An Ambiguous Utopia

An Ambiguous Utopia is a research and design contribution to the Institute of Network Culture’s Critical Meme Reader. It was conceived of as a productive fiction that investigates memes as small units of cultural DNA, with the power to shift political discourse and practice on- and offline.

The contribution makes use of visual design, storytelling, worldbuilding and futuring techniques to escape the constraints of the current moment and conjure scenarios set in alternative places and times. Metamodernism serves as a theoretical framework to think beyond static categorisation and imagine multiplicitous futures that transgress the binary of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

Co-creation was a core to the process and invited plural perspectives into imagining futures. As part of this project we developed an online worldbuilding process that involved a wide range of participants through memeing, performance and role-playing.