Narratives, speculations, and thought experiments are playing an increasingly important role not only in the arts, but also in science and society—in all areas of post-digital, cultural, and political discourse and understanding about socially just, unpredictable futures.
In which social, political, and technological futures do we want to live? – The Office for Useful Fictions facilitates journeys into other futures through teaching and public engagement: pathways and tools for speculation, building blocks for utopias with which alternative futures can be envisioned, collectively negotiated, analyzed, and shaped.
The Office for Useful Fictions seeks dialogue through narrative and linguistic experiments that can take acoustic, performative, and essayistic forms. It operates within university-wide
course offerings in three interconnected areas of focus:
- an experimental literary writing lab, led by the writer Lisa Spalt;
- a focus on acoustic storytelling in cooperation with Südwestrundfunk (SWR Kultur and radio editor Frank Halbig), led by radio artist and curator Gaby Hartel; and
- essay writing, led by media scholars Gloria Meynen and Maren Mayer-Schwieger.
