Art Deco and Steampunk Airship

What to make of renewed fascination with art deco and the steampunk subculture?



1) There is the socioeconomic reason of erosion of social democratic institutions in the Western world and default gradual semi return of English speaking countries to decadence and emulation of styles from the 1920s.

2) There is the end of the government focus on the space program and thus a switch of public focus towards privately funded heroism for which 1920s explorers offer some guidance. Art Deco shows mostly privately funded optimism about the future, dynamic economy, technological progress, heroic capitalism, and a sort of a high fashion culture that the Western world now lacks. Steampunk subculture is an escapist geeky elaboration on the same theme and a troubling example of the past being a shinier inspiration than the present. Psyche's escape into deep retro should be considered by futurists and their attempts to market their visions.

3) There is also technology (and thus culture) enabled individualism that no longer belongs to only children of the rich. People want to be explorers of various realms and the cost of flying technology decreases, we should see first (obviously often unsuccessful!) attempts. Art deco and art generally is key in current attention deficit visual age if 21st century Wright Brothers types want to get their projects off the ground.

Take a look at the lobby of Empire State Building, it is otherworldly. Notice energetic yellow lights as well as gears and celestial body hieroglyphics on the ceiling. Neat.

The reach of this modernist yet luxurious style went as far as the subway stations of Soviet Moscow. Previously we mentioned how we want our flying house to be the iPhone of the sky. The title picture shows one illustration of such a design. Neat, slick, with blue and white shades. Yet something feels a bit cold about it. Is it possible to have neo art deco design that bridges the luxurious futuristic art of yesteryear with the ergonomics and sleekness of 21st century technology? Surely we'd be able to sell our flying house better among the more emotional types of people? This would tap certain current popular cultural attraction towards hyper femininity and hyper masculinity of the 20th century.

1930 Henderson inspired 21st century art deco motorcycle

And now a flying motorcycle version

Humans want fuzziness and comfiness alongside their technology. Currently, these fuzzy comfy designs are provided in an increasingly played out cartoony style found in social networking sites and software applications. Neo art deco provides an alternative to sliding towards Japanese style hyper cartoony cuteness in the decades to come.

Besides comfort, art deco airships, blimps, and Zeppelin imagery have and still are being used as symbols of progress whether in cartoony, fantasy, actual, or stylized form. Here are some random examples.

The key reason of airships capturing attention of steampunk fantasy and art deco modernism is that they are "ocean liners of the sky" allowing luxurious travel, permanent home, and headquarters. Rockets, helicopters, and airplanes cannot be decorated to nearly the same extent even in ridiculous steampunk sketches (which often have the tackiness level of a 17th century royal Spaniard ship). It doesn't feel right.

To make a house fly, an artistic understanding and bridge should be constructed between the past and the future that takes into account psychological needs of both the flying enthusiasts themselves and the public at large. Understanding fascination with escapism into artsy "alternate earths" is one of the steps towards creating the type of future we want on our real earth.

Chrysler building lobby

Magnetic Levitation Propulsion

Making a house float on the earth's magnetic field



The roads towards a flying house are many. More specifically, the paths towards propulsion/ levitation platform for the house are many. From zero point energy to electromagnetism to gravitational reversal, there is research being done daily to tap the endless energy flux of the universal multidimensional cloth into which we are all fully embedded. 

By the way, nobody knows how gravity works. We see it in action and can describe it well enough to land rovers on Mars but the underlining principles of gravity are not nearly as well understood as electromagnetism or the two types of basic nuclear attraction. There are unsuccessful attempts to extend the quantum theory to gravity and there is speculation about these "graviton" particles but so far that theory appears very ephemeral and weaker than most.

For the hell of it, lets throw in a part of the final paragraph from Nietzsche's final unfinished book about the nature of the universe.

"And do you know what "the world" is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise without increase or income; enclosed by "nothingness" as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a sphere that might be "empty" here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent, most self-contradictory, and then again returning home..."

On that note, today we start looking at electromagnetism. The video below shows that it's no joke.

