Vision as make-believe: how narratives and models represent sociotechnical futures

When prominent experiments, simulations, and prototypes fail, sociotechnical futures become contested. This paper discusses the negotiation of visions as make-believe to give the considered feasibility of future narratives a more significant account in explaining innovation dynamics. Following Kendall Walton's theory of representational arts, I propose that imagined futures depend on both material and socio-cultural constraints. On the one hand, the considered data, models, and artifacts give make-believe futures a veto right and a certain kind of objectivity. On the other hand, sociotechnical imaginaries prompt promissory considerations and implications. The contingency of employed objects allows accounting responsibility for fictional truths to imagining subjects. Drawing from a scenario workshop on microalgae nutrition, I demonstrate how stakeholders use uncertain props and imaginaries to negotiate the ambiguous boundaries for the assessment of the unproven technology. I argue that the non-fixity of both authorized sources and promissory narratives explains the uncertainty of innovation dynamics.