"What is 'artpunk'?", Patrick S once notoriously asked. I don't wish to pick an argument, especially not 3 years after the fact. But I think we can come up with a better definition.
To me, the suffix "-punk" is hideously overused as a kind of shorthand for "you've seen this kind of setting before, but this is a cool/edgy version of it and the people in it have tattoos and piercings". (I'm not accusing Patrick of using it in that sense - just the people who come up with ridiculous neologisms like "islandpunk", "lunarpunk" and "mythpunk".)
What -punk, in the sense of cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, etc., really means - if it is to have any coherent, sensible meaning - is that the fiction is about the alienation from, and subversion of, the particular technology in question. Think of William Gibson's cyberpunk stories: these were tales about the have-nots - the people who had been dispossessed by advancing technology, the preserve of the haves - and their attempts to deploy that technology in illicit or unusual ways for the furtherance of their own agendas. It was not so much an aesthetic as it was a viewpoint (the future from the "belly up", as Bruce Sterling put it in his famous introduction to Burning Chrome). You might call it the use of the thing against itself.
Hence, a genuine steampunk setting is one in which steam technology has made a small percentage of the population very rich, but the fiction is about criminals, crooks, ne'er do wells, and rogues who cunningly deploy (or abuse) the technology to grab some of the 1%'s wealth for themselves.
What, then, is artpunk? Well, there is a lot of good art and layout around nowadays, even within so-called DIY D&D - stuff that makes its creators comparatively large sums of money on big scale Kickstarters, and is expensive to consume. Think of that as a technological development in the sphere of art. If that is the case, then what is artpunk if not the subversion of that mainstream, glitzy, expensive-looking aesthetic - a deliberate eschewment of accepted artistic standards as a rebellious aesthetic choice of its own?
Seen in that way, Patrick and Scrap's stuff is probably the epitome of artpunk: it is art produced with exceptional skill and talent (in my view) but which goes out of its way to avoid looking pricey. At the same time, so are the entries to Prince of Nothing's "No Artpunk" contest, Mike's Dungeons and rather a lot of the things reviewed on tenfootpole: work by the artistic have-nots, who nonetheless are attempting to do interesting and perhaps deeply unartistic things with the art contained in their output.
In a funny sort of a way, the images in OD&D themselves bore the seeds of artpunk - protoartpunk, if you will. These are not the product of the artistic "haves". This is the work of the artistic "have-nots" who are going to have a piece of the action anyway. Now that's punk.
A decent definition of "art" includes concepts of subversion of the form, rebellion against convention etc. There's such an overlap between "art" and "punk" that you're easily in tautology territory IMO. Having missed all the foundational debates, I assumed that was part of the overwrought "artpunk" joke.
ReplyDeleteThat said, whether "-punk" is a grossly overused suffix (it is) and whether "artpunk" really means anything useful in etymological terms, we all know what it means in re D&D. I find it a really clear and useful label, so much so you could probably teach a rank outsider what it means with 2-3 examples.
Do we really know what it means in re: D&D?
DeleteI think I talked about the problem of Artpunk with Settembrini on his podcast, and the division between the genuinely rebellious 'punk' and the layout-porn that makes up 95% of the Artpunk listings. The problem with defining Artpunk is that its original definition made no sense.
ReplyDeleteMy personal interpretation of the movement has its genesis in Zak S's work and has Patrick as its Monarch. Mörk Borg, Troika and much of the 4th generation NuOSR stuff should all be considered Artpunk, even if there is no Punk to much of it.
I still don't know if you are a rare conservative sub-species of Artpunkman, or a divergent evolutionary cousin but the inevitable Yoon-Suin review will clear it all up I am sure.
My last few comments here were a little grumpy. You have a good blog overall. Keep doing what you are doing.
I really don't know if Yoon-Suin is artpunk or not. I did the layout in MS Word - does that count?
DeletePfft, a true artpunk would have done the layout in Libreoffice.
DeleteCould not -punk (as in cyber-, steam-, diesel-, &c) refer (coherently and sensibly) to 'an exaggeration'?
ReplyDeleteA steampunk work posits an Industrial Revolution exaggerated beyond the bounds of our own history (which is taken, rightly or otherwise, to be normal, moderate, proportionate or similar). Thus, an exaggeration of the scale of the Industrial Revolution; of its capabilities; of its social effects. Naturally, given the divisions of the time, a steampunk work will magnify (or caricature) those also - thus setting itself naturally as a tale of the have-nots.
(A diesalpunk work could exaggerate not the inequalities of the time, but, for instance, the civil strife and demagoguery of Weimar Germany.)
I suspect that Punk proper could also be thought of as possessing a major streak of exaggeration in its own make-up, but I'm really the wrong person to ask.
Thus, perhaps artpunk exaggerates both the desire of the creator and the nature of the creation for something artistic. And, as witnessed, there are those that find such an exaggeration objectionable.
At any rate, a meditation on -punk reminds one of how useful the term 'Retro-futirist' is.
Yes, I can see that to a certain extent. I guess I understand these things through the lens of that Bruce Sterling essay I mentioned, which I thought really clarified the meaning of '-punk' very sensibly.
DeleteI've always understood the "punk" to be a sign of iconoclasm similar to its origin in the term "punk rock" music. Punk music was considered worthless trash (compared to more refined musical tastes) and the punk "movement" (such as it was) embraced and reveled in its rebelliousness against traditional norms (hence the piercings, the hair, the tattoos, the clothes, etc.). Punk was an attitude of stomping on staid traditional choices and social norms. It wasn't about being "edgy."
ReplyDeleteTo me, the portmanteau of "artpunk" within the gaming community describes a "punk" (norm stomping) attitude towards the publications being created using the medium of "art" as their method of expression. It is not "punk art." It is punk writing using art (or variant art) as its weapon of choice.
It is probably a confusing term given the widespread use of the "-punk" suffix to describe settings featuring discontent/disenfranchised subversives pushing revolution (a different form of iconoclasm) in various genres. I don't think it synchs well with these.
I see what you mean. I suppose what I was grasping at was that "artpunk" would be a stomping attitude towards an overemphasis on art.
DeleteHuh. Guess it depends on your definition of art.
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