Speculative Technologies: Further Dreams of Technical Reason

Speculative technologies emerge at the intersection of imagination and scientific knowledge. The second part of this special collection provides further testimony to this. If the dream of reason gives rise to monsters, the dream of technical reason gave birth to the perpetuum mobile along with the mechanical and artistic obsessions or compulsions that came with it. It stretches all the way to the right software app that will select a soulmate to cyberfeminist theories that seek to break through ways of thinking that foreclose technological horizons. As in the first part of this special issue (the September 2024 issue of Technology and Language), speculative technologies serve as provocations and inspirations, pointing to new possibilities, alternate horizons, and different worlds beyond our current reality. They are not just products of speculation; they are also generators, drivers, and focalizers of speculation, instruments of subjunctivity, heralding an aesthetic transformation of society. The thirteen papers (plus several essays about Kafka’s killing machine) collected in this two-part special issue examine speculative technologies through historical reconstruction, philosophical reflection, cultural-technology assessment, museological engagement, and literary experiments.