week 29 / 2025: rifts in the schismatrix
Here's another way to look at the difference between science fiction and fiction-for-futures: the former is art, the latter is artifice.
worldbuilding
week 28 / 2025: the concretisation of metaphor
The tools of science fiction can be put to use in the storying of scenarios, but in such cases, they are means to a somewhat different end. How might we usefully describe that distinction?
unknown pleasures: an interview with Cameron Tonkinwise (part 2)
In the second part of my interview with Cameron Tonkinwise, we discuss Transition Design, prefigurative politics, dramaturgy, narratology, imagination, and... urban cycling as filtered through the philosophy of Georges Bataille?
design designs designers: an interview with Cameron Tonkinwise (part 1)
In this first half of my interview with Cameron Tonkinwise, we discuss design as a practice that necessarily takes place in an already-designed context, and what that practice has in common with worldbuilding.
nowhere to go but further in: a hypothesis of fandom intensity
The differences in dynamic between the fandoms of primary- and secondary-world media can tell us a lot about the micropolitics of future imaginaries.
the scenario doesn’t know it’s a scenario: an interview with Madeline Ashby
Few folk are better equipped to understand the art of worldbuilding from both sides of the futures/fiction border than Madeline Ashby, who has a fully justified reputation for excellence in both aspects. Find out how she does it!
worldbuilding from the shoulder: an interview with Bruce Sterling (part 2)
It's finally here! The keenly anticipated second part of the Worldbuilding Agency interview with pioneering cyperpunk ideologue turned design critic and tech-art curator, the one and only Bruno Argento...