ABSTRACT
Among the different ways of modeling the possible, Prospective Modeling takes special place. Instead of representing, somehow, what might be the case, the technical achievement of building a prospective model opens to view a field of action. Demonstrating that something can be done and therefore done again, prospective models exhibit possibility in the sense of potentia. If many debates about modeling move in the sphere of the veridical and concern the ways in which models represent objects of inquiry, prospective models afford working knowledge and mimetic practice. Beginning with examples from art, architecture, and ethnography, the paper moves on to show instances of prospective modeling in engineering science, nanotechnology, computational physics, materials science, and computational metallurgy. Though prospective models are only one way of modeling the possible, they prove to be ubiquitous.
