What do I mean by ‘tangible imaginaries’?
In a recent keynote I gave with Jeff Watson for the Swiss Design Network, we introduced the term ‘tangible imaginaries’ as a kind of meta-category or umbrella concept to speak across a variety of speculative, fictional, and critical practices in design and related fields.
These include, but are not limited to: design fiction, speculative design (as well as its critics), science fiction prototyping, critical making, futures scenario planning, world building, situation design, speculative ritual design (my own pet topic), etc. etc. Taken as a whole, these approaches represent what some (like Derek Hales) have called a speculative turn. I’m not sure whether we know whether that’s the right term yet, but regardless, there is a shift afoot, and its emergence in such a wide range of disciplines reflects the need for conceptual promiscuity rather than balkanization.
Given this context, rather than add a new approach to this collection, I’m interested in trying to develop a meta-conversation that takes into account both distinctions as well as areas of commonality across these various conceptual and methodological boundaries. So my goal with ‘tangible imaginaries’ is not to carve out conceptual territory, but rather …
