Utilities of Fiction: Inside and Outside of the Brain in 'The Flocking Party'

Abstract

“Utilities of Fiction” discusses the science fiction project, “The Flocking Party”, an online, multimedia story that is set in the future. “The Flocking Party” is a creative research project that activates the fertile territory between cognitive evolution, media theory, creative research, and science fiction. The four distinct chapters or “fictions” presented here provide diverse interpretations of the project. This network of interpretation is traced with biological and environmental metaphors for understanding how representation functions in and outside of the brain. A tour of neural structures is correlated to the effectiveness of stories and new media for building new perceptions. Concluding the tour is a proposal for mind-like media that produce more useful representations. The four chapters, Convenient Fiction, Environmental Fiction, Science Fiction, and Perceptual Fiction elucidate the motivation, conception, process, and distribution of “The Flocking Party”. Combined, these chapters form a set of associations and intersections that provide a map for exploring the project's creative utilities.