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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-20T10:31:52Z

Teodora sinziana: /* Rendering resistance: the emergence of minor worlds */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only ''through'', but also ''with'' worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the age of the anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>".. we have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile […] We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition. " (57)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the age of the anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - an attempt to find patterns for ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures using computation? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds” ("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rosi Braidotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding: what comes after the end of our world (understood here as capitalist realism (Fisher 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats do we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to the operational logic of computationally-mediated worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of ''worlding'' and ''patterning''. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as between world and observer, through a networked process of exchange. It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents sufficient transformative power for existing otherwise; the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realism, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations, where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing the properties of intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1: Exhibition view of ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal. ''Feedback Loops'', 7 Dec 2019–15 Mar 2020, ACCA, Melbourne. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, through which the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the app, which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' on BOB, in order to offset its biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions" ("Glossary").

Consequently, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic can be traced: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural worlds, a similar pluriversal analytical model to that proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving these ecologies of practice - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding the symbolic centre of worlding by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson's assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36), being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with networks: an epistemic shift towards relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards networks, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). A similar anaesthesia can be identified when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" - due to code becoming concretized into objects, the computational inner workings of certain aspects become blackboxed (Anable, 137). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world instance is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number of inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and produce the states of flux. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2: "21st century human wmwelt" diagram by Ian Cheng, from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws on EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). She observes that, in the domain of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not yet complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3: Ian Cheng's ''Emissary Forks at Perfection Map''. Pillar Corrias London, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ‘knowing’ networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have stablished a practice of conceptually diagramming his work on BOB (Bag of Beliefs) - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediate) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system), as seen in the examples of Figures 2 and 3, which do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world.

As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are beginning to be mapped alongside algorithmic diagramming - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations, Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce an affective networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding that push beyond the purely machinic. A question of scale emerges here: how do affective and technological scales become intertwined within computer-mediated worlds? When thinking-''with'' worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how do these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience? This vector of research constitutes a significantly larger line of enquiry, one that I will delegate to worlding's future research agenda - for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering resistance: the emergence of minor worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent - to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, one that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially-engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)
</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control - this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'', their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice. It is important to note here that the idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charged sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany (through his Czech ethnicity and Jewish belief) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to the marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of society. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement that are distributed and non-linear. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically, identifying affect as a core element within minor practices.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of the major culture that they live in, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages into collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value – the latter, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor language, but rather to the collective value that minority artwork holds; they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes cumulative through this sense of the collectivity forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the turn towards rendering minor worlds is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value and the production of specific, major models of play. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities, however, within an artistic context, we can also note the recent emergence of a minor practice concerned with seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practice, where the technology becomes minor through its harnessing towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via computational speculation. As Haraway reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major games, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways become materilaized. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of the minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupturing with the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic of reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different modes of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari infer, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4: Sahej Rahal, ''Antraal'', Still from immersive gameworld, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'', which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a virtual biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligences struggle, their ontologies lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities - we can see or hear what they are, but we can only assume what they might be. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity. Rahal's use of video game engines and artifical intelligence allows for thought to be casted speculatively, into a future where existence is dislodged from today's temporal and ontological frameworks and re-established according to different parameters.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, via the project ''nimiia cétiï,'' which envisions a language existing outside the master parameters of human expression by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on Mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154) - ''nimiia cétiï'' is, in essence, a minor language that is at once an exploration in seeking other modes of expression and a vestige to the possibilities that lay beyond the frameworks of language cultivated throughout human history.

Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
To conclude, we can begin to acknowledge that practices of worlding emerge as dynamic forces concerned with reshaping our understanding of technological, cultural and political structures. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of world-making that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of a minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression. Moreover, the harnessing of algorithmic technologies for speculatively rendering worlds can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise, through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, thus enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies and more-than-human alliances.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by refusing dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social or ecological change.

So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Keiken. ''BET(A) BODIES''. Haptic wearable womb, 2021.

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Murray, Janet. “Glossary”. ''Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium''. 20 May 2023. https://inventingthemedium.com/glossary/.

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Sutela, Jena, Akten, Memo and Henry, Damien. ''nimiia cétiï''. Speculative audio-visual work, 2018.

Zhang, Gary Zhexi. “Jenna Sutela: Soult Meat and Pattern”. ''Magic'', edited by Jamie Sutcliffe, Co-Published by Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press, 2021, pp. 153-156.

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-20T09:57:05Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only ''through'', but also ''with'' worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the age of the anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>".. we have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile […] We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition. " (57)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the age of the anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - an attempt to find patterns for ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures using computation? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds” ("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rosi Braidotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding: what comes after the end of our world (understood here as capitalist realism (Fisher 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats do we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to the operational logic of computationally-mediated worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of ''worlding'' and ''patterning''. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as between world and observer, through a networked process of exchange. It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents sufficient transformative power for existing otherwise; the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realism, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations, where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing the properties of intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1: Exhibition view of ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal. ''Feedback Loops'', 7 Dec 2019–15 Mar 2020, ACCA, Melbourne. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, through which the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the app, which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' on BOB, in order to offset its biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions" ("Glossary").

Consequently, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic can be traced: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural worlds, a similar pluriversal analytical model to that proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving these ecologies of practice - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding the symbolic centre of worlding by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson's assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36), being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with networks: an epistemic shift towards relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards networks, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). A similar anaesthesia can be identified when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" - due to code becoming concretized into objects, the computational inner workings of certain aspects become blackboxed (Anable, 137). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world instance is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number of inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and produce the states of flux. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2: "21st century human wmwelt" diagram by Ian Cheng, from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws on EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). She observes that, in the domain of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not yet complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3: Ian Cheng's ''Emissary Forks at Perfection Map''. Pillar Corrias London, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ‘knowing’ networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have stablished a practice of conceptually diagramming his work on BOB (Bag of Beliefs) - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediate) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system), as seen in the examples of Figures 2 and 3, which do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world.

As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are beginning to be mapped alongside algorithmic diagramming - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations, Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce an affective networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding that push beyond the purely machinic. A question of scale emerges here: how do affective and technological scales become intertwined within computer-mediated worlds? When thinking-''with'' worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how do these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience? This vector of research constitutes a significantly larger line of enquiry, one that I will delegate to worlding's future research agenda - for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering resistance: the emergence of minor worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)
</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control - this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'', their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany (through his Czech ethnicity and Jewish belief) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4: Sahej Rahal, ''Antraal'', Still from immersive gameworld, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, via the project ''nimiia cétiï, which'' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin acknowledge that the practice of worlding emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression; its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground for exploring modes of being otherwise through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by subverting dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-20T09:46:55Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only ''through'', but also ''with'' worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the age of the anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>".. we have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile […] We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition. " (57)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the age of the anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - an attempt to find patterns for ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures using computation? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds” ("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rosi Braidotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding: what comes after the end of our world (understood here as capitalist realism (Fisher 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats do we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to the operational logic of computationally-mediated worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of ''worlding'' and ''patterning''. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as between world and observer, through a networked process of exchange. It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents sufficient transformative power for existing otherwise; the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realism, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations, where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing the properties of intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1: Exhibition view of ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal. ''Feedback Loops'', 7 Dec 2019–15 Mar 2020, ACCA, Melbourne. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, through which the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the app, which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' on BOB, in order to offset its biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions" ("Glossary").

Consequently, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic can be traced: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural worlds, a similar pluriversal analytical model to that proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving these ecologies of practice - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson's assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36), being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with networks: an epistemic shift towards relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). A similar anaesthesia can be identified when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" - due to code becoming concretized into objects, the computational inner workings of certain aspects become blackboxed (Anable, 137). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world instance is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2: "21st century human wmwelt" diagram by Ian Cheng, from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3: Ian Cheng's ''Emissary Forks at Perfection Map''. Pillar Corrias London, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ‘knowing’ networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have stablished a practice of conceptually diagramming his work on BOB - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediate) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system), as seen in the examples of Figures 2 and 3, which do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking with (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of affective networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding that push beyond the purely machinic. A question of scale emerges here: how do affective and technological scales become intertwined within computer-mediated worlds? When thinking-with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how do these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience? This vector of research constitutes a significantly larger trajectory, which I will delegate to worlding's future research agenda, and I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears asking: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering resistance: the emergence of minor worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)
</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control - this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'', their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany (through his Czech ethnicity and Jewish belief) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4: Sahej Rahal, ''Antraal'', Still from immersive gameworld, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, via the project ''nimiia cétiï, which'' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin acknowledge that the practice of worlding emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression; its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground for exploring modes of being otherwise through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by subverting dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Sutela, Jena, Akten, Memo and Henry, Damien. ''nimiia cétiï''. Speculative audio-visual work, 2018.

Zhang, Gary Zhexi. “Jenna Sutela: Soult Meat and Pattern”. ''Magic'', edited by Jamie Sutcliffe, Co-Published by Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press, 2021, pp. 153-156.

Zylinska, Joanna. ''Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene.'' Open Humanites Press, 2014. pp. 20.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-20T09:31:01Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only ''through'', but also ''with'' worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the age of the anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>".. we have no idea, now, of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our grandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fully imagined cultural futures were the luxury of another day, one in which 'now' was of some greater duration. For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures like our grandparents' have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile […] We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition. " (57)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the age of the anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - an attempt to find patterns for ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures using computation? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds” ("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rosi Braidotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of ''our world'' (understood here as capitalist realism (Fisher 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to the operational logic of computationally-mediated worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1: Exhibition view of ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal. ''Feedback Loops'', 7 Dec 2019–15 Mar 2020, ACCA, Melbourne. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the BOB Shrine App which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with networks: an epistemic shift towards relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). A similar anaesthesia can be identified when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" - due to code becoming concretized into objects, the computational inner workings of certain aspects become blackboxed (Anable, 137). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world instance is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2: "21st century human wmwelt" diagram by Ian Cheng, from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3: Ian Cheng's ''Emissary Forks at Perfection Map''. Pillar Corrias London, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ‘knowing’ networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have stablished a practice of conceptually diagramming his work on BOB - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediate) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system), as seen in the examples of Figures 2 and 3, which do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking with (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of affective networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding that push beyond the purely machinic. A question of scale emerges here: how do affective and technological scales become intertwined within computer-mediated worlds? When thinking-with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how do these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience? This vector of research constitutes a significantly larger trajectory, which I will delegate to worlding's future research agenda, and I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears asking: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering resistance: the emergence of minor worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)
</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control - this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'', their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany (through his Czech ethnicity and Jewish belief) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4: Sahej Rahal, ''Antraal'', Still from immersive gameworld, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, via the project ''nimiia cétiï, which'' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin acknowledge that the practice of worlding emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression; its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground for exploring modes of being otherwise through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by subverting dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Zhang, Gary Zhexi. “Jenna Sutela: Soult Meat and Pattern”. ''Magic'', edited by Jamie Sutcliffe, Co-Published by Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press, 2021, pp. 153-156.

