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Drawing on participatory culture, design fiction, transformative and mimetic fandom, and cultural theory, the article develops a framework for understanding “the fantastic” produced through engineering practices.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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is the central focus of the study about The Hacksmith?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"The study examines how The Hacksmith engineering work can be understood as both fanfiction and design fiction, centered on creating a lightsaber-like artifact.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does the article frame The Hacksmith’s fandom practices?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It connects engineering of popular-culture artifacts to fandom, introducing the idea of a “fangineer” who expresses fandom through engineering and intense cosplay.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"Which theoretical areas does the study draw on?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"The framework draws from participatory culture, design fiction, transformative and mimetic fandom, and broader cultural 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Issue 1 (2023)  \n“Making the Fantastic Real: From Design Fiction to Engineering Fandom”  \n[https://doi.org/10.7146/imaginingtheimpossible.131460](https://doi.org/10.7146/imaginingtheimpossible.131460)  \nTem Frank Andersen, Associate Professor, Aalborg University [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3853-9170](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3853-9170)  \nThessa Jensen, Associate Professor, Aalborg University [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5882-9853](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5882-9853)  \nPeter Vistisen, Associate Professor, Aalborg University [https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9194-2946](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9194-2946)  \nAbstract  \nCanadian engineer and entrepreneur James Hobson, who goes by his YouTube brand The Hacksmith (later The Hacksmith Industries), creates fantastic objects from popular culture. This study focuses on the careful yet playful process of engineering an object that in form, style and function can be considered a real lightsaber. The article aims to understand how The Hacksmith’s work can be considered both fanfiction and design fiction, while also raising questions about what can be considered fandom. The theoretical framework for the study draws from research on participatory culture, design fiction, transformative and mimetic fandom and cultural theory.  \nKeywords: Lightsaber, Star Wars, The Hacksmith Industries, science fiction, fan fiction, design fiction, mimetic fandom, fangineer.  \n© Tem Frank Andersen, Thessa Jensen and Peter Vistisen. This article is published as Open Access under the terms of the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0), [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .  \nTem Frank Andersen, Thessa Jensen, and Peter Vistisen  \nMaking the Fantastic Real  \nFrom Design Fiction to Engineering Fandom  \nT his article examines design fiction, science-fiction fandom, and  \nsharable digital media content on the one hand and the design of real-life engineering artifacts on the other, with a specific focus on The Hacksmith in order to understand the space of meaning (science and fiction) created by the production of “the fantastic” by this Canadian YouTuber.  \nHacksmith Industries is the trademark name of the YouTube channel The Hacksmith created by Canadian engineer James Hobson in 2006. One of Hobson’s signature interests is the lightsaber from the Star Wars franchise, but Hobson explores many other dimensions of popular culture, ranging from Nerf wars shooters to superhero artifacts from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His focus is on seeing if it is possible to construct real, functional representations of fictitious artifacts from popular culture.  \nHacksmith Industries thus leads us into the liminal space between the real and fantastic, combining engineering with science fiction, design fiction and fan fiction to create the concept of a fangineer, someone who expresses fandom through engineering and a high or intense level of cosplay.  \nPlaying with science, fiction, design and fandom  \nThe creation of artifacts is or can be an extremely playful practice. A child can imagine a wooden stick to be anything from a magic wand or royal scepter to a broadsword or even a rifle. This human capacity for using imagination to transform ordinary objects also works in the  \nimagining the impossible  \nrealm of the fantastic. Cardboard cutouts can become Wolverine’s deadly retractable adamantium claws. In the 1990s, children used plastic hockey sticks to mimic the extraordinary swords and other weapons that the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers used against the evil forces of the intergalactic witch Rita Repulsa (Andersen 1996) . It is no new insight that individuals and groups turn ordinary objects into something extraordinary in order to play with them. As Heljakka points out, adult toy fans see the toy as “an artifact that affords play patterns in relation to creative pra","cbCaibBmPwWU0vTE","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaibBmPwWU0vTE","pdf",531590,23,"English","# Abstract\n# Making the Fantastic Real\n## From Design Fiction to Engineering Fandom\n## Hacksmith Industries and the Liminal Space\n## Playing with Science, Fiction, Design and Fandom","[{\"question\":\"What is the central focus of the study about The Hacksmith?\",\"answer\":\"The study examines how The Hacksmith engineering work can be understood as both fanfiction and design fiction, centered on creating a lightsaber-like artifact.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article frame The Hacksmith’s fandom practices?\",\"answer\":\"It connects engineering of popular-culture artifacts to fandom, introducing the idea of a “fangineer” who expresses fandom through engineering and intense cosplay.\"},{\"question\":\"Which theoretical areas does the study draw on?\",\"answer\":\"The framework draws from participatory culture, design fiction, transformative and mimetic fandom, and broader cultural theory.\"}]","Imagining the Impossible: Making the Fantastic Real - From Design Fiction to Engineering Fandom - Issue 1 | PDF",58]