Gaming workshops conducted at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague; Wendy's Subway, New York; Cultural Capital Introspection / Sorry No Rooms Available, Ukraine; New York University; Columbia University; TRA-TRAVEL, Osaka; and Harvard Graduate School of Design Essay published in e-flux journal #116Image: Excerpt from a counterfactual game "High-speed Internet was never developed [for consumer use]." Conceived and played by Rene Franco, Daniel Lichtman, Sixing Xu, and Siqi Zhu. Click to enlarge.
A counterfactual is a means of speculating about the possible paths events could have taken. We commonly encounter them in sweeping historical reimaginings, but they can also help us ask critical questions about the forms of reparation and restitution owed to communities for past wrongs. A counterfactual is not an "alternative fact," Kellyanne Conway's means of distinguishing "fake news" from the Trump administration's view of reality. Nonetheless, counterfactual thinking may provide some perspective on the disinformation campaigns destabilizing governments and populations worldwide.
Counterfactuals is an ongoing gaming workshop. Participants bring counterfactual scenarios to the sessions, and we collaborate in small groups to play them out. These games, dynamic ways of working with history, help us dwell in the complexities of causation; distrust the precision of hindsight; and locate moments in the past, when the sediment has yet to settle, that could lead us towards a decent and equitable present.
Image: Excerpts from a counterfactual game "What if, following WWII, artists continued to be integrated into the military through a permanent 'Ghost Army' division?" Conceived and played by Alex Kim, Brittni Harvey, and Tyler Coburn. Click to enlarge.
Image: Excerpt from a counterfactual game "What if the suffragettes didn’t gain the right to vote; Franz Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated; Warsaw wasn’t rebuilt after WWII but left as a monument of war; Khrushchev stayed in power until 1991; and the Chernobyl disaster never happened?" Conceived and played by Larion Lozovoy, Valeria Schiller, Katerina Tykhonenko, Lika Volkova, and Tyler Coburn. The postcard reads: "Greetings from Khortytsia Island." Click to enlarge.