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-19T07:02:10Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the age of the anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rosi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of ''our world'' (understood here as capitalist realism (Fisher 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to the operational logic of computationally-mediated worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1: Exhibition view of ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal. ''Feedback Loops'', 7 Dec 2019–15 Mar 2020, ACCA, Melbourne. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the BOB Shrine App which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with networks: an epistemic shift towards relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). A similar anaesthesia can be identified when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" - due to code becoming concretized into objects, the computational inner workings of certain aspects become blackboxed (Anable, 137). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world instance is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2: "21st century human wmwelt" diagram by Ian Cheng, from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3: Ian Cheng's ''Emissary Forks at Perfection Map''. Pillar Corrias London, 2015. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ‘knowing’ networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have stablished a practice of conceptually diagramming his work on BOB - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediate) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system), as seen in the examples of Figures 2 and 3, which do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking with (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of affective networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding that push beyond the purely machinic. A question of scale emerges here: how do affective and technological scales become intertwined within computer-mediated worlds? When thinking-with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how do these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience? This vector of research constitutes a significantly larger trajectory, which I will delegate to worlding's future research agenda, and I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears asking: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering resistance: the emergence of minor worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)
</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control - this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book ''Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature'', their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany (through his Czech ethnicity and Jewish belief) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4: Sahej Rahal, ''Antraal'', Still from immersive gameworld, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist.]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, via the project ''nimiia cétiï, which'' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin acknowledge that the practice of worlding emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression; its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground for exploring modes of being otherwise through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by subverting dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-16T16:11:54Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of ''our world'' (understood here as capitalist realism (Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1. Exhibition view of ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal. ''Feedback Loops'', 7 Dec 2019–15 Mar 2020, ACCA, Melbourne. (Image courtesy of the artist)]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the BOB Shrine App which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (''Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline''). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2. '21st century human wmwelt' diagram by Ian Cheng, from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. (Image courtesy of the artist)]]I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3. Ian Cheng's ''Emissary Forks at Perfection Map''. Pillar Corrias London, 2015. (Image courtesy of the artist)]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

The diagrams in Figures 2 and 3 do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control -this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature*, their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany (through his Czech ethnicity and Jewish belief) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4. Sahej Rahal, Antraal, Still from immersive gameworld, 2019. (Image courtesy of the artist)]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, whose project ''nimiia cetii '' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin acknowledge that the practice of worlding emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression; its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground for exploring modes of being otherwise through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by subverting dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-16T15:36:10Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of ''our world'' (understood here as capitalist realism (Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1. ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal, ''Feedback Loops'' Exhibition, ACCA Melbourne, 2019]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the BOB Shrine App which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (''Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline''). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2. Umwelt Diagram by Ian Cheng, excerpt from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. (Image included courstesy of the artist)]]
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3. Ian Cheng, Bob's Umwelt diagram. Emissary Forks at Perfection, 2020 (Image included courtesy of the artist)]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

The diagrams in Figures 2 and 3 do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control -this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature*, their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany, through his ethnicity (Czech) and belief (Jewish) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4. Gameworld view of 'Antraal', Sahej Rahal, 2019]]
One example of envisioning another sensibility through a refiguration of more-than-human relationships can be found in Sahej Rahal’s work ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, whose project ''nimiia cetii '' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin acknowledge that the practice of worlding emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by understanding it as minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression; its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground for exploring modes of being otherwise through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, enabling artists to engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.

Worlding disrupts the established order of things by subverting dominant narratives and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures - as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding allows for “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to not only envision , but relationally tune into a space of possibility, to hold open a portal into another cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect, and how can the resulting networked epistemology shape a politics of worlding in tune with what Zylinska defines as a minimal ethics for the Anthropocene?

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-16T15:14:30Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of ''our world'' (understood here as capitalist realism (Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1. ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal, ''Feedback Loops'' Exhibition, ACCA Melbourne, 2019]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the BOB Shrine App which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (''Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline''). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2. Umwelt Diagram by Ian Cheng, excerpt from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. (Image included courstesy of the artist)]]
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3. Ian Cheng, Bob's Umwelt diagram. Emissary Forks at Perfection, 2020 (Image included courtesy of the artist)]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

The diagrams in Figures 2 and 3 do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control -this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature*, their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany, through his ethnicity (Czech) and belief (Jewish) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).

Within a political scale, worlding can constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4. Gameworld view of 'Antraal', Sahej Rahal, 2019]]
One example of envisioning more-than-human relationships can be found in the work of Sahej Rahal’s ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, whose project ''nimiia cetii '' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin to situate worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms that emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by relating the practice worlding to the framework of minor literature.

Worlding disrupts the established order by subverting dominant narratives, and offers counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures. As Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect? And how can a politics of worlding as collective utterance of post-Anthropocentric visions attempt to counter capitalistic empistemologies?

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-16T12:56:35Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Teodora Sinziana Fartan =

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =

== Abstract ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of ''worlding'' surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jenna Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ''Pattern Recognition'', which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>

Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of ''our world'' (understood here as capitalist realism (Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration," (Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga") - the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human.

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems. The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment), satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, ''Antraal'', where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.
[[File:Antraal.jpg|thumb|Figure 1. ''Antraal'' by Sahej Rahal, ''Feedback Loops'' Exhibition, ACCA Melbourne, 2019]]
Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's ''Bet(a) Bodies'' installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation ''BOB (Bag of Beliefs)'' in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the BOB Shrine App which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (''Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline''). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly ''knowable'') through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:

<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions — the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux — of things ''unforming'' and ''reforming'' relationally — that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>

For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational ''knowing'', an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.
[[File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png|thumb|Figure 2. Umwelt Diagram by Ian Cheng, excerpt from ''Emissaries Guide'', 2017. (Image included courstesy of the artist)]]
[[File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png|thumb|Figure 3. Ian Cheng, Bob's Umwelt diagram. Emissary Forks at Perfection, 2020 (Image included courtesy of the artist)]]
Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

The diagrams in Figures 2 and 3 do not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked systems are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims, “where there is power, there is resistance” (95): when dislodged from their socio-economical frameworks and taken amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present in order to produce tactics that lead out of these ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, decentralised and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, this refusal of capitalism’s master narratives in favour of imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into alternative modes of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, on that becomes a strange realism, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Parallel to LeGuin, Nichols also reflects on the tensions between “the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations” (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective utterance and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"If there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very apperception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives propose a seizing of the means of computation against today’s structures of control -this line of thinking is closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a “minor literature” (16) - firstly outlined in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature*, their understanding of 'the minor' is theorised through an analysis of Kafka's literary practice.

It is important to note that he idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small in size or insignificant, but rather the minor operates in a politically-charges sense, where it refers to an alternative to the majority: "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" (Deleuze et. al, 16) - as such, the minor becomes a sort of counter-scale emerging within the overarching political, social, economical and technological scales dominating society.

Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was himself being part of minority within the context of World War II Germany, through his ethnicity (Czech) and belief (Jewish) and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives of those pushed at the fringes of societies. Kafka’s work, therefore, becomes an example of how a minority can de-territorialise a mode of expression and use it to affirm perspectives that do not belong to the overall culture that they are inhabiting. The form of Kafka’s work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (Deleuze et. al, 1) – the quality of being minor, therefore, does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of a minor literature by way of affective resonance specifically. Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor as it emerges today is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. Therefore, I ask: what could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities that hold other beliefs to those of their culture, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major languages and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is deterritorialised – destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because minor tech exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value, to Deleuze and Guattari, is not necessarily ascribed to the collaboration of several individuals for the production of minor languages, but rather to the collective value of that minority artwork – they further highlight the fact that, conceptually, there are insufficient conditions for an individual utterance to be produced in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, as well the access to high-end tools, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major and often involves DIY, hacking, self-taught methods and collective sharing of knowledge). Minor tech, therefore, becomes collective through this sense of the collective forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts - a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.

Similarly, the recent turn towards minor world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Whilst game engine themselves are readily accessible, the majority practices that we can identify have has an industrialised, large-scale approach to utilising these, which involves multiple teams working across the production of software in a distributed way, often times split between programmers, who create a game’s system, and designers, who produce assets –this approach is perhaps best seen in AAA productions, which become “collaborative enterprises that include teams of producers, artists, engineers and designers” (Freedman). Game engines therefore can be considered a majority technology, deeply intertwined with industrialised production methods geared towards economic value. Other, more modest, minor ways of engaging with game engines have emerged as a consequence, ones where, most notably, the organisational split between system and asset (or visuality) disappears –attempts at producing minor games being are most notably identifiable within indie development communities. Within an artistic context, today, we can also note the turn towards seizing the means of rendering for the purposes of critically exploring more-than-human worlds.

Consequently, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically within a context of techno-artistic practices, where the technology becomes minor and is harnessed towards the production of minor worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations. Attentive to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is reterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software, which are geared towards competitive ludic productions, become subverted or dislodged from their privileged status in resistant practices.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled via speculation. As Haraway has reminds us, dissent needs “other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” (2016, 49). Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory the minor, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways. Following in this line of thought, a minor world aims to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation - Deleuze positions the minor relationally, claiming that it has ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds, therefore, poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the collective agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmic processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. As Deleuze and Guattari inferred, minor practices provide “the means for another consciousness and another sensibility” (17).

Within a political scale, worlding can constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences of a different lifeworld, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, more-than-human alliances and the construction of identity.
[[File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg|thumb|Figure 4. Gameworld view of 'Antraal', Sahej Rahal, 2019]]
One example of envisioning more-than-human relationships can be found in the work of Sahej Rahal’s ''Antraal'' (translating as the interstice or the space between), which explores what it would mean to live as the final humans, now turned into a-historical machines that roam the Earth. In this work, a first biome shows strange-limbed non-human actors roaming a video game simulation, operated by artificially intelligent algorithms that act counterintuitively to one another. Marred by the paradoxes scripted in their code, these beings exhibit chaotic behaviours as their machine intelligence with struggles lying far outside human-centred thought capabilities. As Negarestani observes, these last humans ‘have refused and subverted the totality of their contingent appearance and significance of their historical manifestations as mere misconceptions of what it means to wander in time, as an idea and not merely a species’ (24), existing in a state that refuses the current epistemological framework of humanity.

Another experiment in exploring more-human alliances take shape in the work of Jenna Sutela, whose project ''nimiia cetii '' aspires to envision a work existing beyond human consciousness by deploying intelligent algorithms in the role of a medium that co-interprets data from the Bacilus subtilis bacteria, said to be able to survive on mars, with recordings of Martian language received from the spirit realm by the by the French medium Hélène Smith. Zhang points out that “Sutela channels the language of the Other to muddy the waters of human sapience, reminding us in synthetic, spiritual and alien tongues that we hold a monopoly over neither intelligence nor consciousness” (154). Both previous examples stand as visions projected from outside our Anthropocentric moment – they refuse the current narratives and knowledge systems of capitalism and attempt to use intelligent technologies or game engines to explore what a more-than-human assemblage could look, sound or ultimately feel like. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances. As Kelly observes, these artists ‘embrace technological development in their lives and work, but in a manner that is cognisant and critical of the frameworks that have developed within the tech industry’s supposed focus on human-centred advancement, which is inevitably driven by the demands of capital’ (4). Worlding, therefore, becomes a political act that aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, these artists aim to challenge dominant narratives, ideologies of power, and structures of control and prompt audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities.

== Conclusion ==
In conclusion, we can begin to situate worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms that emerges as a dynamic force concerned with reshaping our understanding of technology, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of the majority tech operating in society, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment, by relating the practice worlding to the framework of minor literature.

Worlding disrupts the established order by subverting dominant narratives, and offers counter-hegemonic visions of the world - it gives voice to other, more-than-human perspectives and challenges oppressive power structures. As Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. So, I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we situate and conceptualise these acts of worlding through an understanding of their relationship with software and affect? And how can a politics of worlding as collective utterance of post-Anthropocentric visions attempt to counter capitalistic empistemologies?

