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Short abstract:

Looking at a historical case of future projections, this paper seeks to explore the agency in the encounter between the image and its reader, who is actively involved in the creation of meaning. How can a reassessment of past interpretations help us escape the prison of path-dependency?

Long abstract:

In the face of the climate crisis, the future urgently needs rethinking. But there are limits to imagination: Visions of the future are limited by the circumstances out of which they were born. Or is the limitation not in the image but rather located in the recipient of the vision, the reader / observer? This paper builds on Gadamer’s (2004) understanding of the dialogical encounter between an image or text and its interpreting reader, to explore the agency of the latter, the 'recipient', in expanding the power of imaginaries. In this exploration, the paper takes the works of H.G. Wells (1866-1946) as a point of departure. Wells has the reputation of being a “visionary”, a “prescient” author, and a prophetic writer ahead of his time, predicting the future quite accurately and launching ideals that would only later be realized – such as a League of Nations or a declaration of Universal Human Rights. Yet, his ideas of humanity were as Darwinist as they were imperial. Analyzing the distance between the reception of Well's texts in his time and now may shed a light on the “horizons of expectations” (Jauss, 1982) against which, historically seen, they were made sense of. Such an analysis, the paper posits, contributes to current meaning making in a way that may enhance the power and potentiality of (these and similar visionary yet time-bound) texts and associated images to challenge and expand current expectations of what is feasible and desirable, breaking away from the lock-in of path-dependency.