Editors Devin Fore and Kerstin Stakemeier introduce Fantasies of the People, a series examining how colonial powers began to conjure states into nations and the imagination became a creative faculty. The series draws on early 20th-century thinkers like Lu Märten and Carl Einstein to frame fantasy as a collective material practice rather than an irrational private trait.
The Bottom Line
- The E-Flux series Fantasies of the People investigates fantasy as a collective technical system rather than an individual psychological quirk.
- Contributors Ludovic Coupaye, Park McArthur, and Constantina Zavitsanos examine how signs, objects, and bodies interact materially.
- The project builds on a 2025 Princeton University conference convened by series coeditors Devin Fore and Kerstin Stakemeier.
Princeton Conference Origins and Core Arguments
Emerging from a conference convened at Princeton University in 2025 by Devin Fore and Kerstin Stakemeier, the text series looks back at early 20th-century radical figures. Marxist feminist Lu Märten and anarchist art critic Carl Einstein both regarded fantasy as a communal sense that pushed against hermetic cognition. Fore and Stakemeier argue that aesthetics emerged alongside colonial state-building as a technique of individuation, sidelining communal senses through privatization and colonial violence.
For the recent installments, the editors enlisted Ludovic Coupaye, Park McArthur, and Constantina Zavitsanos. Each contributor addresses how signs and objects interlace with bodies on a material level. Rather than treating images as neutral reflections of an objective world, the project posits that certain technical systems and instruments exceed pure functionality to trigger collective fantasy.
Zavitsanos, McArthur, and Coupaye on Material Systems
Constantina Zavitsanos frames division and dependency not as social alienation, but as the foundational preconditions for establishing a common sense. Park McArthur directs focus toward accessibility and environments, exploring how physical spaces distribute subjects across a network of care and examine the disidentification of abilities and sensory experiences across populations. Ludovic Coupaye approaches language and culture through a curatorial and academic lens, describing them as a syntax of operational gestures binding body, object, and image together.
| Contributor | Primary Focus | Core Conceptual Framework |
|---|---|---|
| Constantina Zavitsanos | Division and dependency | Preconditions for formulating a common sense rather than social alienation |
| Park McArthur | Accessibility and environments | Distribution of subjects across communities of care and sensory experiences |
| Ludovic Coupaye | Operational gestures | Language and culture as a syntax stitching body, object, and image together |
The essay collection features prose and poetic verse, including observations on urban street signs, cell phone stores, and emergency protocols. The text questions traditional reliance on vision as the primary site of knowledge, asking how societies might image beyond imagination and sense beyond the static image.