== Works cited ==

Bellacasa, María Puig de la. ''Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds''. 3rd ed. edition, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2017.

Cadena, Marisol de la, and Mario Blaser, editors. ''A World of Many Worlds''. Duke University Press, 2018.

Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian. ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Foxman, Maxwell. ‘United We Stand: Platforms, Tools and Innovation With the Unity Game Engine’. ''Social Media + Society'', vol. 5, no. 4, Oct. 2019, p. 205630511988017. ''DOI.org (Crossref)'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119880177</nowiki>.

Freedman, Eric. ‘Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline’. ''Game Studies'', vol. 18, no. 3, Dec. 2018. ''Game Studies'', <nowiki>https://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/ericfreedman</nowiki>.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

Haraway, Donna J. 'Staying with the Trouble'.

Massumi, Brian. ‘Deleuze, Guattari, and the Philosophy of Expression’. ''Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/ Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée'', Sept. 1997, pp. 745–82. ''journals.library.ualberta.ca'', <nowiki>https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/crcl/index.php/crcl/article/view/3739</nowiki>.

Massumi,Brian. ''The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat''. Jan. 2010. ''read.dukeupress.edu'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393047-002</nowiki>.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

File:Antraal Gameworld View.jpg

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Teodora sinziana:

Figure 4. Gameworld view of Antraal by Sahej Rahal, 2019

File:Antraal.jpg

2023-06-16T12:48:59Z

Teodora sinziana:

Figure 1. Antraal by Sahej Rahal, Feedback Loops | Group Show | ACCA Melbourne, 2019

File:Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017. (Image courstesy of the artist).png

2023-06-16T12:44:15Z

Teodora sinziana:

An image showing an early diagram for Ian Cheng's BOB

File:IanCheng BOB'sUmwelt.png

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Teodora sinziana:

A schematic of the lifeworld of Ian Cheng's BOB project. Artist gave their permission for the sharing of this image.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T15:19:34Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''ORCID ID:''' 0009-0003-7172-8541

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

'''Abstract:'''

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

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= Bio (still editing this section until 15/06): =
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T15:06:28Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''ORCID ID:''' 0009-0003-7172-8541

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

'''Abstract:'''

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

= Works Cited: =

Bellacasa, María Puig de la. ''Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds: 41''. 3rd ed. edition, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2017.

Cadena, Marisol de la, and Mario Blaser, editors. ''A World of Many Worlds''. Duke University Press, 2018.

Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian. ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

‘Expressive Processing’. ''MIT Press'', <nowiki>https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262517539/expressive-processing/</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Foxman, Maxwell. ‘United We Stand: Platforms, Tools and Innovation With the Unity Game Engine’. ''Social Media + Society'', vol. 5, no. 4, Oct. 2019, p. 205630511988017. ''DOI.org (Crossref)'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119880177</nowiki>.

Freedman, Eric. ‘Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline’. ''Game Studies'', vol. 18, no. 3, Dec. 2018. ''Game Studies'', <nowiki>https://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/ericfreedman</nowiki>.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

Kraatila, Elise. ‘Conspicuous Fabrications: Speculative Fiction as a Tool for Confronting the Post-Truth Discourse’. ''Narrative Inquiry'', vol. 29, no. 2, Oct. 2019, pp. 418–33. ''www.jbe-platform.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.19016.kra</nowiki>.

Lakkala, Keijo. ‘Utopianism in the Age of Capitalocene’. ''Nordia Geographical Publications'', vol. 49, no. 5, Jan. 2021, pp. 75–92. ''DOI.org (Crossref)'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.30671/nordia.98001</nowiki>.

Massumi, Brian. ‘Deleuze, Guattari, and the Philosophy of Expression’. ''Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/ Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée'', Sept. 1997, pp. 745–82. ''journals.library.ualberta.ca'', <nowiki>https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/crcl/index.php/crcl/article/view/3739</nowiki>.

Massumi,Brian. ''The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat''. Jan. 2010. ''read.dukeupress.edu'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393047-002</nowiki>.

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''Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games''. <nowiki>https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1810299?needAccess=true&role=button</nowiki>. Accessed 14 June 2023.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''. Sternberg Press. 2018

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

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= Bio: =
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T15:05:33Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''ORCID ID:''' 0009-0003-7172-8541

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

'''Abstract:'''

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalism's cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

= Works Cited: =

Bellacasa, María Puig de la. ''Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds: 41''. 3rd ed. edition, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 2017.

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Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

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Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

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= Bio: =
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T07:51:45Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''ORCID ID:''' 0009-0003-7172-8541

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

'''Abstract:'''

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

= Works Cited: =

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= Bio: =
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T07:50:57Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan, London South Bank University

ORCID ID: 0009-0003-7172-8541

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

Abstract:

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

= Works Cited: =

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= Bio: =
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T07:50:03Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan, London South Bank University

ORCID ID: 0009-0003-7172-8541

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

Abstract:

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

== Listening to The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds ==
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

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== Bio: ==
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-15T07:49:39Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance =
Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan, London South Bank University

ORCID ID: 0009-0003-7172-8541

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, more-than-human entanglements, minor worlds, practices of resistance

Abstract:

This paper formulates a strategic activation of speculative-computational practices of ''worlding'' by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-''with'' worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of our techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted and critical storytelling practice is formulated.

== Introduction ==
Emanating from the fog of late techno-capitalism, the contours of a critical techno-artistic practice are starting to become visible - networked, immaterial and often volumetric, practices of *worlding* surface as critical renderings concerned with speculatively envisioning modes of being otherwise through computational means. By intersecting software and storytelling, these practices cultivate more-than-human assemblages that foreground possible world instances - worlding, thus, becomes politically charged as a networked epistemology of resistance, where dissent is enabled through the rendering of alternative knowledge systems and relational entanglements existing beyond the ruins of capitalism.

In the ontological sense, ''practices of worlding'' materialise, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In their quests for speculative possibility, world-makers are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional economical or institutional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility which seek to de-centre the dominant narratives of the Western cultural imagination. A reversing of scales therefore occurs, where 'high tech' becomes deterritorialized and mobilised towards the objectives of a 'minor tech', which seeks to counter the universal ideals embedded in technologies through foregrounding "collective value" (Cox and Andersen 1).

Consequently, recent years have seen an increased interest in the (mis)use of software such as game engines or machine learning for the artistic exploration of crossovers between the technological, the ecological and the mythical; specifically, through the emergence of increasingly capable and accessible platforms such as Unreal Engine and Unity, game engines have become the creative frameworks of choice for conjuring worlds due to their potential for rapid prototyping and increased capacity of rendering complex, real-time virtual imaginaries. Whilst worlding can exist across a spectrum of algorithmically-driven techniques and systems, it is most often encountered through (or integrates within its technological assemblage) the game engine, as we will see in the course of this paper.

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent techno-artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking not only *through*, but also *with* worlding as a process that can facilitate ways of imagining outside the rigid narratives of techno-scientific capitalism.

I propose that it is particularly through its re-figuring of computational methodologies that worlding positions itself as an exercise in creative resistance. Through a refiguration of technology as a speculative tool, worlding offers a potent method for thinking outside of our fraught present by algorithmically envisioning radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise, I contend, also bring forth a new epistemological and aesthetic framework rooted in both the affordances of the technological platforms used for their production and the relational assemblages at their core: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic world instances and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for these practices.

Within the context of political resistance, by approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a 'minor literature' (16), we can trace the emergence of ''minor worlds'' as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds of platform capitalism and their dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for de-centering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities do they open up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Keiken, Lawrence Lek and Jena Sutela will be drawn on in order to gain insight into the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== Worlding in the Age of the Anthropocene ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of imagination, of time, of civilisation, of Earth; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel *Pattern Recognition*, which constitutes a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant when superimposed onto our present state:
<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)</blockquote>Here, Gibson makes reference to the near-impossibility of imagining a clear-cut future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - I contend that this fictional excerpt is distinctly illustrative of the affective perception of life within the Age of the Anthropocene, where the volatility of the present, caused by the knowledge that changes on a planetary scale are imminent, ensures that a given future can no longer be predicted or visualised. Without the ability to rationally deduce a logical outcome, what we, too, are left with is a sort of ''pattern recognition'' - a search for patterns of ways of being and knowing that can become the scaffold for visions of the future; as Gibson foregrounds, today, rather than being logically deducible, the future needs to be sought through the uncovering of new patterns.

Just like Gibson's character, we do not know what kind of more-than-human assemblages will inhabit our future states - and it is precisely here that this act of pattern recognition intersects with the core agenda of worlding: how can we envision patterns of possible futures? Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of possible outcomes, where can new patterns emerge?

In the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has launched several calls for seeking such patterns with potential to provide a foothold for experiments in imagining future alternatives: from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Haraway’s request for critical attention to “what worlds world worlds”("Staying with the trouble" 35) and LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’ (6) - an alternative to the linear, destructive and suffocating narratives regurgitated perpetually within the history of human culture. We can, therefore, trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies, emphasising the urgency of developing patterns for thinking and being otherwise - as Rodi Bradotti asks, “how can we work towards socially sustainable horizons of hope, through creative resistance?” (156)

In a reality marred by a crisis of imagination, where “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (Fisher 1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat, and requires, as Palmer puts it, a "cessation of habitual temporalities and modes of being" ("Worlding") in order to open up spaces of potentiality for speculative thinking - to think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has therefore become a difficult exercise within the current socio-political context.

We can then identify the most crucial question for the agenda of worlding is: what comes after the end of *our world* (understood here as capitalist realism(Fischer 1))? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of reality as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? And what kind of technics and formats dow we need to visualise these modes of being otherwise?

Techno-artistic worlding practices attempt to intervene precisely at this point and open up new ways of envisioning through their computational nature - which, in turn, produces new formats of relational and affective experience through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements - collectively, they speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of being-otherwise, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

= Thinking With The Operational Logic Of Computationally-Mediated Worlds =
To begin an analysis of how worlding attempts to engage with the envisioning of alternatives, we'll first turn to Donna Haraway, who further instrumentalizes the idea of patterning introduced earlier through Gibson: when situating worlding as an active ontological process, she says that "the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action [...] and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how" ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 8 ). By making the transition from noun to verb, from object to action, worlds and patterns become active processes of *worlding* and *patterning*. In Haraway's theorising of speculative fabulation, patterning involves an experimental processes of searching for possible "organic, polyglot, polymorphic wiring diagrams" - for a possible fiction, whilst worlding encapsulates the act of conjuring a world on the basis of that pattern ("SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far" 2). Furthermore, Haraway situates worlding as a practice of collective relationality, of intra-activity between world-makers and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care.

It is important to note that worlding, to Haraway, is far from apolitical: she evidences its relevance by defining it as a practice of life and death, which has the potential to engage in powerful formulations of alternatives - acts which might be crucial in establishing actual future states. As she argues, “Revolt needs other forms of action and other stories of solace, inspiration and effectiveness” ("Staying with the Trouble" 49)

To gravitate towards an understanding of these other stories, we'll approach worlding in context through the eyes of Ian Cheng, an artist working with live simulations that explore more-than-human intelligent assemblages. Cheng defines the world, as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” ("Worlding Raga") - a world, in this perspective, needs to be an iteration of the possible, one that presents enough plausible comfort for existing otherwise, the referencing of 'belief' is also crucial here as, within capitalist realm, where all "beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration,"(Fisher 8), its very activation becomes and act of revolt.

