Speculative technologies are image-feeding digital tools where users actively produce images.

Evidence

My use of the term speculative technologies, then, intends to account for the dramatic growth of commodified digital, algorithmic, and computational technologies that has taken place throughout the first two decades of the twenty-first century, most notably technologies that feed on images. In what follows, I refer to images in the sense of the term I discussed in chapter 2—that is, as creations (rather than mere pregiven, or imitative, reflections) of society, and thus as a key dimension of the speculative imagination. One important implication of this perspective is that I am interested in a more agentic account of speculative technologies, such that users are not passive consumers (or interpreters) of images but active participants in their production and circulation as a means of connection. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 174

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definition of ‘speculative technologies’ — essential for the reader’s task of explaining homo speculans.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does the agentic claim hold up, or do users actually get captured by the platforms despite ‘active participation’ framing?
• XREF: connects to: Social media users actively produce images rather than passively consuming them — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 272