[Atompunk] Atompunk Digest, Vol 1, Issue 2

[Adam Rothstein]

A few hastily drawn up thoughts quickly evolved into a personal manifesto of
sorts... Sorry for monopolizing bandwidth, but I guess I just can't shake
all that philosophy I crammed into my brain at one time.  Would love to hear
any thoughts, disputations, angry slurs and insinuations.

thoughts about "____-punk"...

I've noticed that many styles and sub-cultures that either adopt, or are
adopted into the surname, "___-Punk", might be better served by the word
"Chic".  Naturally, most sub-cultures have a certain aesthetic to them: a
style of dress, a slang, defining characteristics or popular models.  But
being a sub-culture doesn't necessarily deserve the punk-attribute, at least
in my opinion.

Punk, as its own sub-culture (and the first to embrace the term) was
originally derided as being 'music for animals, street-thugs, maladjusted
malcontents, and others whom society would rather just went away.' (my own
definition).  And for the most part, they were.  Of course, now anyone can
like punk-rock music, and punk clothing, hairstyles, art, etc.  Now there is
a punk-chic; but, at first it was 'punk' because it was low, because it was
unfavorable, and because it turned much of its animosity towards those with
whom it contrasted.  It was a loud-screaming, hard-drinking, chord-nashing
kick in the crotch to the rest of music, and was glad to be so.  Certainly
it was not the first counter-culture, but I think it's fair to call it the
archetype of the modern counter-culture.

Now, my own interests may bias me and easily reveal an even bigger
orientation towards counter-cultures in general, but in looking at
incarnations of ____-punk, I can see various angles on both the chic, purely
cultural variety, and the punk, counter-cultural type.  Cyber-punk, while
having a gritty, exposed-wire, hyperbureaucratic-pollution look, also has
cyborg and hacking as major themes--which are certainly hands-on
counter-culture.  Steam-punk, as well, may be shrouded in brass trim,
colored glass, and darkwoods (not to mention having a fondness for the hiss
of boilers and dressy vests), but I think it also represents an
alternate-view of history--a rejection of internal combustion, certain
aspects of the scientific method, and modern economics--exploring some of
science's so-called "dead ends" to see if they really are dead (or perhaps
to see if they can be zombified to will-lessly serve their new masters), in
leiu of blinding heading down the superhighway of "progress".  Because they
have become cultures, and not just themes for a single story-line, these
____-punks have developed cultural 'lives of their own', the creativity of
their proponents blossoming forth with fashions, musics, technical
vocabularies, and projects that willingly stray from the ideological line.
However, this doesn't mask what I believe is the important fact: the chic is
truly developed, and wonderfully so, when there is a radical departure from
a stated ideal of contemporary culture.  This ___-punk can blast off, split
the atom, and take flight; it can release a cataclysmic/cathartic amount of
creative energy, which, of course, may be quickly turned back around through
the ___-punk/industrial complex to feed the consumer-oriented masses and/or
the state ideology (do you see where I'm going with this?)

Atomic Dreams...

The post-war period was a major re-alligning, re-imagination of the world
throughout almost all boundaries and systems.  Similar, in this way to the
Industrial Revolution (steam-punk) and the Digital Revolution (cyber-punk).
I think that the major elements of the atomic era's onset belie a deeper
change occuring in the world; a push to put modernism not just in the
imperial, parlimentary, and industrial centers and houses, but into every
country and every home.  It was the rise of not only mass-production, but
mass-marketing; the beginning of not simply weapons of destruction but of
mass-destruction; the birth of ideology and dreams not only for individuals
or of vanguards, but the State Ideology, and the National Dream.

But hand in hand with the push to bring the advances of culture to the
masses came mass-terror.  1945 may have seen the defeat of fascism, but it
was also about the time that micro-fascism ended its adolescence,
emancipated itself from the household of its mother (nation) and its father
(the leader) and sought to make a name for itself.  Do you neighbors have a
better auto than you?  Are your sheets white enough?  Do we have more/faster
planes than them?  Who will conquer space?  Who will conquer the moon?  Are
*you* with us?  Are *your* neighbors/parents/teachers/newspapers/film
directors/car manufacturers  with us?  The age of the pressing, polemical,
personal, rhetorical question was at hand, because the horrible answer was
now so near in the future.

The "we" ended with WWII, now it was time for "I", or more so, "you".  What
will *you* do to halt the advance of the answer to the question?  What will
you invent?  What will you work on?  What will you buy?  What
complex/corporation will you join, and further the goals of?  What
organizations have you been, are you currently, and will you be a member of
in the near future?  What will happen next, and what will you do when it
does?  The world split down the middle, and each atom was alligned within
one of its hemispheres.  Within these spheres all the other molocules could
be now broken down, analyzed, and re-synthesized.  Each individual atom was
split off, and recombined into nuclear families of the precise chemical
composition that would create the necessary reaction.  And where was the
reaction heading?  Perhaps eventually to sustainable power sources of the
future, but first: chain reaction, meltdown, and thermonuclear explosion.
Perhaps *you *shouldn't drive so fast, but then again, *we *have to get
there before *they *do.  What element do *you *want to be?

