Jameson's "Archeologies of the Future", visualising fictional things and believability in literature

Frederic Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (2007) explores the concept and functions of Utopia within science fiction literature in a post-communist age. [1] And the effacy and relevance of utopia and science fiction in human imagining of the future.

Book cover of Frederic Jameson's, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, 2007. Image: https://www.bookdepository.com/Archaeologies-of-the-Future-Fredric-Jameson/9781844675388?redirected=true&utm_medium=Google&utm_campaign=Base1&utm_source=NZ&utm_content=Archaeologies-of-the-Future&selectCurrency=NZD&w=AF7CAU963GZLZRA8V9LU&gclid=Cj0KCQjw18WKBhCUARIsAFiW7JyNAtY7wuiv_2t3acBBHixMBtXwN2uu1dcfoowkJNuSRDGaGW6WPy0aAuAuEALw_wcB

Within Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions (2007), Jameson discusses that science-fiction literature and the psychological experience of its narrative is beyond human capacity, due to cultural, ideological and systemic closures which trap us in accepted reality. [2]

A 1973 book cover of David Lindsay’s, Voyage to Arcturus, first published in 1920. Image: https://www.walmart.com/ip/A-Voyage-to-Arcturus-Paperback-9780345232083/106263577

Utilising author David Lindsay’s attempt’s to describe new colours “Ulfire” and “Sale” in Voyage to Arcturus (1920), Jameson highlights how the mind grapples visualising images of non-existent things, yet to be experienced via sensory knowledge. To clarify, the mind struggles to visualise objects, experiences and sensations the eyes have never seen, and the body has never felt. And so, the mind reverts to the familiar, memory, as evidenced by Lindsay’s reliance of pre-existing colours and terminology to describe his new colours, “It was an entirely new colour - not a new shade or combination, but a new primary colour, as vivid as blue, red, or yellow, but quite different.” [4] Lindsay ultimately says these new colours are similar to ones from our reality but aren’t the same. The concept of the creation of colours and their mental imagery is also incomprehensible considering colour discovery within science is extremely rare. In 2009, a new inorganic blue was discovered, and has been the only blue pigment to rediscovered since cobalt 200 years ago. Similar discoveries have been made with NTP Yellow (2010) and the blackest black (2011). [5] It is important to note that these are new shades, new pigments and new modes or reflection not a new entire colour family. [6] Mental imagery is harder to evoke when there is an overt absence of believability. Within Voyage to Arcturus (1920), Lindsay utilises the alien or chimera body in numerous instances to explain the protagonist’s new sensorial capabilities, such as being able to understand and sympathise with all living creatures and plants via the addition of the Poigns organ. [7] The alien body justifies corporeal capabilities beyond the scientifically accepted, making it tangential to the terrestrial human body. [8] The reader's ability to recognise the possibility of an alien body allows the leap between fantasy and science fiction, thus mentally un-visualisable to visualisable (in speculative design, designer James Auger calls this a perceptual bridge - link the publish blog post) . However in Voyage to Arcturus (1920), the protagonist’s ability to see new colours is left unexplained, meaning that the believability and evocation of mental images is significantly diminished.

The evocation of mental images is subject and limited to worldly source material, that is what is already accepted to exist. In doing so, science fiction texts demonstrates and dramatises our incapacity to imagine the future or something that does not yet exist. How humanity is mired to the all-too-familiar.

[1] - https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Archaeologies_of_the_Future.html?id=sPBad_aN0i0C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

[2] - Lizzie Muller, “Speculative Objects: Materialising Science Fiction” (Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art, Sydney, 2013), http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/9475.

[3] - https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Archaeologies_of_the_Future.html?id=sPBad_aN0i0C&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

[4] - ibid

[5] & [6] - https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-scientists-invent-new-colours-80897)

[7] - http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1329/1329-h/1329-h.htm

[8] - It is important to not that justification or reasoning is important to the distinction between fantasy and SF. In Fantasy there doesn’t need to be reason for certain happenings - it can just be natural or supernation, bit SF relation to fact means that the ‘why’ and ‘how’ must always be noted.