{"id":28753,"date":"2026-07-21T18:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.koktailmagazine.com\/?p=28753"},"modified":"2026-07-21T18:49:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T11:49:26","slug":"bangkok-is-running-out-of-ideas-can-imagination-save-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.koktailmagazine.com\/th\/2026\/07\/21\/bangkok-is-running-out-of-ideas-can-imagination-save-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Bangkok Is Running Out of Ideas. Can Imagination Save It?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does it mean to imagine a better world? More importantly, how do we even begin to reclaim our imagination?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you build a life here in Bangkok \u2013 living, commuting, working \u2013 you probably hold several grievances with the city; when the dull routine of urban life makes you want to take leave from your tedious 9-to-5 and lose yourself in a world of escapism, a great sci-fi book or series will carry you far from the madding crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the itch to build something new \u2013 that horizon of possibilities \u2013 stays just out of reach, no matter how many books you\u2019ve read or expert podcasts you\u2019ve binged. Or so it seems. Maybe what our times really need is a bit more imagination and the courage to ask: Is there an alternative?\u00a0\u00a0Here lies the core of speculative fiction. It speaks to that human need to break free from an all-too-banal realism.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two recent Bangkok event announcements share a telling keyword: \u2018speculative\u2019. First up is the Bangkok Speculative Literature Festival on 22 August at Bangkok Kunsthalle, exploring fiction and alternate realms. Then there’s Speculative Chula: Not Yet Built at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre through 2 August, treating the Samyan neighbourhood as an open-ended hypothesis for better urban living, as the not-yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koktail explores this unifying thread, which speaks to a collective desire for world-making and a clearer conceptualisation of our surroundings, while stressing the urgent role of imagination, not just in literature, but in our contemporary world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “What-If” Impulse: Reclaiming Our Imagination<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is the speculative, really? What does it actually mean to speculate? It\u2019s easy to treat science fiction as the whole story, but the term also embraces fantastical and horror elements. Greats like Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin operated in that soft sci-fi sweet spot, combining these modes together until the boundaries were dissolved altogether.\u00a0The speculative isn\u2019t pulled out of thin air; it\u2019s built right on the fringes of reality, testing the exact lines where the unreal gets shut down. Everything hangs on two small words: \u2018what if?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n

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Courtesy of Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

To speculate is to depart from what is established as Reality, a shift in which the function of art is no longer mimetic (i.e., imitating reality by trying to capture a nugget of truth on an impressionist canvas), but non-mimetic, even though it starts with reality itself, or rather, what reality forbids and disavows.\u00a0This is one way to define it: that which goes against Reality, Truth or at least the prevailing way it is expressed. Speculative fiction, as one might argue<\/a>, can be thought of as a human endeavour, rather than a technological one. It\u2019s not about what tools, gadgets or large language models think ought to be, but humans.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Courtesy of Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For Fredric Jameson, speculative fiction is bound to the utopian impulse for a better world: not merely constructing it, but conceptualising, visualising and representing it. It creates a space for experimentation, giving form to radical possibilities. If the failure of imagination is symptomatic of today\u2019s crisis \u2013 where we passively accept that \u201cthings just go on\u201d the way they do \u2013 then speculative fiction offers a vital rupture with the enduring status quo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The technique powering science and speculative fiction is cognitive estrangement<\/a>, a term coined by Darko Suvin in his seminal study of the genre. By recontextualising both the reader and their surroundings, it introduces the novum<\/em>, an innovative device that delivers a Brechtian-style jolt to the system. This jolt shatters routine assumptions, opening fresh pathways towards alternative futures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangkok Speculative Literature Festival: The Art of Imagining Another World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Organised by Bkk Lit Fest and set to take place on 22 August at Bangkok Kunsthalle, Bangkok Speculative Literature \u2013 one of the capital’s first events to zoom in on the sub-genre \u2013 brings together leading Thai and international authors. The lineup features two-time SEA Write Award winner Veeraporn Nitiprapha, Hugo Award-nominated author and editor Regina Kanyu Wang, Sunday Times bestseller Katalina Watt and writer Apinuch Petcharapiracht, who is known by her pen name Moonscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A post shared by Bangkok Literature & Readers Festival (@bkklitfest)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n