n the summer of 2007, I suggested to the New York Times that they should run a story on steampunk culture -- how it had broken beyond mere tinkerers into domestic life. They gave it a green light and then killed the story for reasons unknown. I usually don't exhibit unpublished work, but after the Times ran its own new steampunk culture story, I thought -- in the vein of steampunk's attention to revisionist alternative histories -- that it would appropriate. So here it is, untitled and unaccredited.

It’s called the Telecalculograph. Amid modern contrivances – a digital picture frame, a mini-fridge stuffed with ramen packets and instant lemonade, a Back to the Future poster, a Game Boy Advance, “Seinfeld†DVDs, a folding 18-speed Fuji bicycle and bland summer-camp-meets-garage-sale dorm furniture – the Telecalculograph looms like a Franklin stove. It is a computer made to look like a Victorian furnace. When the computer processors flicker, an electronic fire seems to flare in the device’s iron belly. The brass mouse attached looks more like a 19th-century telegraph than a 21st-century doodad. The light that illuminates both devices emanates from a lamp of neon bulbs framed by horseshoe magnets wrapped in copper wire.

These are the brainchildren of Jake Hildebrandt, a 20-year-old Michigan Tech student. In total, the three devices – all unveiled this year – cost him $90 and 60 hours of labor. While Mr. Hildebrandt would seem to be part of a demographic that prefers hi-tech wizardry like the Wii or the iPhone, he opts instead for the retro comfort of the burgeoning aesthetic known as “steampunk†– a backlash not just to iGizmos, but also to the whole less-is-more design universe that includes recessed lighting, kitchen appliances camouflaged as cabinetry, cantilevered bathroom sinks with pipe-free underbellies, and discreet thermostat panels.