STEAMPUNK ELEMENTS @ Noir: String Sessions
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Some things that belonged to another time can still manage to find us in the present.
A familiar melody; an object passed down lineage; or even a silhouette borrowed from another century. Their original stories remain, but with every reflection, they gather new meaning. We experience them from the now while carrying everything that has transpired in-between.
That interplay between past and present felt especially aligned with Noir: String Sessions at The Gallery.
Presented by Austin Camerata at The Cathedral, Noir merged the tradition of chamber music with songs spanning eras and genres. Through strings, music associated with Debussy, Nina Simone, Moon River, Billie Eilish, and Chappell Roan immersed through a different lens.
And for a night centering reinterpretation, Steampunk felt like the perfect aesthetic language.
In The Style Thesaurus, Hannah Kane connects Steampunk to nineteenth-century futurism, retro technology, science fiction, fantasy, and punk; essentially imagining what the Victorian era might have been if their technology had evolved differently. Corsets, structured silhouettes, boots, metal hardware, gears, goggles, and clocks collectively express its visual language. For my interpretation, I leaned heavily into clocks and timepieces, including one accessory that carries deeply personal meaning: my late grandfather’s vintage pocket watch.
And would you believe, music had already brought him forefront in my mind just days before?
While scrolling through Cadillac Chronicles, I came across their segment with the iconic After 7 performing, “Ready or Not,” a song I used to dance to with my pawpaw (grandfather) when I was a toddler. The group of course is much older now, and naturally, the performance didn’t sound exactly the same (still amazing though!) as the original track stored in my memory.
Some of the melodies had changed, but I still knew it. More importantly, I still felt it.
Hearing the song again so many years later, reminded me that something can change with time without losing its origin; making the experience of Noir that much more meaningful. The orchestra did the same with its renditions; different instrumentation giving familiar melodies another texture and life while still honoring the original. And there I was, marveling in music shifted between eras while wearing a pocket watch that has traveled through generations.
That’s where everything really connected for me.
Steampunk looks backward, reimagining the past through an artistic, whimsical lens, as Noir utilizes the tradition of strings to reinterpret music across generations. And my pawpaw’s watch reminded me that we do something similar each day with all the things: memories, keepsakes, etc., that we inherit. We don’t always preserve or utilize them exactly as they were. Sometimes we carry them into new experiences, transforming and redefining them into something more applicable with where we are presently. Just as the watch once belonged to my pawpaw and "Ready or Not" once belonged to us beneath beaming plasma globes in his record room. Neither exists for me exactly as it once did, but both remain intimate additions to my story.
And as the popular sayings go, time waits for no (wo)man and the only constant in life is change. And what you do with it, the past, present, and in-between are all vital components of your becoming.
The Keesh Edit: The past doesn’t always stay behind us. Sometimes we wear it, hear it, reinterpret it, and carry it forward—lovingly giving what we inherit a place in who we’re becoming.
SHOP THE NOTE
Until next time.
BEFORE YOU GO: Carry authenticity with you. Explore my Healing is Not Linear Notebook Collection—designed for readers, creatives, and anyone becoming themselves.