Speculative Artifacts and Prefigurative Praxis
Weaving Fictional Realities into Cultural Critique
In an era marked by hyperrealism, fragmented media, and an overwhelming blend of fiction and fact, a new form of communication has emerged: the creation of speculative artifacts, fictional documents and media designed to interrogate contemporary culture by mimicking the real. These artifacts blur the line between evidence and fabrication, compelling us to reconsider how we interpret meaning, trust in authoritative sources, and conceive of possible futures. This practice, which I’ll term prefigurative speculative communication, draws on a variety of intellectual, literary, and artistic traditions, using prefigurative praxis to challenge existing structures of knowledge and social order.
By recovering pieces of evidence from fabricated realities—realities that are eerily similar to our own—this style of communication disrupts traditional meaning-making frameworks and models alternative futures, all while inviting the audience to critically reflect on their present condition. This essay will explore the roots of this form of speculative communication, identify its key influences, and analyze its potential as a tool for cultural critique and political imagination.
The Power of Fabricated Evidence
At the core of this approach is the fabrication of evidence from a speculative or alternate reality that mirrors, distorts, and exaggerates aspects of our own world. These fabricated documents—be they interviews with future celebrities, social media posts about imagined trends, or essays from alternate presents—are designed to trick the mind into taking them seriously, at least initially. The familiarity of their form (mimicking real-world media formats) gives them an air of authority, while their content serves as a subtle, yet jarring reminder that something is off (the vibes?).
This dissonance compels readers to reflect not only on the speculative scenario presented but also on the systems of meaning and authority in their own world. By positioning these speculative artifacts as fragments of an imagined future or alternative present, creators of these artifacts subvert our expectations about how truth, reality, and culture are constructed.
In an essay from Speculative Artifacts, for example, a fabricated "interview" with pop icon Charli XCX discusses themes of unmasking, redemption, and liberation. While the interview format feels familiar, the content pushes it into the realm of speculative fiction. It imagines a future where personal and political liberation is culturally mainstream, presenting a future-world through the lens of celebrity media—a format we trust. This technique not only critiques celebrity culture but also explores how narratives of personal transformation can be commodified or weaponized for public consumption, hinting at the fragility of our media and cultural ecosystems.
Speculative Fiction and Critical Theory
This form of communication is rooted in speculative fiction, a tradition that has long used alternate realities and possible futures to critique the present. Writers like Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia Butler have masterfully crafted worlds that serve as mirrors for our own, exploring issues of power, technology, and identity through the lens of speculative futures. The difference, however, between traditional speculative fiction and this newer form of speculative communication is in the medium and presentation.
Instead of fully immersing readers in a fictional world, speculative artifacts offer fragments of that world, forcing readers to fill in the gaps. In this way, the style is more conceptual, aligned with the work of Dadaists or Surrealists, who often juxtaposed seemingly unrelated elements to create a deeper sense of reality and absurdity.
Jean Baudrillard’s postmodernist critique is also relevant here. Baudrillard argued that in the postmodern world, we live in a realm of simulacra—representations that have become detached from reality, but which we treat as more real than the original. Speculative artifacts play with this concept of hyperreality, presenting media forms (like news articles or social media posts) that we expect to reflect truth, but which are instead artifacts from an exaggerated, fabricated world. By doing so, they invite us to reflect on the simulation we already live in—our own media-saturated, algorithm-driven culture, where reality and representation are increasingly indistinguishable.
Prefigurative Praxis: Modeling Future Systems of Meaning
One of the most profound aspects of speculative artifacts is how they serve as prefigurative praxis. This term, rooted in anarchist and feminist traditions, refers to the practice of enacting or modeling the world you wish to create through present actions. Prefigurative praxis has been embraced by various radical movements, from the Zapatistas to contemporary eco-socialists, as a way to live out their values and demonstrate alternative ways of organizing society.
In the context of speculative communication, this prefigurative approach is expressed through the creation of alternative media, cultural narratives, and systems of knowledge. By fabricating documents from a speculative reality, creators model how a future world might look, feel, and function. These artifacts might present liberated societies, where cultural norms have shifted, or dystopian futures that serve as warnings of what might come to pass if current trends continue unchecked.
Consider the speculative essay titled TikTok’s Archaeology Backlash: A Misguided Trend?, which presents an imagined future where #archaeologyiscolonialism is a viral cultural movement. The piece critiques current online activism and cancel culture, while also prefiguring a future where historical and cultural narratives are questioned with an even greater ferocity. By presenting this alternate reality, the artifact prefigures the cultural debates of tomorrow, offering a speculative lens through which we can reconsider our current attitudes toward activism, intellectual trends, and digital virality.
Influences and Adjacent Traditions
This form of communication, though novel in its presentation, pulls from a wide range of adjacent and orthogonal traditions. Afrofuturism, for example, offers a liberatory model of speculative storytelling that imagines futures where Black culture, technology, and identity play central roles. Like speculative artifacts, Afrofuturism reclaims history and projects possible futures that challenge existing power structures. Artists like Janelle Monáe and writers like Octavia Butler use speculative narratives to critique and prefigure a world that is more just, equitable, and technologically advanced.
Similarly, the tradition of conceptual art—from Duchamp to Barbara Kruger—offers parallels. Conceptual artists often create fictional institutions or fabricated documents to critique real-world power dynamics and systems of knowledge. The speculative artifacts seen in this form of communication draw on this approach, presenting their fabricated realities through faux-official forms like essays, news articles, and interviews, all while critiquing the mechanisms of media and culture in our own world.
A New Tool for Cultural Critique
Ultimately, speculative artifacts represent a new form of cultural critique that is well-suited to our media-saturated, fragmented reality. By fabricating fragments of alternate realities that echo our own, these pieces compel readers to reconsider how they interpret evidence, trust media, and construct meaning. They also serve as a powerful form of prefigurative praxis, modeling future worlds or systems of meaning that we can begin to imagine—or fear—today.
In a world increasingly defined by simulacra, social media virality, and the fragmentation of truth, this form of speculative communication offers a unique way to challenge existing systems of meaning. By recovering pieces of evidence from a fabricated reality, speculative artifacts force us to confront the constructed nature of our own reality and open up new possibilities for imagining and shaping the future.
Whether they are offering critiques of current trends or prefiguring more radical futures, these artifacts push us to reflect on what is real, what is possible, and what futures we can imagine—and make real.