The League of S.T.E.A.M.'s Interactive Performance

Photo: Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly from "An Evening with the Unfamiliar" You've probably seen The League of S.T.E.A.M. on Boing Boing before, as both Cory and Xeni have posted their videos. In addition to videos, they do interactive live performances at parties across L.A. The basic premise is that they hunt supernatural creatures with steampunk-inspired gear. If you see them at an event, they usually have a few display tables set up where the League will demonstrate how their props work. They'll also take partygoers on ghost hunts or chase after vampires throughout the venue. I've seen the League perform a handful of times over the past year and it's always a good time. They've appeared at nightclubs and Comic-Con parties as well as their own events. For those who will be at Dragon*Con this year, the League has a short in the convention's film festival. Links: League of S.T.E.A.M. "An Evening with the Unfamiliar" (Photos)

• [Penh]

  Hey, I saw them at Comic Con! They set up and did a couple of shows right next to the booth where I was working as a Pikachu wrangler! Sadly, the crowd was too thick for me to see much of anything without abandoning my charge, which no good wrangler would ever do. Still, what I could see looked mighty cool, and I even forgave them for not stopping to pose for pix with Pikachu afterwards.

• [MandoSpaz]

  I don’t believe there’s a word missing there, but rather that “supernatural” is being used as a verb. These folks take creatures and, using steampunk-inspired gear, they supernatural them. Couldn’t be much clearer, really.

• [Anonymous]

  In my opinion (for what it’s worth) this fascination with the beauty of steampunk is a reaction against the ugliness of modernism.
  Imagine a parallel universe where minimalist modernism never happened, and our cities, towns, houses, buildings, tools, appliances, clothes were inspired instead by victorian steampunk.

  • [Liz Ohanesian]

    I think you have a really good point about steampunk as a reaction against modernism. With that in mind, I wonder too if the reason why steampunk has become so popular in L.A. is because it’s a place where the old is frequently torn down in favor of the new.

    • [jfrancis]

      Here’s how I felt about it when I started writing what’s now called ‘Clockpunk’ back in ’95:

      For me Steampunk, or more specifically in my case, Clockpunk, was a reaction to the 80′s.

      If you looked at the colors on the magazine covers on newsstands, they all seemed to warm up and lighten up almost simultaneously after 1989 ended. It was as if people we ready to let go of dark futures, and blues and blacks and silvers, and embrace sunny warm gold and brass and wood.

      http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/07/fury_of_the_ill.html

      For me also it was not about imagining a ‘cooler’ past, or about imagining a transformed present, but about giving the past credit for how cool it actually was (plus a tweak here and there)

• [GreenJello]

  I wonder what the archelogists are going to make of all this in a few thousand years time when they dig up these crazy (non-functional) clothes. Religious cerimonies? Bad Taste? Sexual Fetish? I don’t really understand it NOW, let alone 1000 years from now, with much fewer clues.

• [Threewinds]

  I saw them perform at a local club here in Los Angeles with a group of vampire belly dancers. The League and Twisted Gypsy were a lot of fun!
  Can’t wait to see them both again.

• [Chentzilla]

  >The basic premise is that they supernatural creatures with steampunk-inspired gear.

  The missing word is probably “hunt”. Though I’d take a chance to start a competition for the best replacement.

  • [Liz Ohanesian]

    Indeed, that’s the missing word. Sorry.