#discussion, May 1, 2024
Before making "Matter of imagination" public, two initiators of the project, Anya and Nathalie, met over Zoom to take a glimpse back into the history of the idea, reflect together on challenges and motivations behind the initiative, and just gather some thoughts around the feeling that something new and exciting might start now. With a bit of editing to add background information and transcode the mood of the talk into the text, this introductory post appeared. This is the first part of the conversation.
Who we are and what is our research about
Nathalie: my name is Nathalie Fidzema. I am a PhD student at the University of Groningen, Centre for Media Studies and Journalism. Briefly, my PhD project is about the early history of the public web in the Netherlands, specifically between 1994 and 2004, where I take focus on everyday culture and grassroots initiatives. So, very much focusing on the first Dutch generation that went online.
Anya: My topic is similar to yours in a way that I'm also working with Internet history. My name is Anya Shchetvina, I'm a PhD student at Humboldt University in a research group “Kleine Formen” - “small forms” in English. My PhD is about history of Internet manifestos, specifically manifestos that were published on the Internet about the Internet. I look at how they developed and changed between 1980s and until the present day.
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On how “Matter of imagination” idea came to life
Nathalie: I think it's funny how we met by a coincidence. We both presented at the RESAW23 conference in Marseille, and suddenly found out that even with all the difference between our projects, we still use the same theoretical framework of imaginaries.
Anya: Yes! There is this big, overwhelming sociotechnical imaginary theory by Sheila Jasanoff and we both don't feel fully comfortable with it. Or at least we think that there should be more possibilities and discussions beyond it.
Anya: *thinking*
Anya: And of course, for me there was also a socially grounded motivation to suggest doing this project. Because academic work is also a situated and collective work, I felt that it is important to not be isolated in research. It's interesting to find people who see their research interests as something that lies in this domain of what we describe here. What we describe is not fully a field of studies, and definitely not a discipline. But it is something. And we are trying to capture it. It feels like it's a bait that we set. And I'm curious who would come to us.
Nathalie: Yes. I really like that metaphor of a bait. Some people will resonate with the concept of imaginaries, and some people don't. Yeah, I'm really curious whom will we catch?
Nathalie: Also, I can already tell since we have made the reading list and started discussing the concept, it has helped me to ground my own objective better. And also, to be able to…not necessarily legitimize, but to explain better, what it is what I am doing.
Nathalie: *imitating cliché marketing tone of voice* - So that's why I'm very happy to be starting this initiative!
Anya: *laughs*
Anya: We should do a team building session.
Nathalie: Digital team building for two people! But in all seriousness, I do think it's true, collaboration helps a lot, and I feel it already.
Anya: That’s how it should work.
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On the concept of imaginaries
Anya: One of my research interests is focused on how manifestos develop a certain repertoire that is used to organize, structure, and convey different imaginaries. Right now, one of the focus interests is in how modern approaches from literary studies that identify certain formal arrangements of texts can be applied methodologically, to analyze imaginaries more in detail.
Nathalie: Our understanding of imaginaries is similar in that sense. I use the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, which means that societal norms and values can change by means of advancements in science and technology. I landed on the concept because I don't focus on the technological history of the web, but instead look at how normal people experienced going online. And I think imaginaries is one of those bigger concepts that encompasses that well. I also use it a term “intellectual imaginaries” to describe scholarly understandings.
Anya: Interesting. You said you're concentrating on, so to say, “normal people”. But do you use certain concepts related to imaginaries? You said, “intellectual imaginaries”. Can we speak about something like “vernacular imaginaries” or “grassroots imaginaries”?
Nathalie: I don't think there is a specific concept for layman imaginaries or ordinary everyday imaginaries. That would actually work well, and I think depending on the sources that you use, you can make a good distinction.
Nathalie: Is there actually also a specific type of imaginary that you use?
