Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Original illustration of Jules Verne's Nautilus engine room
"Maison tournante aérienne" (aerial rotating house) by Albert Robida for his book Le Vingtième Siècle, a 19th-century conception of life in the 20th century
Print (c. 1902) by Albert Robida showing a futuristic view of air travel over Paris in the year 2000 as people leave the opera
Truth Coffee, a steampunk café in Cape Town
Retrofuturism is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipating what will come, retrofuturism is the remembering of that anticipation. Characterized by a blend of old-fashioned "retro styles" with futuristic technology, retrofuturism explores the themes of tension between past and future, and between the alienating and empowering effects of technology. Primarily reflected in artistic creations and modified technologies that realize the imagined artifacts of its parallel reality, retrofuturism can be seen as "an animating perspective on the world".
Retrofuturistic depiction of a flying locomotive, visually based on the Nebraska Zephyr, in a dieselpunk style reminiscent of the early 1940s
Proposed high-speed ocean express ("Ozeanreise im Jahre 2.000") as in the year 2000, 1931 (Hamburg - New York in 40 hours)
Hotel on tracks ("Reisehotel") as in the year 2000, work of 1898
Sailing ship airborne ("White Cruiser of the clouds"), 1902