Today's Atom-punk of the future...

So what is atom-punk then?  Is it merely a facination with the lifestyle of
the times: a retro-chic with a new monicker?  I think it should be more than
that.  Like any epoch, our current times have heavy echoes of the past.  How
are we to react?  How do we punk the modern times?

The Atomic Age is first and foremost, in my opinion, remembered as a time of
extremes.  No gentle Aristotelians ever quietly sipped their watery drinks
in the corners of the bunkers of NORAD, in Madison Avenue board rooms, or
while measuring their lawn lengths, or trading on the black market, pausing
from quietly listening to dispense a few words of sage mediating advice.
After that, it was the rise of the individual en masse: the boy scout, the
modern worker, the scientist, the corporate business-man, and the
middle-class nuclear family.  It was also the beginning of the mass to the
individual: consumer culture, advertising, personal loyalty, and
citizenship.  And lastly but not least: it was the age of the awesome
apocalypse.  Eschatology was nothing new, but these were end-times without
redemption, where destruction was mutually assured to prevent the Others
from destroying our heaven on earth, as they surely would.

The way that I take this the way I take many horrible features of the
present-day world: with a slug of booze and a shot of irony.  Ironic
appropriation of the atomic archetypes seems necessary, if not totally
going-without-saying.  What else is a rational human being supposed to do
when confronted with the cute little "Duck and Cover" turtle? What can we do
except laugh hysterically?

But I think we can do more than that.  Irony is a cheap thrill these days,
in a world with so much horror.  There is something to the midset of the
Atomic Age that is still useful, if not wonderful, I think.  Perhaps its a
general attitude of excitement for the future, a love for new, radically
different design.  Perhaps it was the directness of that question to the
"you", that personal element that was so quickly lost in the annonymity of
mass-communication.  Or perhaps it was the combination of fear and
anticipation that still soaked through the laughter when even today, we
unconsciously mime the "duck and cover" spasticity while ironically watching
Billy and Susie diving to that linoleum floor.  The world can still end at
any minute.  Haven't we all wanted to build a bomb shelter in our backyard,
if not for the awesomely tacky lamps and ready-to-eat meals, than just for
the solice and womb-like, concrete comfort?  Shall we finally stop worrying
and love the atomization of our lives?   Maybe by mimicking a culture we
have since seen fall away, we can help the current world's problems fall
away to other things, new things with new problems, if not a perfect
future.

And not just by mimicking, either.  By innovating!  Ever-forward, of
course!  What is the new atom, waiting to be cracked?  Is it the byte? The
stem cell?  The hydrogen ion?  What web apps are my neighbors using?  What
design of auto will best express the fact that we are living in a new age?
How do we prevent *them* from destroying our world?  Who do *you* know who
is stepping on the feet of progress?  How can get the kids to listen to good
music, and not this awful rock 'n roll?   What slogans can best express to
the masses that WE are NOW living IN THE FUTURE! What are *you* going to do
to help?  Let's proliferate, industrialize and punk those Reds/Capitalists
before they punk us!


Some atom-punk ideas:

Battery-powered everything (and better batteries)
Developing and posting escape routes/plans
New concept models of common-place, time-worn devices
Logos for things that don't yet exist
Drills and training for mundane, possibly cataclysmic eventualities (i.e.
web searches, car-breakdowns, lost items)
Investigative questions for un-suspecting suspects
Slogans.  Lot's of slogans.
The "new billboard".  I'm not sure what it is yet; but it is NOT the web
banner.  I'm thinking more along the lines of quasi-illegally affixed
stickers.
The new, post-gender nuclear family
Sunday Dinners
Standards that thwart old standards (i.e. mass-produced, identical "Welcome"
signs that replace picket fences, manners that violate old manners)
Why isn't life more like a rocket?
Gadgets that require simpler (more home-built, less environmentally
impacting) circuits rather that integrated
Concrete: good for the family, good for the nation, good for you
Personal Foreign Policy
Bureaucracy with a purpose: living better through forms:
inter-departmentally!
Family TV Hour: once a day, for one hour only, only programs not aired in
the past fifteen years
Light-switches: we still have the same freakin' light switches?
The Diner is the Luxury Restaurant of our Age
What does your suit say about You?
NotBomb-Shelters (i.e. Commercial Shelters, Car Shelters,
Computer-Virus/Malware Shelters)
The ____ Gap: we must be falling behind in something.  What is it, and how
can we quickly produce to fill this gap?
Home Economics
Post-Union Workers (not Postal Union Workers) but speaking of that
The US Mails
One-Time Offers

...and more after this!


Duck and Cover,
Adam (not-Atom) Rothstein
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