tall towers topped with carbon arc lamps? These 150-foot towers illuminated huge areas of the city. Can you imagine the wonder of riding in a horse-drawn carriage at night under the actinic light of these artificial suns? Science has changed humanity, and Steampunk draws on these types of events and stories - it's the bastard child of science and romance.

Q: What is it about PC modding and the Steampunk visual theme that you feel goes so well together?

A: What piece of technology is closest to us in the modern era? Into what device do we type our innermost thoughts and upload our most embarrassing pictures? What device connects us to friends, colleagues, experts, confidants, communities and even lovers? There's no single device that we want to embody romance more than our computers, and yet no device so devoid of it as a generic beige box.

Q: Steampunk is still relatively new and fresh. How do you see it maturing?

A: I think it makes more sense to talk about a Steampunk meta-culture. I see Steampunk as a 'flavour' that many extant subcultures have adopted and again, the common threads are blending technology and romance. I hope it never matures; I want it to stay young forever. I hope the 'what is Steampunk' argument goes on. If you successfully define Steampunk, you can then commoditise and commercialise it, and where's the romance in that?

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