Speculative Fiction: Thurs 6 Feb 2023 George Simms

Speculative Fiction
Thurs 6th Feb 2023

George Simms
How do we define fiction?
What does it mean to speculate?

SPECULATION
=
THE “WHAT IF”?
Speculative fiction is fiction in which the author speculates upon the results of
changing what’s real or possible.
Speculative fiction is any fiction in which the “laws” of that world (explicit
or implied) are different than ours and aim to reveal something about
our mode of being.
SPECULATIVE FICTIONING:
> a fictional exploration of human situations made perceptible
> evades clearly defined parameters
> is political through its commentary on the present
> attempts to think outside of the current normative modes of existence of it’s
society to think of other possibilities of being
“The main device of speculative fiction is an
imaginative framework alternative to the
author’s own imaginary”
- Darko Suvin
Imaginary?
The imaginary (or social imaginary) is the set of values,

institutions, laws, and symbols through which people imagine
their social whole. It is common to the members of a particular
social group and the corresponding society. The concept of the
imaginary has attracted attention in anthropology, sociology,
psychoanalysis, philosophy, and media studies.
“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it
matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters
what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what
descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters
what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.”
— Donna J. Haraway
An experimental, design-
and art-led inquiry into
new ways to digitize and
represent the city.
“Feminists tend to remark and contest: what logics do we reproduce when we describe that exciting new research with
the colonial metaphors of “pioneering” or “breaking new frontiers,” or describe research that is taking impressive
risks as an example of “wild West” thinking? Is “dissemination” always the best word we can think of to explain the
circulation and communication of ideas, or can we find a metaphor slightly less associated with semen as the seed(s) of
knowledge? When we use “dark” to describe a bleak or violent period of history, or “shady” in reference to some
suspicious practices, what cultural resonances are we harnessing? When we refer to work that needs revising as
“awkward,” “weak,” “unrefined,” or “poor” as opposed to “graceful,” “strong,” “elegant,” or “rich” for work that
strikes us as particularly excellent, what kinds of ableist and classist norms are we internalizing and passing along?
– T.L. Cowan, Jas Rault

Metaphor as Meaning and Method in Technoculture
In Your own words write down what an
imaginary is.
Then write down as many examples of

imaginaries as you can on sticky notes.
15 mins
SPECULATIVE
FICTION
Donna Haraway tells us that the narratives we tell ourselves and others
are important. In some cases, even more vital than reality. This method
of recountal is called “speculative fiction”
I would go so far as to say that
the natural, proper, fitting shape of the novel might be
that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold
things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine
bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation
to one another and to us.
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction
He looks at how nonsense and sense exist together in science
fiction, the way in which language is not a guarantee of
personhood, the role of vision in relation to identity formation,
the difference between metamorphosis and modulation,
representations of non-human deaths and the function of
plasticity within the Anthropocene.
Speculative Realism and Science Fiction

Brian Willems
In Alien Phenomenology, or What It’s Like to Be a Thing, Ian Bogost develops an
object-oriented ontology that puts things at the center of being; a philosophy in
which nothing exists any more or less than anything else; in which humans are
elements, but not the sole or even primary elements, of philosophical interest.
And unlike experimental phenomenology or the philosophy of technology,
Bogost’s alien phenomenology takes for granted that all beings interact with,
perceive, and experience one another. This experience, however, withdraws
from human comprehension and only becomes accessible through a
speculative philosophy based on metaphor.
Alien Phenomenology
Ian Bogost
CASE STUDIES
In Groups choose a prject and answer the Q’s!
Each group will feed back.
1. What are some of the formats that are being explored?
2. What type of fictions are these artists making?
3. What stories are they telling?
4. How do these stories and mediums account for plural narratives?

1
Ted Chiang - The Great Silence

Wisdoms for Love 3.0
- keiken
i-Magma, Jenna Sutela
4
Hyper-Reality - Keiichi Matsuda
Mitigation of Shock, Superflux
7
Geomancer, Lawrence Lek
8
Break?
How can we learn to be experimental /
spontaneous / ‘alternative’ to our reality?
Think back to the speculative fiction.
Ursula’s Bag of fictions
Speculative Realism’s unsesnsable renderings
Alien Phenomenologies decentering of narrative

Pick one of your imaginaryies and come up
with a concept for a speculative fiction
It can be in bullet points, short sentances or whatever is easiest.
Think about:
- Medium/technology
- background/context
- character/subject
- initial narrative ideas
15 mins
Later this week you
will be creating
branching
narratives in twine.
Think back to the

plural narratives
shown earlier,
Keiken’s mycelium
map narrative.
A good way to plan
branched narrative is
with a graphing tool, to
plan the flow of scenes.
If you are used to Miro

or another platform feel
free to use that but I
recommend
Excalidraw, a free open
source version.
To prep for later this week!
Plan a narrative that has minimum 5 stages and two branches.
Twine is also multi-media so be explorative with how you represent these stories.
Could you use found film/audio? Chat boxes? Uploaded files? Tasks to be completed?
P5 sketches?
Spend 15 mins to add ideas for multiple paths and media

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Speculative Fiction

Thurs 6th Feb 2023

What does it mean to speculate?

> a fictional exploration of human situations made perceptible

> evades clearly defined parameters

> is political through its commentary on the present

The imaginary (or social imaginary) is the set of values,

– T.L. Cowan, Jas Rault

Then write down as many examples of

Speculative Realism and Science Fiction

1. What are some of the formats that are being explored?

2. What type of fictions are these artists making?

3. What stories are they telling?

4. How do these stories and mediums account for plural narratives?

Ted Chiang - The Great Silence

Ursula’s Bag of fictions

Speculative Realism’s unsesnsable renderings

Alien Phenomenologies decentering of narrative

Think back to the

If you are used to Miro

Spend 15 mins to add ideas for multiple paths and media

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