Schemata Lux - How It Started
The Genesis of a Mission
A little over a year ago I had the idea for Schemata Lux as a community and publication for a particular type of art and fiction. Trying to put it into a form that I can communicate to others I worked on a sort of core essay that I have not shared until now.
Good ideas are not original creations unto themselves but a synthesis of things that have come before.
I marvel at how some of my ideas coalesce. I might come across three interesting things in one week and they crash together into something new and strange. Alternatively, I might encounter many different concepts over years that capture my interest and incubate in my subconscious, eventually coming together into a form that makes absolute sublime sense.
Schemata Lux is one of the latter.
As a writer, I am fascinated by the role of narrative and fiction in the lives of individuals. A person could read a story of fantastic worlds and unusual people that makes such an impression on them as to color the rest of their lives.
It is likewise for cultures. Books that are well known and widely read can be influential in steering the course of cultural development, sometimes in profound ways. Many of history's great revolutions were preceded by the spread of knowledge and conversation surrounding written documents.
In a networked age we have more opportunity but also much more interference competing for our attention.
Over the years I have been fascinated by many examples where science fiction visions have inspired or preceded scientific and technological advances and yet quite often science fiction is still derided as escapism or entertainment only.
It could even be said that storytelling has always been foundational in forming and spreading cultural influences.
The art of storytelling is remarkable in the ability to capture and share experience and by placing people into situations outside their everyday lives. It is literally planting ideas into minds. Combine storytelling with the technology of writing and you have a powerful force, a tool that can promote the growth, spread and evolution of culture by allowing stories to be transcribed and transported over distances of both space and time. These stories don't have to be factual but they need to be meaningful.
Additional technological advances have amplified and accelerated these effects. The ability to record and transmit audio, visual and audio/visual media allow for much more impactful storytelling techniques. Networking technologies allow media to be shared and widely distributed. With networks the speed of conversation has accelerated and we have developed a global supra-culture and also endless potential for niche ideas and communities to develop sub-cultures.
While access is still an issue in many places, for those who do have access this is a golden age of knowledge and communication.
We have a great responsibility to use these conditions, unique in all of human history, to envision, reach for and build a better future.
Another seed idea that has fed into the bigger picture relates to the cautionary tale. So much of our fiction highlights what could go wrong and it is indeed an important trope, especially as we are advancing so quickly and with such enthusiasm. We need those visionaries who see what is going wrong or what could go wrong, to temper that enthusiasm with some caution, to warn and enlighten us.
However, it is also a genre that tends towards the extremes of disaster for disaster's sake, a thrilling and chilling entertainment without much deeper criticism than the implied message 'things can go wrong'. These stories contribute to a fear of exploration rather than informed caution.
Right now we are facing a lot of uncertainty about the future. Fiction helps us to examine ourselves, our culture, our past, present and future. A certain variety of fiction could help us imagine not only what could go wrong but also what could go right, to examine the effects that novel influences, such as new technology and cultural trends, might have on us going forward.
I think we need to see more fiction that is realistic both concerning the challenges we are facing and what we can do about them. Stories that imagine futures that could be and also tell engaging stories about people living in these futures. To learn from the future, we have to see relatable figures in narratives that engage us.
Writing about the future, for a better future.
This is not to say that future fiction is all about the glory of science and technology, that life will be rosy and we will solve all problems. It's more about acknowledging that things are changing and will never stop changing and attempt to examine situations where we learn to adapt and grow with that change.
Future fiction is not new or unexplored territory either. Besides a long history of writers of science fiction, there is also a considerable history in the world of professional futurism.
I remember being young and seeing a guest on a TV show described as being a futurist and it piqued my curiosity. It seemed like a made up title but I wanted to know more. Over time I learned that not only are there actually professional futurists but they do much more than just write speculation or appear as experts in TV shows.
Professional futurism, also known as strategic foresight, is an important part of business and government. While the role that these people play can vary widely from place to place, sometimes being practically unique to the position in which they practice, there are international organizations and established methodologies that guide those who find themselves needing to explain the future.
The endeavor is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing meaning from many different areas of knowledge to synthesize new insights. Practitioners use systems thinking to understand the interrelated nature of progress and interpret how changes to one aspect of life can effect others. They utilize extensive research and analysis to better understand past events and extrapolate clues in the present into future narratives. They do not arrive at conclusions through imagination alone but through methodical examination of signals and situations.
It is these people who inform and guide corporations. Behind the scenes they are the advisors who identify risks and opportunities and make recommendations.
All of these ideas planted in the fertile field of my mind have grown together into a larger idea, a driving synthesis.
Storytelling guides culture and we need more of it that will guide us toward growth, understanding and beneficial adaptation. Additionally, the skills and knowledge that professional futurists use can also inform fiction writing, thus making future fiction more representative of reality. Finally, only one or two people pursuing these aims is not enough. We need to encourage and develop a community, I dare say even a movement, of future fiction writers aimed at these goals.
Not only writing for fun or entertainment but also writing for a better tomorrow.
My goal is to develop a publication bringing together the approach of futurism with the creativity of fiction to inspire and guide our culture in these uncertain times. I'm not only interested in science and technology but also politics, economics, art and culture.
We need to see the big picture of how change will effect institutions but also a personal perspective of how people will live in and navigate these new worlds. Additionally I don't think we all need to agree about how the future will look but instead to examine different ways the future could play out from where we are now.
Find writing prompts and art: Schemata Lux
Raising for start-up costs and to compensate contributors at professional rates through Patreon
If you are inspired and interested in contributing or collaborating feel free to comment below or join the Discord and we can get the conversation going.
You should check out The Elysian's SS (https://www.elysian.press/), also a futurist and visionary like yourself. Also just in passing, the database known as the SCP foundation provides an interesting parallel or mirror image to this ethos: they write fictional science reports on paranormal SF stuff. Gotta say I kind of love it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCP_Foundation or the DB itself: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/about-the-scp-foundation
FANTASTIC idea. Stories shape our beliefs and perceptions which in turn shape our behaviors, relationships, creations ... When we can engage in stories that show us what’s possible and plant ideas around ways to flourish, instead of flounder or get fatalistic, welp... We reap what we sow.