SCIENCE FICTION IN ENTERPRISES: VISUALIZING, DISPLACING, DECONSTRUCTING

Abstract

Science fiction is increasingly called upon as a way to be more creative and innovative, similar
to the use of forecasting practices used in the past. The aim is to go further than simply reading
realistic “labour fiction” about factories and companies. What is needed is not only (classical)
critical hindsight gained through the “mirror” of fiction, but also (more innovatively) an intellectual projection from the “unconventional knowledge” that is contained in this speculative
literature. But what does it mean to read SF for its ideas, as if they could be detached from the
form of the work? For centuries, fiction theorists have debated this articulation between fiction
and the real world, establishing that reading is far from a simple “exploration”, notably in SF.
In this paper, the reasons why this is and the means used will be reviewed, before proposing
three approaches to such literary “corporate SF”: a transparent SF, as in The Circle (Dave
Eggers); an interventionist SF, as in Au bal des actifs (edited by Anne Adam); an abductive SF,
as in CLEER (Laurent L. Kloetzer).