Of worlding, Cheng says that it is “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” ("Worlding Raga")- the world-maker, therefore, does not only ideologically envision a possible reality, but also renders it into existence through temporal and generative programming. Cheng balances this definition within the context of his own practice concerned with generative and emergent simulations where authorship becomes a distributed territory between the human and more-than-human

It is important to note that Cheng refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal template of worlding - rather, discreetly and implicitly, Cheng’s definition evokes the operational logic of algorithms by referencing properties intelligent and generative software systems.The previous definiton's refusal of medium-specificity mirrors the multiplicity of ways in which algorithms can world: whilst many of these orlds initially unfold as immersive game spaces (and then become machinimia, or animated films created within a virtual 3D environment (Marino 1) when presented in a gallery environment),satellite artefacts can emerge from a world's algorithmic means of production, often becoming a physical manifestation of that world's entities - taking shape, for example, as physical renditions of born-digital entities, as seen in the sculptural works as that emerge from Sahej Rahal's world, *Antraal*, where figures of the last humans, existing in a post-species, post-history state, are recreated outside of the gamespace.

<nowiki>https://payload.cargocollective.com/1/10/345111/14206350/AC_1525_1600_c.jpg</nowiki>

Figure 1: Antraal, by Sahej Rahal (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply and upload the file)

Transgressions of the fictional world into real-space can take a variety of shapes, depending on the politics and intentions of that world: other examples of worlds spilling out of rendered space and into reality are Keiken's *Bet(a) Bodies* installation, where a haptic womb is proposed as an emphatic technology for connecting with a more-than-human assemblage of animal voices and Ian Cheng’s BOB Shrine App that accompanied his simulation *BOB (Bag of Beliefs)* in its latter stages of development, where the audience can directly interact with the AI by sending “offerings” via the *BOB Shrine App* which impress what Cheng terms 'parental influence' in order to offset BOB’s biases.

Consequently, it becomes apparent that practices of worlding are governed by an inherent pluralism - due to this multiplicity of possible tools and algorithms that can operate within the scales of worlding, we are in need of an open-ended definition that can encapsulate commonalities whilst also allowing for plurality of form - I propose here to focus on the unit operations making these worlds possible. From gamespace environments to haptic-sonic assemblages or interactive AI, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity, but rather in their software ontology and its procedural affordance, defined by Murray as "the processing power of the computer that allows us to specify conditional, executable instructions) ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary").

I propose, therefore, a working definition for worlding that integrates unit operations with speculative logic: worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through the relational structures enabled by procedural affordances. It involves looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into networked algorithms that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to dissent from the master narratives of capitalism by critically rendering habitable alternatives.

Crucial to this definition is an understanding of software as a cultural tool - its procedural affordances, as Murray reflects, have "created a new representational strategy, [...] the simulation of real and hypothetical worlds as complex systems of parameterised objects and behaviours" ("Humanistic Design for an Emerging Medium: Glossary"). To understand the operative logic that enables procedural affordances, a similar pluriversal analytical model to proposed by de la Cadena and Blaser (4) becomes necessary for conceiving the ecologies of practice made possible by worlding - I propose, therefore, a conceptual model for understanding of the symbolic centre of worlding as a practice by turning to the ways in which software itself creates and communicates knowledge: the network.

Reflecting on Tara McPherson assertion that “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) being able to produce not only representations but also epistemologies, one must wonder, then: in the context of of algorithmic worlds, how do their networked cores become culturally charged? What kind of new knowledges become encoded in their procedural affordances?

== Thinking with Networks: An Epistemic Shift Towards Relationality ==
Another vector through which the nature of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of networks, particularly her definition of ‘network anaesthesia’ - a term she develops to suggest the numbing of our perception towards them, making their unevenness and relationality obscure (3). We can speak of a similar worlding anaesthesia when working with platformised tools such as game engines, where, as Freedman points out, "the otherwise latent potential of code, found in its modularity, is readily sealed over" (Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline). The trouble with engines is that, in our case, they promote a worlding anaesthesia, where the web of relations at play within that world is not immediately apparent due to their obscuring of software.

Wendy Chun speaks of a similar paradox to that of the network anaesthesia by referencing the ways in which computation complicates both visuality and transparency. Visuality in the sense of the proliferation of code objects that it enables, and transparency in the sense of the effort of software operations to conceal their input/output relationalities - visualising the network, therefore, becomes an exercises in revealing the inner workings of worlds, one that resists the intentional opacity of the platforms that become involved in their genesis.

Munster, too, calls for more heightened reflective and analytical engagements with “the patchiness of the network field” (2) by making its relations visible (and implicitly *knowable*) through diagrammatic processes. She contends that, in order to decode the networked artefact, we must attempt to understand the forces at play within it from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things *unforming* and *reforming* relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a software artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of the processes involved in the rendering of worlds - if the centre of a world is a network, that can in itself sustain a number inputs and outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of the network, or the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also a certain computational *knowing*, an understanding of relations and flows. I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of cognitive engagement, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently, through a foregrounding of relational exchanges.

I propose here a turn towards cartographing the relations that operate within a world on an affective level, due to the spaces of evocative possibility opened up by a world's procedural affordances. Murray draws EA's 1986 advert asking "Can a computer make you cry?" to reflect on the need for increased critical attention to be given to the ways in which affective relations form within a procedural space; she argues that "tears are an appropriate measure of involvement because they are physiological and suggest authenticity and depth of feeling" (84), but clarifies that it is precisely the visceral aspect of crying that is of interest - the focus is not on "sad content, but compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience" (85). Whilst agreeing that, in the domains of video games, whilst there are some experiments with instilling emotion in viewers, these are not complex structures of feeling; she calls, therefore, for the development of computational experiences that constitute "compellingly powerful and meaningful representation of human experience", highlighting the crucial importance of affect. I propose here that structures of feeling are essential for creating worlds that engage in resistance, and identify Murray's call as a core element on worlding's agenda.

Today, we are already seeing experiments in ''knowing'' networks emerging - we'll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to have established a practice of conceptual diagramming - one that does not simply relate input to output or technically map, but also pays attention to producing a cartography of the affective relations scripted into BOB's world. By showing increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the *networking*, Cheng traverses the crucial space between the perceived (the immediately apparent) and the perceptual (the more esoteric, affectively charged circulations of data within a system):

Figure 2. Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017.

Figure 3. Ian Cheng, ‘Emissary Forks at Perfection’ 2015.

The above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “topological surface” (Massumi 751) for the experience of that world. As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract a set of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” (5) - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the networking processes at play, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - in the spaces between memory, narrative and desire, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities emerge. Cheng attempts to diagram the simulation across both affective and technical scales , effectively demonstrating the essence of the network through its flow of relations.

Thinking ''with'' (rather than simply through) worlding, can, therefore, produce a sort of networked epistemology where an increased attention to relationality can cultivate new ways of both seeing and understanding. A question of scale emerges here: across thinking with worlds, care needs to be taken to address the affective scale along the technical one - how these scales have the potential to affect one another and the much larger scale of human experience - this a significantly larger project to attach to worlding's research agenda; for now, I'll return to Murray's note on computers and tears and ask: could worlds make us cry?

== Rendering Resistance: The Emergence of Minor Worlds ==
In an age of anxiety underscored by invasive politics and ubiquitous algorithmic megastructures, the major technologies of the present such as artificial intelligence, platforms, game engines, volumetric rendering software and networked software are employed in the service of extractive and opaque practices. However, as Foucault proclaims “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95) - when looking from amidst the ruins of the same reality, crumbling under the weight of late techno-capitalism, these technologies can also become an instrument of dissent: to simulate a world volumetrically, epistemologically and relationally becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present to produce tactics that lead out of the ruins and into a future dominated by new, pluralistic, de-centered and distributed agencies taking shape according to “ecological matters of care” (Puig de la Bellacasa, 24).

To resist, here, means to engage with the broader questions of power and refusal within the context of software practices. Within practices of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape through a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a glimpse into an alternative mode of being through simulation. As LeGuin proposes, technology can be dislodged from the logic of capitalism and refigured as a cultural carrier bag (8); in this sense, she envisions this refiguration as a catalyst for a new form of science fiction, re-conceptualised as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and multiplicity. Similarly to LeGuin, Nichols reflects on the tensions between ‘the liberating potential of the cybernetic imagination and the ideological tendency to preserve the existing form of social relations’ (627). Nichols argues that there are inherent contradictions embedded within software systems, emerging from the dual ontology of software as both a mode of control and a force that enables collective ontologies and deterritorialization; he writes of cybernetic systems:<blockquote>"if there is liberating potential in this, it clearly is not in seeing ourselves as cogs in a machine or elements of a vast simulation, but rather in seeing ourselves as part of a larger whole that is self-regulating and capable of long-term survival. At present this larger whole remains dominated by arts that achieve hegemony. But the very perception of the cybernetic connection, where system governs parts, where the social collectivity of mind governs the autonomous ego of individualism, may also provide the adaptive concepts needed to decenter control and overturn hierarchy". (640)</blockquote>Nichols emphasises the ways in which software can be repurposed from a tool of control into a tool for overturning oppression - he draws particular attention to the necessity of pluralism over individualism and highlights the potential of subverting hegemonic languages in favour of cultivating other, more minor, modes of expression. He further emphasises the possibility for systems to be employed towards social change through collective activations of machines.

Both LeGuin and Nicholson's perspectives are closely aligned with Deleuze and Guattari's theorising of a minor literature (16) - their underrating of 'the minor' is firstly outlines in relation to literature in their book *Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature* where they discuss Kafka's literary practice, emergent in a German-speaking context during the anxieties of WWII.

The idea of the minor is not utilised by Deleuze and Guattari to denote something small or insignificant, but rather "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but the literature a minority makes in a major language" () - Deleuze and Guattari further trace the contours of three characteristics of minor literature: the deterritorialization of language, the connection of the individual to a political immediacy, and the collective assemblage of enunciation. They identify these three conditions as being met in both the content and the form of Kafka's work: Kafka was "himself being part of minority within a minority (Jewish and Czech in a region part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)" and therefore was using the majority language of control (German) to produce literature that gave a voice to marginalised perspectives. The form of his work was also minor in structure, which Deleuze and Guattari identified to be networked, claiming that it was akin to "a rhizome, a burrow" (). Deleuze and Guattari also highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance.

Perhaps the best way to analyse the concept of the minor is to situate it within the context of resistant technologies. What could be a minor tech?

The concept of a minor literature suggests that a re-purposing of a majority language into a minor one can be a powerful method for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised communities, offering alternative narratives through the deterritorialization of major language and collective modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses.

A minor tech, then, would be a technology that is de-territorialised - destabilised from its original position and moved into a new territory of possibility; because it exists within a far narrower space than majority tech, everything within it becomes political; and finally, it presents collective value. It is important to note here that collective value to Deleuze and Guattari is not necessarily ascribed to a collaboration for the production of minor languages, but rather to reflects the fact that there are no conditions for an individual utterance in the context of the minor (whilst Big Tech has increased ability to cultivate talent, individualism and mastery, minor tech follows a model that doesn't adhere to the existing patterns of the major) Minor tech, therefore, produces active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artefacts, a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance.
The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artefacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilise game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers.

Following in this line of thought, a minor world would aim to disrupt established norms and open up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word minor, rather than suggesting a sense of insignificance, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language - Deleuze does not ground the defining of a minority in identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but rather he positions it relationally ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

The emergence of minor worlds poses relevant questions about the ways in which collaborating with machines gives rise to practices of techno-artistic resistance that seek decolonial, anti-capitalist and care-driven ways of being. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Their use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence can result in radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

== Conclusion ==

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

So I close with a question, which sets up my research agenda: how can we "seize the means of rendering" (Revell) and employ them towards collective futuring?

