The current cultural climate, theoretical developments, the changing state of the tertiary institution, and the increasing presence of voices from the margin have contributed to the critical re-evaluation of academic writing as a way of knowing and representing the world. At the same time, hybrid forms of writing, those that exist in the interstices of established generic codes, are experiencing increased critical attention. Yet, despite the fact that genre has become an inadequate notion to describe boundary-crossing writing, little appears to have shifted in the way these forms are understood. Dominant methodologies tend to render what is between less visible or valid, and they define this space only in terms of its relation to set borders. Located at the boundaries of what is familiar and unfamiliar, “writing-between” is a contentious space where elements are combined without clear rules to aid identification. In this thesis the term “ficto-criticism” is used broadly to describe generically transgressive writing that blurs the defining lines between creative and critical texts. The thesis explores the political and theoretical implications of writing-between through a discussion of Australian and Canadian work in English (or English translation), which display the characteristics of the ficto-critical form. This thesis argues for a critical understanding of ficto-criticism that conceptualises it as a highly political strategy of literary intervention, rather than as a mere trend toward cross-genre writing. Indeed, rather than understanding it as surface play, the thesis argues that ficto-critical practice is deeply troubled by the oppressive role of academic writing and that, significantly, its emergence was highly influenced by postcolonial and feminist theory. Thus, ficto-critical practice interrogates the violence of representation and explores what is left out and or misrepresented through that process. The thesis applies Deleuze and Guattari’s concept-tools to articulate a methodology by virtue of which desire and ficto-criticism are understood as productive forms that are liberated from an equation of lack. The tension between ficto-criticism as an open practice and the tradition of scholarly writing, which requires a clear fixed proposition and outcomes, mirrors the project of ficto-criticism, which seeks to unlearn one’s authority and privilege as the beginning of a process towards developing an ethical relationship with the other.

The Moral Institute of Higher Fiction is an independent institute acting on urban issues in the city of Stockholm through critical spatial experiments that operate on the threshold between fact and fiction, challenging our assumptions about architectural realities. The work of the institute dates back through history and also contributes the critical projections of possible futures. It traverses, and even collapses relations between temporal and spatial continuity, in order to comment on contemporary Swedish society. We engage in our given commissions by investigating their charge of affect and ideas; how these contain and transmit the thoughts and ideas that preoccupy contemporary society, shifting our relations to ecologies, challenging skepticism and stirring belief and action - all through the telling of stories. This thesis diploma design research explores the invented construction of the MIHF in order to investigate the status of architectural reality, specifically to assert that architecture is more than merely built form and emerges instead on the threshold between fact and fiction. It follows that the design research uses the notion of the plausible, or how far a suspension of disbelief can be maintained in exploring the precarious zone where fact and fiction intersect. The research also poses questions about the temporal and spatial alterations of both architecture and society - in the search for a future field of architectural practice that consciously intervenes in a politics of space and challenges what architecture is most often assumed to be. A perpetual reconstruction of the Moral Institute of Higher Fiction is undertaken to address societal ills, including xenophobia, fear and loneliness, set against the backdrop of the city of Stockholm. All of the commissions that are undertaken by the institute actively take part in its current embodiment which is sited on the northern shore of Royal Djurgården. Manifesting as architecture, this is where the stories of the Moral Institute of Higher Fiction unfold. / Det Moraliska Institutet för Högre Fiction är ett oberoende institut som arbetar med urbana frågor i Stockholm genom kritiska spatiala experiment som opererar på tröskeln mellan fakta och fiktion och utmanar vår förförståelse av arkitektoniska verkligheter. Institutets arbete sträcker sig bakåt i tiden men bidrar också till kritiska projektioner ov möjliga framtider. Det korsar, och till och med kollapsar relationer mellan tid och rum för att kunna kommentera det nutida svenska samhället. Vi engagerar oss i våra uppdrag genom att undersöka deras laddning av affekt och idéer, hur dessa innehas och överförs till och av tankar och idéer som återfinns i vårt nutida samhälle, som skiftar relationer till ekologier, utmanar skepticism och blandar tro med aktion - allt genom att berätta berättelser. Det här examensarbetet utforskar den uppfunna konstruktionen av MIHF för att undersöka den arkitektoniska verklighetens status, särskilt för att försäkra att arkitekturen är mer än endast byggd form och att den istället uppkommer på tröskeln mellan fakta och fiktion. Undersökningen använder sig utav begreppet ‘sannolikt’, eller hur långt en uttänjning av en ‘misstro’ kan dras och upprätthållas för att utforska den prekära zonen där fakta och fiktion möts. Undersökningen ställer också frågor om tidsmässiga och rumsliga förändringar inom både arkitekturen och samhället, i ett sökande efter ett framtida fält av arkitekturpraktik som medvetet deltar i det politiska rummet och utmanar vad arkitekturen allra oftast anses vara. En ständigt pågående rekonstruktion av det Moraliska Institutet för Högre Fiktion företas för att adressera missförhållanden i samhället, förnärvarande: främlingsfientlighet, rädsla och ensamhet, utspelade med Stockholm som fond. Alla institutets uppdrag är aktivt bidragande till dess nuvarande (temporära) förkroppsligande, placerat på Kungliga Djurgårdens norra strand. Manifesterade som arkitektur, är det här som det Moraliska Institutet för Högre Fiktions berättelser avslöjas.