If, as designers, want to create desirable futures, one way is to prefigure desired ways of relating (to ourselves, the world and others who dwell in it), giving people something to aspire to in the changes to come. Affective prefiguration can make visible eco-social transformation as it happens. This prefiguration is an experience of relations that are possible, but rare or absent in contemporary society or for the people taking part. The task is complicated by the wider context in which we function – of converging technological, ecological and economic crises: we also need to confront more difficult affective responses and emotions, such as grief and dissonance. But when we succeed in offering a prefigurative experience, we not only anticipate how things might turn out, we make the path towards that future more substantial. Thus, it becomes important to offer a little sweetness as well as some scaffolding for facing uncertainty.
Prefigurative politics usually focus on systems and structures, such as alternative ways to distribute money or get healthcare, introducing a material challenge to the status quo. When we create the conditions to prefigure affect (how feeling feels in the body, even before the recognition of emotion), it can target relations directly, rather than through new social institutions. It can give a glimpse of worlds we might like to sustain while making clearer what needs changing. It can be the fuel needed to build alternative systems. I have long been asking “Do we use our creative energy in fulfilling ways? Are we able to rest, play, and seek spiritual connection as we please? Are we able to support others as we would like?” (Light 2022). The answer is often negative, even though these seem basic enough things to want in one’s life. There is plenty to be prefigurative about.
I am soon to publish a longer piece on Affective Prefiguration with some colleagues and also a paper on participative intimacy, which is a style of affective prefiguration that comes from working together. This latter, short, paper comes out in mid June. (Ask me if you want to see these pieces now.) In the meantime, the rudiments are here:
In Dialogue with the More-than-Human: Affective Prefiguration in Encounters with Others: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3599956 (You may have to copy and paste this link as the ACM DL verification system is a little unforgiving.)
Participative intimacy, featured in Enacting Entanglement: CreaTures, Socio-Technical Collaboration and Designing a Transformative Ethos: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10606-024-09497-8
Reference
Ann Light (2022). Ecologies of subversion: troubling interaction design for climate care. interactions 29, 1 (January – February 2022), 34–38. https://doi.org/10.1145/3501301