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‘Expressive Processing’. ''MIT Press'', <nowiki>https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262517539/expressive-processing/</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Foxman, Maxwell. ‘United We Stand: Platforms, Tools and Innovation With the Unity Game Engine’. ''Social Media + Society'', vol. 5, no. 4, Oct. 2019, p. 205630511988017. ''DOI.org (Crossref)'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119880177</nowiki>.

Freedman, Eric. ‘Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline’. ''Game Studies'', vol. 18, no. 3, Dec. 2018. ''Game Studies'', <nowiki>https://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/ericfreedman</nowiki>.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

Kraatila, Elise. ‘Conspicuous Fabrications: Speculative Fiction as a Tool for Confronting the Post-Truth Discourse’. ''Narrative Inquiry'', vol. 29, no. 2, Oct. 2019, pp. 418–33. ''www.jbe-platform.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.19016.kra</nowiki>.

Lakkala, Keijo. ‘Utopianism in the Age of Capitalocene’. ''Nordia Geographical Publications'', vol. 49, no. 5, Jan. 2021, pp. 75–92. ''DOI.org (Crossref)'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.30671/nordia.98001</nowiki>.

Massumi, Brian. ‘Deleuze, Guattari, and the Philosophy of Expression’. ''Canadian Review of Comparative Literature/ Revue Canadienne de Littérature Comparée'', Sept. 1997, pp. 745–82. ''journals.library.ualberta.ca'', <nowiki>https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/crcl/index.php/crcl/article/view/3739</nowiki>.

Massumi,Brian. ''The Future Birth of the Affective Fact: The Political Ontology of Threat''. Jan. 2010. ''read.dukeupress.edu'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393047-002</nowiki>.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Picq, Manuela L. ‘Indigenous Politics of Resistance: An Introduction’. ''An Introduction'', 2017.

''Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games''. <nowiki>https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/1369118X.2020.1810299?needAccess=true&role=button</nowiki>. Accessed 14 June 2023.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''. Sternberg Press. 2018

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

== Bio: ==
Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative fiction, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements that can take shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-14T05:12:32Z

Teodora sinziana: /* Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance */

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-14T05:08:46Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-14T05:05:56Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T20:51:05Z

Teodora sinziana: /* Rendering Minor Worlds */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
Critical Renders of Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Her most recent project focuses on adopting diagrammatics as a practice for envisioning new modes of interaction within immersive gamespaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, more-than-human entanglements, critical rendering, practices of resistance, minor worlds, container model

'''Abstract:'''

This paper formulates a strategic activation of emergent practices of computer-mediated worlding by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-with worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of the techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-capitalist storytelling practice is envisioned.

== Introduction: ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary computational art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the dominant narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking with and through it as a software process that resists the techno-scientific imaginary of late capitalism. The recent crystallisation of worlding as a practice offers a potent framework for thinking outside of our fraught present due to its potential for algorithmically conjuring radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise also bring forth a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the relational networks emerging from these: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic worlds and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for practices operating on the basis of epistemic relationality.

By approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace the emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Keiken/Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== The Emergence of Worlding as Praxis ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of Earth, of time, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ‘Pattern Recognition’, which is structured as a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant as a description of our fraught present:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - this fictional excerpt is distinctly reminiscent of life within the Age of the Anthropocene - a time when changes on a planetary scale are imminent and a future can no longer be predicted or visualised, but rather needs to be invented through the search - or recognition- of new patterns. Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future, where can new patterns emerge?

///

///

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==

Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of ‘network anaesthesia’ - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections at play - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that, as theorists interested in decoding the networked experience, we must attempt to understand the relation of forces at play within networks from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a networked artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world within several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of its network (the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable). Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from here the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also an understanding of relations and flows. This echoes back to Haraway’s conception of worlding, where the practice is conceived as a process of patterning, where the flux of relations at okay not only produces patterns, but also effectively communicates.

To further situate worlding as a resistant practice, I’ll draw a parallel between Munster’s perspective on the network and the fourth theory of images put forth by Flusser in his discussion of technical images. Despite being inherently narrative structures, practices of worlding operate by entering into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies, rather than relying on textual formats. They therefore operate a multiplicity of algorithmic processes in order to envision possible worlds.

Technical images operate via a similar principle in that, to Flusser, they represent ‘envisioned surfaces’ (33) - whilst the technical image is an amalgamation of computed particles, I propose here that a “technical world”, to paraphrase Flusser, is an assemblage of computed relations. Similarly to Munster’s conceptualising of anaesthesia, Flusser notes the deceptive quality of technical images - he claims that “at first glance, technical images appear to be surfaces” (34) and that we must look very closely at these to observe their underlying essence. Both Flusser and Munster, therefore, comment on the conceptual slide from looking (or perceiving) and observing (or generating the perceptible) - I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of observational attention, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently. I’ll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to engage in such an process established by showing some increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking:

https://archis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/pasted-image-0-1.png

Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017 (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply)

Cheng experiments with the essence of the network - the above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “ topological surface” (Massumi 751). As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract aset of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the network, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - between excitement and competition, observation and acting, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities are mapped, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network though its flow of relations.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual: “The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”

= The Emergence of Minor Worlds =
In an age of technological complexity underscored by ubiquitous algorithmic mega-structures, to simulate a world not only volumetrically, but also relationally, becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present: game engine technologies, artificial intelligence, 3D software in the same reality marred crumbling under the weight of late capitalism, it can also be a project of dissent; one that asks

The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artifacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilize game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers. This study, therefore, aims to trace the ways in which openings of space, time, and consciousness into alternative imaginaries are made possible on the shores of virtual worlds.

/// Insert section 4 here

== Works Cited: ==
Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian, ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

''The Fourth Meaning of the Image: Flusser’s Invitation to Envision the World | Flusser Studies''. <nowiki>https://www.flusserstudies.net/node/794</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T15:13:22Z

Teodora sinziana: /* Rendering Minor Worlds */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
Critical Renders of Post-Anthropocentric Visions: The Emergence of Worlding As a Practice of Resistance

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and storytelling, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges scripted into interfaces. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Her most recent project focuses on adopting diagrammatics as a practice for envisioning new modes of interaction within immersive gamespaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Abstract:'''

This paper formulates a strategic activation of emergent practices of computer-mediated worlding by situating them as networked epistemologies of resistance. Through the integration of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ with the distributed software ontologies of algorithmic worlds, a tentative politics for thinking-with worlds is mapped, anchored in the potential of worlding to counter the dominant narratives of the techno-capitalist cultural imaginary. With particular attention to the ways in which the affordances of software can become operative and offer alternative scales of engagement with modes of being-otherwise, an initial theoretical mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-capitalist storytelling practice is envisioned.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, more-than-human entanglements, critical rendering, practices of resistance, minor worlds, container model

== Introduction: ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary computational art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the dominant narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as algorithmic portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse to adopt a totalising view of the megastructure of capitalism’s cultural imaginary and instead opt to zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of software, practices of worlding teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, where “unexpected convergences” emerge from the debris of what has passed (Tsing 205).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics for thinking with and through it as a software process that resists the techno-scientific imaginary of late capitalism. The recent crystallisation of worlding as a practice offers a potent framework for thinking outside of our fraught present due to its potential for algorithmically conjuring radically different ontologies - these modes of being-otherwise also bring forth a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the relational networks emerging from these: the network, in itself, becomes unearthed throughout this paper as the essence of algorithmic worlds and is proposed as a mode of conceptualisation for practices operating on the basis of epistemic relationality.

By approaching these algorithmically-rendered worlds through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace the emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages for countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and dominant socio-cultural narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they draw upon within their ontologies and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Keiken/Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of social and political critique and activates a process of collective engagement with potent acts of imagining futures where a co-existence together and alongside the non-human is foregrounded.

== The Emergence of Worlding as Praxis ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of Earth, of time, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems exceptionally out of grasp. In his novel ‘Pattern Recognition’, which is structured as a reflection on the human desire to detect patterns and meaning within data, William Gibson formulates a statement that rings particularly relevant as a description of our fraught present:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition… " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest - this fictional excerpt is distinctly reminiscent of life within the Age of the Anthropocene - a time when changes on a planetary scale are imminent and a future can no longer be predicted or visualised, but rather needs to be invented through the search - or recognition- of new patterns. Within our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future, where can new patterns emerge?

///

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Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==

Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of ‘network anaesthesia’ - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections at play - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that, as theorists interested in decoding the networked experience, we must attempt to understand the relation of forces at play within networks from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a networked artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world within several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of its network (the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable). Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from here the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also an understanding of relations and flows. This echoes back to Haraway’s conception of worlding, where the practice is conceived as a process of patterning, where the flux of relations at okay not only produces patterns, but also effectively communicates.

To further situate worlding as a resistant practice, I’ll draw a parallel between Munster’s perspective on the network and the fourth theory of images put forth by Flusser in his discussion of technical images. Despite being inherently narrative structures, practices of worlding operate by entering into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies, rather than relying on textual formats. They therefore operate a multiplicity of algorithmic processes in order to envision possible worlds.

Technical images operate via a similar principle in that, to Flusser, they represent ‘envisioned surfaces’ (33) - whilst the technical image is an amalgamation of computed particles, I propose here that a “technical world”, to paraphrase Flusser, is an assemblage of computed relations. Similarly to Munster’s conceptualising of anaesthesia, Flusser notes the deceptive quality of technical images - he claims that “at first glance, technical images appear to be surfaces” (34) and that we must look very closely at these to observe their underlying essence. Both Flusser and Munster, therefore, comment on the conceptual slide from looking (or perceiving) and observing (or generating the perceptible) - I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of observational attention, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently. I’ll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to engage in such an process established by showing some increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking:

https://archis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/pasted-image-0-1.png

Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017 (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply)

Cheng experiments with the essence of the network - the above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “ topological surface” (Massumi 751). As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract aset of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the network, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - between excitement and competition, observation and acting, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities are mapped, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network though its flow of relations.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual: “The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”

= The Emergence of Minor Worlds =
In an age of technological complexity underscored by ubiquitous algorithmic mega-structures, to simulate a world not only volumetrically, but also relationally, becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present: game engine technologies, artificial intelligence, 3D software in the same reality marred crumbling under the weight of late capitalism, it can also be a project of dissent; one that asks

The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artifacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilize game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers. This study, therefore, aims to trace the ways in which openings of space, time, and consciousness into alternative imaginaries are made possible on the shores of virtual worlds.

/// Insert section 4 here

== Works Cited: ==
Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian, ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

''The Fourth Meaning of the Image: Flusser’s Invitation to Envision the World | Flusser Studies''. <nowiki>https://www.flusserstudies.net/node/794</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T11:09:29Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and media, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges facilitated by interfaces and data flows. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, minor worlds, container model

'''Abstract:'''

llllll

== Intoduction ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary new media art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the master narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse a totalising view of the megastructure of the capitalistic imaginary and instead zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of algorithms, they teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, “where unexpected alliances emerge from the debris of what has passed” (Tsing).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent, algorithmically-driven artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics of worlding by situating it as a form of resistance that critiques the present through its algorithmical conjuring of a radically different mode of existence from the techno-scientific rational imaginary of late capitalism - one that, I argue here, also proposes a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the complex networked relations that it produces. Looking through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace an emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and master narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they cultivate and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of critique and activates a process critical ‘future-making’ as defined by Montfort (13), where potent acts of imagining the future have the potential to feed into its materialisation.

