Fictions Matter Too: A Vision for an Imaginaries Lab in Design
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” William Thomas and Dorothy Swaine Thomas, 1928 — later named as the ‘Thomas Theorem’ The events of the last couple of years, from Brexit to Trump, have been a vivid demonstration for our time of the power of the imaginary to affect human affairs. Not for the first time, of course — but amplified in an unprecedented way by algorithms, bots, targeting, and strategic use of personal data via social media — huge decisions are being influenced by imagined versions of what ‘reality’ is. We cannot avoid trying to work out how to make sense of terms such as alternative facts , fake news , and post-truth as being part of everyday discourse, and incorporating them and their effects into our own models of how the world works. As Maciej Ceglowski says , people “will happily construct alternative realities for themselves, and adjust them as necessary to fit the changing facts,” and this is greatly aided by the techn...