Mind turned to mush yet? Don't worry. Aerodynamics and fluid dynamics seemed just as convoluted and strange in the 19th century until people figured out how to use heavier than air sail to slice and float on the atmospheric gasses all around us. Now airplanes are not that big of a deal.

What needs to be done?

1) Tapping the permanent magnet of planet earth and locking the flying house into computer guided locked trajectories. Similar to how liquid nitrogen is able to capture magnetic fields in the video below:

Of course, the ocean of magnetism stemming from the center of the earth is very chaotic and the house should delock and relock field currents as needed. This is similar to a large ocean liner's computer software that navigates water currents shown in the NASA video below:

Tom Shannon is a cutting edge magnetic sculpture artist. In the video below at minute 7:00 he shows the sheer extent of what is theoretically possible. Yes, it is a floating island but the principle is much the same as the locked superconductor disc shown in the video above. Only rather than 500 micron Sapphire crystal, the bottom of the island is a layer of diamond (once nanotechnological assembly later in this century makes diamond production even cheaper than glass currently).

At 8:45, we get to something smaller and closer to what we want with the Air Genie. It is a spherical flying blimp that surfs the magnetic field of the planet just as the tiny robotic magnetic sculptures do within Shannon's studio. Air Genie shows a combination of magnetic levitation with the tensairity floating theory of Buckminster Fuller.

2) First prototype (utilizing the magnetic path to flying) should be a stationary proof of concept geodesically constructed sphere that is gas and/or tensairity aided to almost float by itself and only utilize the earth's magnetic field slightly. In short, the first flying house that floats via magnetism would not fully float via magnetism but show that earth's field strongly influences and directs it and that it is possible (with qualitative/quantittative increase in materials, energy, etc). 

A good analogy is the series of Tokamak fusion reactors that showed that fusion is possible even if the input of energy was greater than the output (thus not accomplishing the main goal yet paving way to projects such as ITER).

This would demonstrate various problems and inspire second generation attempts among pioneers in the future.

These pioneers will most likely be transhumanists from rich families inspired by the daredevil playboy aristocrats like Howard Hughes a century earlier. They'll want to recreate and experience the same thrills and fame that their tycoon great grandpappy experienced. Partying and environmental/communist activism doesn't provide nearly the same kicks.

A good way to influence them is to emphasize that by the middle of 21st century, a large swath of humanity may be merging together into a "neural internet" aided transhumanist collectivist entity. Now it may very well be that it will be lots of fun to be part of that techno-fleshy carpet on the ground. However, the hyperindividualist playboys may want to keep their options open just in case and construct highly mobile, cloaked, and comfortable "air yacht" shelters up in the air to be safer from the madness below on the ground (we're not even mentioning the possibility of global decades long "civil war" between haves and have nots).

Another way to influence the youth is to popularize and constantly innovate magnetic toys (preferably Internet connected and controlled by brain waves). This will get little Richard Branson clones away from the increasingly amazing virtual reality games somewhat and towards actual external physical world. In turn, the desire to have things float and direct it with their minds will translate into air vehicles and eventually flying houses. Human psychology works in such a way that it is always best to suggest the craziest maximum possible idea (think utopian ideologies in 19th century) and then have technology and society meet it halfway eventually.

Futuristic Transport Airship

Here we cover some high tech 21st century airships meant for transport, heavy duty lifting, and industrial - agricultural use rather than simple playboy luxury.




Decline of suburban living presents many difficulties for United States. Airships provide a solution when it comes to helping deconstruct, salvage, and reuse building materials from the sprawl to build more compact cities of the future. They also provide cheap mass transport of people and supplies for those populations who remain in that inefficient residential arrangement.

Compared to large electric automated buses, robotic airships travel directly from point A to point B much faster, provide more comfortable spacious sitting room, and don't expand as much energy on friction with solid ground. Since construction of MagLev trains to the increasingly impoverished and elderly suburban residents wont happen (it'll just subsidize the inefficiency), we're left with air routes by default. It is also possible to combine a mini automated vertical farm with an agricultural airship to provide fresh produce to areas that need it. Perhaps even mobile air hospitals to give very isolated communities annual check ups all at once.

See you next time!