A Creative Philosophy of Anticipation: Futures in the Gaps of the Present

283 Pages·2021·7.303 MB·English

by  Jamie Brassett and John O’Reilly

“There is a societal need to diversify our thinking about the future, moving
beyond the troubled metaphors of blank slates, open roads and sleek machinery.
This collection seeks to broaden and deepen our philosophical understanding
of anticipation, helpfully questioning how creativity and imagination can serve
to reframe the present.”
Cynthia Selin, Associate Professor, School for the
Future of Innovation in Society/School of Sustainability/
Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes/Arizona State University;
Associate Fellow, Said Business School/University of Oxford

A Creative Philosophy of Anticipation
This edited collection highlights the valuable ontological and creative insights
gathered from anticipation studies, which orients itself to the future in order
to recreate the present.
The gathered essays engage with many writers from speculative metaphysics
to poetic philosophy, ancient writing systems to the fringes of pataphysics.
The book situates itself as a creative intervention in and with various thinkers,
designers, artists, scientists and poets to offer insight into ways of anticipating.
It brings together philosophical practices for which creativity is both a
fundamental area of consideration and a mode of working, a characterization of
recent Continental Philosophy which takes a departure from traditional futures
studies thinking.
This book will be of interest to scholars and research in futures studies,
anticipation, philosophy, creative practice and theories about creative practice,
as well as the intersections between philosophy, creativity and business.
Jamie Brassett is Reader in Philosophy, Design and Innovation at University
of the Arts London, UK. He has worked at Central Saint Martins since 1995,
across all disciplines. Jamie started MA Innovation Management in 2008 and
ran it for 11 years. He DJs better now than in the 1990s.
John O’Reilly is Senior Lecturer in Practice as Research, Teaching and
Learning Exchange, University of the Arts London, UK. Philosopher, editor
and journalist, John has specialisms in illustration, popular culture and recent
Continental Philosophy.
Routledge Research in Anticipation and Futures
https :/ /ww w .rou tledg e .com /Rout ledge -Rese arch- in -An ticip ation -and-
Futur es / bo ok -se ries/ RRAF
Series editors: Johan Siebers and Keri Facer
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Nicola Sayers
Indigenous Futures and Learnings Taking Place
Edited by Ligia (Licho) López López and Gioconda Coello
Sustainable and Democratic Education
Opening Spaces for Complexity, Subjectivity and the Future
Sarah Chave
A Creative Philosophy of Anticipation
Futures in the Gaps of the Present
Edited by Jamie Brassett and John O’Reilly
Anticipation, Sustainability, Futures and Human Extinction
Ensuring Humanity’s Journey into the Distant Future
Bruce E. Tonn
A Creative Philosophy of
Anticipation
Futures in the Gaps of the Present
Edited by Jamie Brassett and
John O’Reilly
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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© 2021 selection and editorial matter, Jamie Brassett and John O’Reilly;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Jamie Brassett and John O’Reilly to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
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Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brassett, Jamie, author. | O’Reilly, John, 1963- author.
Title: A creative philosophy of anticipation: futures in the gaps of the
present/edited by Jamie Brassett and John O’Reilly.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Routledge research in anticipation and futures | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020049083 (print) | LCCN 2020049084 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Expectation (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC B105.E87 C74 2021 (print) | LCC B105.E87 (ebook) |
DDC 155.2/4--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049083
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049084
ISBN: 978-0-367-23456-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-23459-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Deanta Global Publishing Servies, Chennai, India
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables xi
Contributors xii
Acknowledgements xvi
1 Introduction to a creative philosophy of anticipation 1
JAMIE BRASSETT AND JOHN O’REILLY
2 Anticipation, creativity and picture perception 24
MARK DONOGHUE
3 Flowing or frozen anticipation? Runes and the creativity
of time 54
ANNE MARCHAIS-ROUBELAT
4 Ernst Bloch’s ontology of not-yet being: Intuiting the
possibility of anticipation’s fulfilment 79
NATHANIEL J.P. BARRON
5 Are scenarios creative? Questioning movement and
innovation in anticipation practices 98
FABRICE ROUBELAT
6 Becoming other-wise as the practice of anticipation 114
JOHN O’REILLY
7 For a creative ontology of the future: An ode to love 152
JAMIE BRASSETT
viii Contents
8 Inventive devices and public issues: The Air Pollution Toile 182
LUCY KIMBELL
9 The anticipatory power of the objectile 207
DEREK HALES
10 2078/1978. Anticipation and the contemporary 241
JAMIE BRASSETT AND JOHN O’REILLY
Index 257
Figures
2.1 These shapes produce the same two-dimensional projection
so, when a perceiver only has access to the projection, how
do they know the causal shape? In short, they infer the most
probable shape based on prior knowledge 34
2.2 Bistable cube illusion where the shape can appear as both
concave viewed from above, or convex viewed from below 35
2.3 Bistable cube illusion illustrated with probability functions 37
2.4 Cube image now includes lighting, making the convex
interpretation more probable 38
2.5 Proposed architecture of hierarchical predictive processing.
Each level of the hierarchy attempts to predict the signal
from the lower level through feedback connections. The
difference between the actual signal and expected signal is
the prediction-error and is passed back to the higher level via
feedforward connections. This prediction-error also amends
the prediction model at each level. This process of prediction
and model amendment (via prediction-error) occurs
concurrently so there is a top-down cascade of prediction and
bottom-up propagation of prediction-error. For more detail
see: Rao and Ballard (1999); Friston (2009, 2010); Bastos et al.
(2012) 41
2.6 Three Cylinders Illusion 43
2.7 Probability functions illustration for the three cylinders illusion 44
4.1 ‘Self-Regarding Ego’ by Ernst Mach. © Ernst Mach 1897,
Analysis of Sensations, Continuum Publishing, an imprint of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. 91
8.1 Installation view of Air Pollution Toile at Modern Art Oxford,
UK, September–October 2018 183