== The Emergence of Practices of Worlding ==

Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of capitalism, of Planet Earth, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems almost out of grasp. William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’ describes the fraught present condition with surprising accuracy:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. This statement can be applied to our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future.

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==

Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of ‘network anaesthesia’ - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections at play - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that, as theorists interested in decoding the networked experience, we must attempt to understand the relation of forces at play within networks from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a networked artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world within several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of its network (the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable). Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from here the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also an understanding of relations and flows. This echoes back to Haraway’s conception of worlding, where the practice is conceived as a process of patterning, where the flux of relations at okay not only produces patterns, but also effectively communicates.

To further situate worlding as a resistant practice, I’ll draw a parallel between Munster’s perspective on the network and the fourth theory of images put forth by Flusser in his discussion of technical images. Despite being inherently narrative structures, practices of worlding operate by entering into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies, rather than relying on textual formats. They therefore operate a multiplicity of algorithmic processes in order to envision possible worlds.

Technical images operate via a similar principle in that, to Flusser, they represent ‘envisioned surfaces’ (33) - whilst the technical image is an amalgamation of computed particles, I propose here that a “technical world”, to paraphrase Flusser, is an assemblage of computed relations. Similarly to Munster’s conceptualising of anaesthesia, Flusser notes the deceptive quality of technical images - he claims that “at first glance, technical images appear to be surfaces” (34) and that we must look very closely at these to observe their underlying essence. Both Flusser and Munster, therefore, comment on the conceptual slide from looking (or perceiving) and observing (or generating the perceptible) - I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of observational attention, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently. I’ll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to engage in such an process established by showing some increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking:

https://archis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/pasted-image-0-1.png

Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017 (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply)

Cheng experiments with the essence of the network - the above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “ topological surface” (Massumi 751). As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract aset of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the network, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - between excitement and competition, observation and acting, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities are mapped, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network though its flow of relations.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual: “The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”

= The Emergence of Minor Worlds =
In an age of technological complexity underscored by ubiquitous algorithmic mega-structures, to simulate a world not only volumetrically, but also relationally, becomes an exercise in (counter)utilising the major technologies of the present: game engine technologies, artificial intelligence, 3D software in the same reality marred crumbling under the weight of late capitalism, it can also be a project of dissent; one that asks

The turn towards immersive world design is enabled by the recent deployment of game engine technologies towards critical digital experimentation, enabling artists to produce increasingly complex digital artifacts. Similarly to the properties of a minor language formulated by Deleuze and Guattari in their analysis of Kafka’s writing, today’s turn towards the production of virtual worlds as sites of alternative possibilities is deterritorializing the existing entertainment-centric and economically-driven mode of existence of immersive game productions. Within the parameters of the game engine itself, the various features, interfaces and functionalities of mainstream game design software are geared towards competitive ludic productions. However, with the increased accessibility of gaming technologies, we see the emergence of collective efforts to utilize game engines critically, towards the production of minority worlds, where the entertainment-focused properties of commodified games are replaced with experimental assemblages and their affect constellations.

When the majority language of the game engine is deployed into the minor territories of experiment and social critique, the connection of the audience with political immediacy is facilitated through the experimental readings that are enabled. Pushing beyond the transformation of given content into the appropriate forms expected of major literature, these worlds take shape within the territory of minor literature, where experimental and non-linear formats that operate in networked and multifaceted ways “speak first and only conceive afterwards”, as McLean infers. This study, therefore, aims to trace the ways in which openings of space, time, and consciousness into alternative imaginaries are made possible on the shores of virtual worlds.

/// Insert section 4 here

== Works Cited: ==
Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian, ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

''The Fourth Meaning of the Image: Flusser’s Invitation to Envision the World | Flusser Studies''. <nowiki>https://www.flusserstudies.net/node/794</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T09:41:27Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and media, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges facilitated by interfaces and data flows. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, minor worlds, container model

'''Abstract:'''

llllll

== Intoduction ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary new media art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the master narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse a totalising view of the megastructure of the capitalistic imaginary and instead zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of algorithms, they teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, “where unexpected alliances emerge from the debris of what has passed” (Tsing).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent, algorithmically-driven artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics of worlding by situating it as a form of resistance that critiques the present through its algorithmical conjuring of a radically different mode of existence from the techno-scientific rational imaginary of late capitalism - one that, I argue here, also proposes a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the complex networked relations that it produces. Looking through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace an emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and master narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they cultivate and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of critique and activates a process critical ‘future-making’ as defined by Montfort (13), where potent acts of imagining the future have the potential to feed into its materialisation.

== The Emergence of Practices of Worlding ==

Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of capitalism, of Planet Earth, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems almost out of grasp. William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’ describes the fraught present condition with surprising accuracy:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. This statement can be applied to our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future.

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==

Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of ‘network anaesthesia’ - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections at play - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that, as theorists interested in decoding the networked experience, we must attempt to understand the relation of forces at play within networks from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at making sense of the essence of a networked artefact or system. This relational perspective towards networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world within several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world must involve conceptual engagement with the essence of its network (the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable). Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from here the perceptual into the diagrammatic, from a practice of observation to one of sense-making, involving not only visualisations but also an understanding of relations and flows. This echoes back to Haraway’s conception of worlding, where the practice is conceived as a process of patterning, where the flux of relations at okay not only produces patterns, but also effectively communicates.

To further situate worlding as a resistant practice, I’ll draw a parallel between Munster’s perspective on the network and the fourth theory of images put forth by Flusser in his discussion of technical images. Despite being inherently narrative structures, practices of worlding operate by entering into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies, rather than relying on textual formats. They therefore operate a multiplicity of algorithmic processes in order to envision possible worlds.

Technical images operate via a similar principle in that, to Flusser, they represent ‘envisioned surfaces’ (33) - whilst the technical image is an amalgamation of computed particles, I propose here that a “technical world”, to paraphrase Flusser, is an assemblage of computed relations. Similarly to Munster’s conceptualising of anaesthesia, Flusser notes the deceptive quality of technical images - he claims that “at first glance, technical images appear to be surfaces” (34) and that we must look very closely at these to observe their underlying essence. Both Flusser and Munster, therefore, comment on the conceptual slide from looking (or perceiving) and observing (or generating the perceptible) - I argue here that engagement with worlds necessitates an increased type of observational attention, one that allows us to understand the object of discussion differently. I’ll circle back to Cheng here, who seems to engage in such an process established by showing some increased tendencies towards engagement with not only the network itself, but also the networking:

https://archis.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/pasted-image-0-1.png

Ian Cheng, excerpt from Emissaries Guide, 2017 (Permission requested but not yet received - will update upon reply)

Cheng experiments with the essence of the network - the above diagram does not seek to formally capture the elements of a network assemblage, but rather, to create a “ topological surface” (Massumi 751). As Munster inflects, the goal is “not to abstract aset of ideal spatial relations between elements but to follow visually the contingent deformations and involutions of world events as they arise through conjunctive processes” - in Cheng’s diagram, we see a phenomenological and epistemological topology of the network, where affective relations are mapped in the context of algorithmic scripting - between excitement and competition, observation and acting, a spectrum of relational flows and possibilities are mapped, effectively demonstrating the essence of the network though its flow of relations.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual: “The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”

== Works Cited: ==
Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian, ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

''The Fourth Meaning of the Image: Flusser’s Invitation to Envision the World | Flusser Studies''. <nowiki>https://www.flusserstudies.net/node/794</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T08:25:17Z

Teodora sinziana: /* The Emergence of Practices of Worlding */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and media, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges facilitated by interfaces and data flows. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, minor worlds, container model

'''Abstract:'''

llllll

== Intoduction ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary new media art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the master narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse a totalising view of the megastructure of the capitalistic imaginary and instead zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of algorithms, they teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, “where unexpected alliances emerge from the debris of what has passed” (Tsing).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent, algorithmically-driven artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics of worlding by situating it as a form of resistance that critiques the present through its algorithmical conjuring of a radically different mode of existence from the techno-scientific rational imaginary of late capitalism - one that, I argue here, also proposes a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the complex networked relations that it produces. Looking through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace an emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and master narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they cultivate and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of critique and activates a process critical ‘future-making’ as defined by Montfort (13), where potent acts of imagining the future have the potential to feed into its materialisation.

== The Emergence of Practices of Worlding ==

Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of capitalism, of Planet Earth, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems almost out of grasp. William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’ describes the fraught present condition with surprising accuracy:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. This statement can be applied to our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future.

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==
Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of ‘network anaesthesia’ - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections at play - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that, as theorists interested in decoding the networked experience, we must attempt to understand the relation of forces at play within networks from a relational standpoint:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relations and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at understanding the essence of a networked artefact or systems. This perspective on networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world within several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world involves conceptual engagement with the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic, towards a visualisation and understanding of relations and flows. This echoes back to Haraway’s conception of worlding, where the practice is conceived as a process of patterning, where the flux of relations not only produces but also effectively communicates patterns.

To further situate the Worlding /// - rather than a literary practice, it enters into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies in order to envision, rather than write, possible worlds. Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. This assertion is anchored in the politics of technical images outlined by Flusser, who claims that these are ‘symptoms of chemical or electronic processes’ - similarly, the products of worlding, whether they take the form of immersive gamespaces, alien languages or interactive physical assemblages, become materialised through the procedurality of their underlying algorithm.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual:

“The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine.

Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”.

Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

= Works Cited =
Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian, ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

''The Fourth Meaning of the Image: Flusser’s Invitation to Envision the World | Flusser Studies''. <nowiki>https://www.flusserstudies.net/node/794</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T08:23:42Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and media, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges facilitated by interfaces and data flows. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, minor worlds, container model

'''Abstract:'''

llllll

== Intoduction ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary new media art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the master narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse a totalising view of the megastructure of the capitalistic imaginary and instead zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of algorithms, they teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, “where unexpected alliances emerge from the debris of what has passed” (Tsing).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent, algorithmically-driven artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics of worlding by situating it as a form of resistance that critiques the present through its algorithmical conjuring of a radically different mode of existence from the techno-scientific rational imaginary of late capitalism - one that, I argue here, also proposes a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the complex networked relations that it produces. Looking through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace an emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and master narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they cultivate and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of critique and activates a process critical ‘future-making’ as defined by Montfort (13), where potent acts of imagining the future have the potential to feed into its materialisation.

== The Emergence of Practices of Worlding ==

Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of capitalism, of Planet Earth, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems almost out of grasp. William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’ describes the fraught present condition with surprising accuracy:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. This statement can be applied to our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future.

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==
Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of network anaesthesia - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with what she calls “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster further proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relation and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at understanding the essence of a networked artefact or systems. This perspective on networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world with several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable in order to begin analysing these worlds. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic,

I’d like to touch on the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, which claims that “A World is a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction.” (n.p.) - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also

- rather than a literary practice, it enters into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies in order to envision, rather than write, possible worlds. Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. This assertion is anchored in the politics of technical images outlined by Flusser, who claims that these are ‘symptoms of chemical or electronic processes’ - similarly, the products of worlding, whether they take the form of immersive gamespaces, alien languages or interactive physical assemblages, become materialised through the procedurality of their underlying algorithm.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual:

“The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine.

Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”.

Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

I argue here that, through this fourth definition of the technical image as envisioning, Flusser foresees to the algorithmic conjuring of a world, where the

= Works Cited =
Cheng, Ian, et al. ''Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding''. 1st ed., Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018, <nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>.

