Technical utopia, between political imaginaries and social activism

This special issue examines how utopias, as both fictions and social practices, have addressed technical issues during the industrial era. The introduction provides a historical overview, beginning with the pivotal moment of transition between the modern era and the French Revolution and industrialisation. In this period of revolutions, utopia shifted from a fictional and improbable universe aimed at social criticism to a possible world supporting political projections and social mobilisation, while technologies became a driver of history, facing resistance as well as feeding desire of a fairer society. In the 20th century, a century of total wars, worldwide industry expansion, and global ecological crises, dystopia and science fiction took precedence in the realm of fiction, while the development of technoscience continued to fuel doubts and hopes about the technologies that underpin renewed experimentation. The articles, which mainly focus on this period and the 21st century, reveal technical utopias that vary in content and objectives, from failed and forgotten projects inspired by ideals of technical progress to counter-models and the anti-capitalist reappropriation of machines. They show that, far from being limited to simple abstract projects or promises of progress, technical utopias are instruments of social and political projection, means of resistance and reinvention of the world.