Fictopoiesis

Fiction as research for sociotechnical futures. Fictopoiesis names fiction that knows itself as invented, performed, and relational to the real — and treats that self-knowledge as the point rather than a weakness.

The argument is against false coherence. There is always a gap between representation and reality, and the temptation of both narrative and machine-generated text is to close it, to produce something seamless enough that the seam stops being visible. Fictopoiesis insists on minding the gap instead: narrative is not reality, it is mediation, and creative participation in meaning-making depends on staying aware of the difference.

The concept runs underneath much of my recent work, including the self-portraiture. I am convening a panel on it at 4S in Toronto in September 2026, and writing a paper on these theses.