Anya: Actually no. Right now, I look at theories of imagination that are not just about technological aspects of social life, but ask general questions, “What does it mean to imagine? How can imagination be conceptualized?” There is a good book that we have in the reading list, by Ernest and Shorter on “Media Futures”, where they nicely connect high level theories of imagination to techno-social imaginaries.
Nathalie: It is interesting what we consider as imaginaries in your case of internet manifestos. We can probably see more high-level conceptualisations or, we can say, imaginations, of the internet in such texts. But manifestos probably also have distinct effects and maybe even change the course of the Internet´s development. So, it is curious to see at what point are we still talking about imaginaries and at what point do you go into the realm of materiality and sociality?
Anya: Yes, there is a lot of tension between imagination and action in manifestos. They try to do things, not just produce statements, but to become an action. And they often do it by using certain material elements of the interface to kind of model what they imagine. This materiality of imagination is what I'm very interested in. One of the reasons why we have such a title.
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On the project title
Nathalie: I really like the title. I see two main interpretations of it. First, it is about the material realm of imagination, matter of imagination. Second, it is referring to an area of study that maybe is overlooked. I gave a master course in the history program at Groningen University and was surprised by how difficult it was for students to grasp the importance of why this perspective can be important in historical studies.
Anya: Another thing that came to my mind when we thought about the title, is how people sometimes say “This is not real, it is just a naive dream. Just an imagination”. So, it is perceived as something ephemeral, something that doesn't produce any actual impact. What we want to do is to show to what extent this actually has power. Narratives or myths or certain metaphors of the Internet actually shape how we think and see the technologies. In this way they are not ephemeral at all.
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On inter/multi/crossdisciplinarity
Anya: We already mentioned that it's not a discipline. It is not a fully defined field of studies. But i it is something. We find ourselves in between an overlap of different approaches, disciplines and fields. On the one hand, there are definitely influences from anthropology and social studies with focus on how people maybe do things, publish texts, talk on the Internet about the Internet, reacting to manifestos, etc. On the other hand, of course, the concept of imaginaries implies a focus on the semiotic level: on words and aspects of meaning-organisation. I personally also draw from Utopian Studies from time to time. And well, Internet History unites us, but it is more a methodological ground, than theoretical.
Nathalie: I presented my projects a couple of months ago in a research group “Cultures of media production” which is mostly grounded in Cultural Studies. One of the participants said a surprising thing, “It seems to me that in what you're doing, you're looking into structure of feelings”. This is another example of two different concepts, but they touch on similar aspects. So in the future of our project, I would also love to explore these differences and similarities with other concepts.
Anya: I immediately imagined some sort of a map of different neighbouring concepts or phenomena that are all around this imagination that we could kind of draw.
Anya: *reverts to thoughts, taking a tea sip* - But do you work with the level of emotion?
Nathalie: I do use the word feeling a lot to focus on how people experienced going on the Web for the first time. It is interesting for me to see what feeling they got from it.
Anya: That's exciting because I think I'm coming from like a different perspective, which somehow brings us to the same result, which is interest in imaginaries. When I use common-sense language to describe my research, I'm always using the word sense-making or meaning-making. It is a line of thought parallel to feelings, but feelings are about an affective, emotional aspect. Meaning-making is more structured, it is about seeing discursive or rhetorical, or semantical tools.
Nathalie: This topic is interesting in connection to the question of temporality. Feeling, in my case, is more tied to novel technologies that already exist, like doing something for the first time. How that feels, so to say. And in your case, the manifestos are more future-oriented, I can see how that relates more to sense-making and constructing a concept of something novel.
Anya: True. But manifestos also both come from feeling and evoke feeling. It is only if we study texts from a more formal perspective, we can see it as an example of how different perceptions of the Internet are created and stabilized in a certain rhetoric and literary devices.
Anya: Returning to the topic of the discipline overlap and concept mapping. What we want to do is try to create somewhat of a toolbox with different approaches. We are not aiming to find one certain definition of imaginaries or technological or imagination. This project is for making an inventory of methodological and theoretical tools to describe things and not for some kind of a Grand Theory that we could be writing here.