Whilst the cultural, representational, ideological and economic assumptions that feed and are fed by imaginaries can be uncovered and subject to critique, imaginaries are no mere whimsy, but obdurate and operational phenomena – they have their own reality and agency. LEGO privilege is nothing if not a technological imaginary, predicated on and sustained by the technics of the toy’s design and manufacture and the techniques of its use.
From my foreword to the just-published – and excellent – LEGOfied: building blocks as media, edited by Nicholas Taylor and Chris Ingraham, New York: Bloomsbury. Draft version here
