Until recently, science fiction told of (im)possible futures, in distant worlds with precise rules and unthinkable objects: a clear Design Fiction scenario.
Over the past twelve years, a new genre of science fiction for TV series and films has been born: looming fiction. That is, a new “near future fiction” in which science fiction tells stories of our near future by imagining and staging different scenarios, starting explicitly from our reality, from our daily world and from current problems, no longer from imaginary catastrophes, distant worlds or space adventures.
The word looming here has a double meaning: of looming, like the reality imagined in fiction but also of loom, like the loom that weaves the narrative plot.
We had the first faint signs of the birth of this new genre of science fiction with Black Mirror in 2011, getting to 2023 with Extrapolation, through Reminiscence and the Oscar-winning Everything, everywhere all at once.
In this dissertation I will examine the new narrative genre by extrapolating examples from TV dramas and feature films, trying to measure the impact of future thinking in the world of entertainment.