Sci-Fi Prototyping

[Amy Phillips]

Share your questions and ideas here!

[Anya VerKamp]

Hello, I just wanted to share that famed speculative fiction author Otter Lieffe wrote a short story called Synergy about Brussels (and its wildlife) in a flooding future for the Our Entangled Future short story compilation organized a couple years ago by the University of Oslo. It's been a great inspiration to me. Cheers. Anya https://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/research/projects/adaptation/news/our-entangled.html

[conature...@gmail.com]

Very interesting, thank you. Apparently there's also a free pdf: https://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/research/projects/adaptation/news/our-entangled-future_obrien-et-al_2019.pdf

[Wendy Wuyts]

Hi Anya,

Thanks for sharing. Very inspiring indeed. 

It helped me to get over my desire to be able to infuse the 'Brussels elements' as much as possible (which was hindering me).  

I feel Otter's story could happen in any city, if she hasn't described the Senne or mentioned Brussels twice.

I was struggling a bit with the 'context', because I am not a resident of Brussels

and feel a bit an imposter, because I feel I cannot write local science fiction if I hadn't immersed myself with a place. 

 I found another anchor to 'contextualize' it and decided to focus on some 'element' of Brussels that I know, as a visitor 

and ex-employee of a Brussels organisation: Manneken Pis. 

Perhaps, an interesting question, just out of curiosity: what are your sources for inspiration?

I am drawing elements of an old Manneken Pis saga (found in a library book from 1980), but also am influenced by a virtual tour by Jolein Bergers (PhD student KU leuven) in de Vogelzangbeekvalley during the Nature of Cities festival, a LinkedIn article about digitalisation and reforestation by a Flemish innovation watcher and some ideas I heard during the international conference of ecolinguistics this week. 

And also, how important is the Brussels (2020) context in your story? Perhaps I read I am not the only one who struggles a bit with catching one of the 'essences' of Brussels (or a place in Brussels) . 

I know it's science fiction prototyping, so I also told myself it should not be 'perfect'. 

Looking forward to read your stories soon. 

Warmly,

Wendy

(ps I I really enjoyed the multispecies or tentacular thinking perspective of Otter. I am also doing a similar experiment with a new fiction book I am writing).