Cheng, Ian, ‘Worlding Raga: 2 – What Is a World?’ ''Ribbonfarm'', 5 Mar. 2019, <nowiki>https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/03/05/worlding-raga-2-what-is-a-world/</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, et al. ‘What Is a Minor Literature?’ ''Mississippi Review'', vol. 11, no. 3, 1983, pp. 13–33. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/20133921</nowiki>.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. ''Kafka Toward a Minor Literature''. First Edition, vol. 30, Univ Of Minnesota Press, 1986. ''Amazon'', <nowiki>https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Kafka-Toward-a-Minor-Literature-by-Gilles-Deleuze-Felix-Guattari-z-lib.org_.pdf</nowiki>.

Demos, T. J. ''Radical Futurisms: Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come''. Sternberg Press, 2023.

Haraway, Donna J. ‘SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far’. ''Science Fiction''.

McPherson, Tara. ‘U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century: The Intertwining of Race and UNIX’. ''Race After the Internet'', Routledge, 2011.

Montfort, Nick. ''The Future''. The MIT Press, 2017.

Shaw, John K., and Theo Reeves-Evison. ''Fiction as Method''.

Stengers, Isabelle. ''In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism''. Open Humanites Press, 2015. ''www.openhumanitiespress.org'', <nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. ''Afterword: Worlding Refrains'', Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 339–54. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047-017</nowiki>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. ''The Affect Theory Reader'', Duke University Press, 2010. ''www.degruyter.com'', <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393047</nowiki>.

''The Fourth Meaning of the Image: Flusser’s Invitation to Envision the World | Flusser Studies''. <nowiki>https://www.flusserstudies.net/node/794</nowiki>. Accessed 13 June 2023.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T08:22:06Z

Teodora sinziana: /* The Emergence of Practices of Worlding */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Minor Worlds =
A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices

'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and media, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges facilitated by interfaces and data flows. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces. Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University and a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.

'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, minor worlds, container model

'''Abstract:'''

llllll

== Intoduction ==
The contours of a techno-artistic practice concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary new media art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the master narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse a totalising view of the megastructure of the capitalistic imaginary and instead zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of algorithms, they teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, “where unexpected alliances emerge from the debris of what has passed” (Tsing).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate an initial cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent, algorithmically-driven artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics of worlding by situating it as a form of resistance that critiques the present through its algorithmical conjuring of a radically different mode of existence from the techno-scientific rational imaginary of late capitalism - one that, I argue here, also proposes a new aesthetic framework rooted in the procedural and generative affordances of computation and the complex networked relations that it produces. Looking through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace an emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and master narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of software within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they cultivate and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek and Larry Achiampong will be proposed as objects of analysis for the ways in which worlding at once becomes operative as a form of critique and activates a process critical ‘future-making’ as defined by Montfort (13), where potent acts of imagining the future have the potential to feed into its materialisation.

== The Emergence of Practices of Worlding ==

Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of capitalism, of Planet Earth, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems almost out of grasp. William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’ describes the fraught present condition with surprising accuracy:

"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. " (200)

Gibson makes reference here to the near-impossibility of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. This statement can be applied to our own contemporary context, where asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a possible future.

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from our those dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

The world-experiments that emerge from these algorithmic worlding processes constitute hybrid assemblages of simulated spaces, fictive narratives, imagined entities and networked entanglements. Positioning themselves as counter-mythologies to the crises and anxieties of our current Anthropocentric moment, the speculative futures proposed by these worlds are inviting collective participation in acts of envisioning.

So.. what comes after the end of the world? Or, better phrased, what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fisher notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, has become a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective experience that become modes of being otherwise through the generative and procedural affordances of software. The etymological choice of the term “worlding” reflects the of flux of software processes through its denotation of an active process - the turning the noun ‘world’ into the verb ‘worlding’ becomes evocative of a process in a constant state of becoming - the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses its energetic aliveness and suggests the existence of a process that is in constant flux.

This attention to the processual and relational quality of worlding emerges from Harways proclamation that ‘the world is a verb, or at least a gerund; worlding is the dynamics of intra-action (Karen Barad’s word from Meeting the Universe Halfway) and intra-patience, the giving and receiving of patterning, all the way down, with consequences for who lives and who dies and how.’ For Haraway, therefore, worlding becomes a practice of collective relationality, between world-maker and world-dwellers, as well as a networked process of exchange rooted in practices of care. Haraway, therefore, situated worlding within a social context and hints its potential to critique the present and engage in powerful re-formulations of the fraught narratives of the past.

To provide a tentative definition of worlding as it is understood within resistant practices underscored by computation, I’d like to draw from a the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, who begins by first defining a world as “a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction” and then formulates the definition of worlding as “the art of devising a World: by choosing its dysfunctional present, maintaining its habitable past, aiming at its transformative future, and ultimately, letting it outlive your authorial control” - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also, as Haraway acknowledges, highlights the transformative potential of speculative narratives. He also refuses to ascribe any particular form, medium or technology as an ideal way of model of worlding - rather, discreetly and explicitly, without directly mentioning software, Cheng’s definition evokes the agency inherent in intelligent and generative software systems, where the question of authorship becomes a disputed territory between the human and more-than-human - in Cheng’s case, this refers to artificially intelligent systems such as ‘BOB(Bag of Beliefs)’ (2018-2019), a project where Cheng experimented with algorithmically scripting the possibility for BOB, an artificial lifeform, to self-legislate its feelings of being upset caused by repeated mismatches between its beliefs and reality - arguing that the capacity to achieve a state of cognitive upset and to act upon it is a strong marker of consciousness, Cheng experimented with scripting agency into BOB through its quest for updating its beliefs and matching them to what it perceived to be its reality.

As such, Cheng proposes worlding as a practice that is profoundly concerned with an understanding of reality, as evidenced in one of his most extensive projects. In the same line of thinking, Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the instrumentalization of fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there’ (7). In this sense, fiction is understood as a self-reflexive process where the complex underlying mechanisms of fiction become referential to its mode of existence. Following this line of thought, one may ask, what would the symbolic centre of worlding look like?

Beyond defining worlding as a practice that makes use of algorithmic processes to envision a simulation of a world, I want to address here the open-ended nature of the possible formats through which the process of worlding, or a world instance, can be encountered: whilst many worlding experiments initially unfold as immersive game spaces or, machinima (“animated filmmaking within a virtual 3D environment” (Marino 1)), many of these worlds frequently generate supplementary, satellite artefacts that their algorithmic means of production further allow, manifesting, for example, as networked interactive installations or physical renditions of born-digital artefacts (such as sensor-based systems or sculptural 3D printed objects), as seen in the work of Keiken or Sahej Rahal; they may also feature intelligent systems and agents, such as Ian Cheng’s implementation of AI in ‘BOB (Bag of Beliefs)’, or even employ AI as a the main generative methodology, as demonstrated in Sutela’s sonic explorations of alien languages. Consequently, it seems that we are in need an open-ended definition for the kinds of mediated forms that can constitute or reference worlds - from gamespace environments to sonic resonances or interactive assemblages, the common denominator of all these artefacts does not lie in their media specificity but rather their software ontology. I propose, therefore, that the symbolic centre of worlding, as understood within the context of contemporary techno-artistic practices, is software, and more precisely, that centre takes a form, albeit abstract: the network. As Tara McPherson suggests “computers are themselves encoders of culture” (36) structuring not only representations but also epistemologies. What kind of knowledges become encoded in these emergent software worlds?

== Envisioning Networks ==
Another vector through which the exploration of the multifarious networked core of worlding can be theoretically approached emerges from Anna Munster’s theorising of network anaesthesia - in her discussion of networks, she calls for heightened reflective and analytical engagement with what she calls “the patchiness of the network field” (2), or the uneven and relational connections at play within the conceptualisation of a network. Munster further proposes the concept of a network anaesthesia as a sort of state of complacency that our consciousness tends to slide in, where our attention is being engulfed by the perceived infinity and intricacy of the scales of overlapping connections - this sensorial overload ultimately acts as a veil, cloaking the multiplicity and unevenness that marks the specific relationality of a network. In order to attempt to engage with a networked system, Munster proposes that:<blockquote>“We need to immerse ourselves in the particularities of network forces and the ways in which these give rise to the form and deformation of conjunctions— the closures and openings of relations to one another. It is at this level of imperceptible flux— of things unforming and reforming relationally— that we discover the real experience of networks. This relationality is unbelievably complex, and we at least glimpse complexity in the topological network visualisation.” (3)</blockquote>For Munster, therefore, the structuring of relation and their interconnectedness is paramount to any attempt at understanding the essence of a networked artefact or systems. This perspective on networked assemblages opens up a potent line of flight for the conceptualisation of algorithmic worlding as a process - if the centre of this practice is a network, that can in itself sustain and operate a world with several possible mediatized outputs of varying degrees of complexity, interlinked in a constant state of flux to one another, then any attempt to understand such a world the processes through which relations open and close and the states of flux that they enable in order to begin analysing these worlds. Engagement with algorithmic worlds, therefore, moves from the perceptual into the diagrammatic,

I’d like to touch on the working definition provided by Ian Cheng, which claims that “A World is a reality you can believe in: one that promises to bring about habitable structure from the potential of chaos, and aim toward a future transformative enough to metabolise the pain and pleasure of its dysfunction.” (n.p.) - here, Cheng acknowledges the inherent complexity of worlding as a praxis that not only posits the challenge of thinking beyond contemporary systems of restraint, but also

- rather than a literary practice, it enters into a more-than-human collaboration with algorithmic technologies in order to envision, rather than write, possible worlds. Envisioning, therefore, becomes a core approach within the process of worlding, where an instance of a world materialises procedurally, emerging as a volumetric or relational assemblage. This assertion is anchored in the politics of technical images outlined by Flusser, who claims that these are ‘symptoms of chemical or electronic processes’ - similarly, the products of worlding, whether they take the form of immersive gamespaces, alien languages or interactive physical assemblages, become materialised through the procedurality of their underlying algorithm.

Flusser situates ‘envisioning’ as an explicit power of technical images, specifically in the context of computational technologies, by asserting that it encapsulates what he perceived to be an ability to unleash new powers of invention. He saw the immersive and affective potential of film or television as only a premonition to the possibilities to come from the merging of the procedural with the visual:

“The photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (37)

Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves beyond visuality and into relationality, whilst also recognising the abilities of computation for envisioning possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. Flusser devised three meanings for images: as suspended perception (cavern painting), contribution to history (painting) or method for programming behaviour (television) and speculatively anchored a possible fourth meaning in this capacity for “envisioning”, foregrounding the network as the catalyst for the elevation of the image within this fourth sphere. Similarly to technical images, synthetic worlds are rooted in digital code and networked operations - whilst they present a certain visuality, this is inherently

Flusser hoped that a transition from linearity to a networked mode of existence would ‘make it possible to take the political, economical, and social ‘powers’ out of commission’, echoing the previous calls for a method of critical practice that not only operates with multiplicity at its core, but also has political agency and poses a threat to the capitalist machine.

Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the role of the artist within this context, who takes on the role of an ‘envisioner’ and stands ‘at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete’ (38) - I contend that here, Flusser contemplates what is to become enabled through emerging technologies such as game engines: Flusser foresees here certain practices that underscore the process of worlding, such as the ordering of chaos into logic - when a world is algorithmically conjured a speculative worldbuilding process takes shape that requires the author to have a “capacity to step from the particle universe back into the concrete”.

Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

I argue here that, through this fourth definition of the technical image as envisioning, Flusser foresees to the algorithmic conjuring of a world, where the

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T07:10:23Z

Teodora sinziana: /* Envisioning Networks */

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T07:09:10Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T07:06:55Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T07:05:02Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T06:46:24Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T06:46:02Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T06:45:17Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T06:27:04Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T06:26:39Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T04:27:31Z

Teodora sinziana:

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T04:26:57Z

Teodora sinziana: /* The Emergence of Minor Worlds */

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-13T04:25:46Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= The Emergence of Minor Worlds =
A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices
'''Author:''' Teodora Sinziana Fartan

'''Bio:'''

Teodora Sinziana Fartan (b. 1995) is a researcher, computational artist and writer based in London, UK. Her research-artistic practice explores the new spaces of possibility opened up by collaborations between software and media, with a particular focus on the new modes of relational and affective experience rendered into being by the networked data exchanges facilitated by interfaces and algorithmic flows. Driven by speculative storytelling, Teodora’s practice explores the immersive, interactive and intelligent more-than-human entanglements taking shape within algorithmically-mediated spaces.

Teodora is currently a PhD Researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University, as well as a Lecturer at the University of the Arts London.
'''Keywords:''' worlding, algorithmic storytelling, critical rendering, container model, envisioning, minor worlds

Abstract

== Introduction ==
The contours of an emergent techno-artistic practice that is concerned with the critical intersection of software and speculative storytelling are becoming visible within the landscape of contemporary new media art: in the midst of late techno-capitalism, artists are dislodging existing hi-tech systems and platforms from their conventional roles and repurposing them as technologies of possibility that seek to de-center the master narratives of the Western imagination. Practices of worlding materialise, therefore, as portals into fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned; they refuse a totalising view of the megastructure of the capitalistic imaginary and instead zoom in onto the cracks appearing along its edges, where other narrative possibilities are starting to sprout and multiply. Through the evocative affordances of algorithms, they teleport us forwards, amidst the ruins of the Anthropocene, “where unexpected alliances emerge from the debris of what has passed” (Tsing).

In what follows, I aim to at once activate a cartography of ‘worlding’ as an emergent, algorithmically-driven artistic praxis and propose a tentative politics of worlding by situating it as a practice of resistance that critiques the present through the conjuring of a radically different mode of existence from the techno-scientific rational imaginary of late capitalism - one that, I argue here, also proposes a new aesthetic mode rooted in the procedural and generative affordance of computation and the complex relations that it enables. Looking through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptualisation of a minor literature, we can trace an emergence of minor worlds as potent and powerful assemblages countering the majority worlds enabled by capitalist platforms and master narratives - what can these minor worlds reveal about more-than-human collaborations and the critical role of technology within speculative practices? How do they become operative as instruments for decentering the master narratives of our present ? What alternative knowledges do they cultivate and what potentialities are opened up for encountering these?

Throughout this paper, the worlds conjured by artists such as Ian Cheng, Sahej Rahal, Jena Sutela, Lawrence Lek, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley and Larry Achiampong will constitute objects of analysis for how worlding at once becomes operative as a form of critique and activates a process critical ‘future-making’ as defined by Montfort (13), where acts of imagining the future have the potential to feed into its materialisation.

== On Worlding as Algorithmically-mediated Practice ==
Today, there seems to be a widespread view that we are living at the end - of liberalism, of capitalism, of Planet Earth, of civilization; engulfed in the throes of late capitalism, conjuring a possible alternative seems almost out of grasp. To reference the fraught mode of existence of our present, I’ll draw on William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’:<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>Gibson refers here to the difficulty of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. Similarly to today, asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change deeply complicate our ability to think of a future.

So, what comes after the end of the world? Or what can exist outside the scaffolding of the world as we know it, dominated by asymmetric power structures, infused with injustice, surveilled by ubiquitous algorithms and continuously subjected to extractive practices? As Mark Fischer notes when claiming that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than that of capitalism” (1), casting one’s imagination into a future that refuses the master narratives of capitalism is no easy feat. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, becomes a difficult exercise.

Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective exploration of modes of being otherwise. As Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing fiction as practice: ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there.’ (7). Thinking speculatively with algorithmic renderings, can, therefore, allow us to think beyond the master narratives of the present and envision the possibilities that lay there in affectively-charged ways.

Moreover, in the wake of the Anthropocene, feminist critical theory has long called for experiments in imagining modes of being otherwise - from Stenger’s bid to cultivate “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining and thinking” (24), to Palmer’s vision of abandoning “habitual temporalities and modes of being”() in favour of radical speculation, Haraway’s request for authorial attention to “what worlds world worlds” () or LeGuin’s plea for a search for the ‘other story’, an alternative to the linear, cyclical narratives recirculated perpetually within the history of narrative, we can trace the emergence of a collective utterance, an incantation resonating across feminist epistemologies that foregrounds contemporary experiments in thinking otherwise.

Particularly, in the case of worlding, imagining otherwise takes shape within a more-than-human entanglement with technologies that are capable of procedurally rendering a simulation or a glimpse into an alternative mode of being. Worlding makes use of algorithmical processes and tools such as game engine technologies or machine intelligence to envision a radically different mode of existence from that dictated by the cultural narratives of capitalism - through the decentering of the master narratives of our present, practices of worlding draw on alternative sources of knowledge in order to speculatively engage with the uneven landscape of the future, its multiplicities and many textures and viscosities.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T09:09:17Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding to illustrate a practice engaged with the computational envisioning of speculative alternatives, by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==

The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. To reference the fraught mode of existence of our present, I’ll draw on William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’:<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>Gibson refers here to the difficulty of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. Today, asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change complicate our ability to think of a future - I’ll further argue here that it specifically complicates our ability to think of a future within the current parameters that the world operates in. As Mark Fisher states, ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, becomes a difficult exercise. Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective exploration of modes of being otherwise. As Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the nature of fiction, ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there.’ (7). Thinking speculatively with algorithmic renderings, can, therefore, allow us to think beyond the master narratives of the present and envision the possibilities that lay there in affectively-charged ways.

I propose here that envisioning worlds through the affordances algorithms is an exploration of ‘the seeds of the people to come’ (Deleuze 221). Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari first outline the concept of the minor in relation to literature in their book Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1986), however this framework can be further applied to other modes of expression. In Cinema 2, Deleuze proposes the idea of envisioning a future through moving image: ‘Art, and especially cinematographic art, must take part in this task: not that of addressing a people, which is presupposed as already there, but of contributing to the invention of a people.’ (Deleuze 217).

The concept of a minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word ‘minor’, rather than suggesting a sense of the small, signals ‘the becoming-minor of a major language’ - Deleuze does not base a minority on identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but ‘to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to’ (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

In their analysis of Kafka, Deleuze and Guattari highlight the transformative power of literature by way of affective resonance. When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge dominant narratives and ideologies - minor worlds represent a rupture within the ordinary regime of the present through their undoing and reassembling of the operative logic for reality. Minor practices provide ‘the means for another consciousness and another sensibility’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 17).

By engaging in the practice of worlding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. The creation of alternative spaces where marginalised voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge becomes possible. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalised. In this sense, the practice of worlding becomes a form of speculative inquiry, enabling us to explore diverse perspectives, examine potential consequences, and imagine different trajectories for our world. It encourages us to think beyond the limitations of the present and envision futures that are more just, inclusive, and sustainable.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasises the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

When viewed through Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, worlding emerges as a political practice. It allows artists to challenge dominant structures, amplify marginalised voices, and imagine alternative realities. By engaging in practice of worlding, artists can disrupt hegemonic narratives and reconfigure power dynamics. Through the affordance of world instances, they can prompt critical reflection, inspire collective action, and contribute to the ongoing struggles for social, cultural, and environmental justice. Worlding, in its political dimension, offers the potential for transformative change and the construction of more inclusive and equitable worlds.

Worlding can, therefore, constitute a minor practice in relation to the majority (or master) structures and narratives that perpetuate inequality, injustice, and oppression - its harnessing of algorithmic technologies can provide a fertile ground to explore modes of being otherwise. Through the creation of immersive and interactive experiences, artists can engage audiences in critical reflections on power dynamics, social hierarchies, and the construction of identity.Moreover, worlding as a political act aligns with the principles of minor literature in terms of its transformative potential. It invites us to challenge dominant modes of representation, question established boundaries, and imagine new possibilities. By constructing alternative worlds, artists inspire audiences to envision different social, cultural, and political realities, fostering a sense of hope and agency in the face of oppressive structures. Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures.

Through the use of computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling and embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity. In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalised voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalised to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

By integrating Ursula Le Guin's container model of storytelling, Anna Tsing's theory of scale and Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a minor literature, this paper sought to explore the synergistic potential of these frameworks within the context of worlding by setting up an initial research agenda for situating worlding ontologically and politically. Moreover, the transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, the inherently political nature of this artistic practice is recognised. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalised, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation through inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards ways of being and knowing otherwise, through a re-purposing of the majority of computational and algorithmic tools surrounding us today into a minor language, able to render affective world instances.

== References: ==
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Burrows, David, and Simon O’Sullivan. Fictioning: The Myth-Functions of Contemporary Art and Philosophy. Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Print.

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Carpenter, Zoë. ‘Ursula Le Guin Has Stopped Writing Fiction—but We Need Her More Than Ever’. 5 Oct. 2016. www.thenation.com. Web. 29 May 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ursula-le-guin-has-stopped-writing-fiction-but-we-need-her-more-than-ever/</nowiki>>.

Cheng, Ian et al. Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding. 1st ed. London: Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018. Web. <<nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>>.

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Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Print. Experimental Futures: Technological Lives, Scientific Arts, Anthropological Voices.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. 1st edition. Malden (Mass.): Wiley-Blackwell, 1978. Print.

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Jameson, Fredric. ‘Progress versus Utopia; Or, Can We Imagine the Future? (Progrès Contre Utopie, Ou: Pouvons-Nous Imaginer l’avenir)’. Science Fiction Studies 9.2 (1982): 147–158. JSTOR. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/4239476</nowiki>>.

Kavey, Allison B. ‘Introduction: “Think You There Was, or Ever Could Be” a World Such as This I Dreamed’. World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination. Ed. Allison B. Kavey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010. 1–4. Springer Link. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230113138_1</nowiki>>.

Kavey, Allison. ed. World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010. DOI.org (Crossref). Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230113138</nowiki>>.

Palmer, Helen, and Vicky Hunter. 2018. “Worlding”. New Materialism – How Matter Comes to Matter, 16 March. <nowiki>https://newmaterialism.eu/almanac/w/worlding.htmlScavo</nowiki>, Nick. ‘Against Worldbuilding’. Tiny Mix Tapes. (2018) Web. 1 May 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2018-against-worldbuilding</nowiki>>.

Shaw, John K, and Theo Reeves-Evison. Fiction as Method. 2017. Sternberg Press. Print.

Haraway, Donna. ‘Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature’. 1991. Routledge & CRC Press. Web. 1 June 2023.

<<nowiki>https://www.routledge.com/Simians-Cyborgs-and-Women-The-Reinvention-of-Nature/Haraway/p/book/9780415903875</nowiki>>.

Singh, R Raj. ‘Heidegger and the World in an Artwork’. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (2023): n. pag. Print.

Stengers, Isabelle. In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism. Open Humanities Press, 2015. www.openhumanitiespress.org. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/in-catastrophic-times/</nowiki>>.

Stewart, Kathleen. ‘Afterword: Worlding Refrains’. Afterword: Worlding Refrains. Duke University Press, 2010. 339–354. www.degruyter.com. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822393047-017/html?lang=en</nowiki>>.

Suvin, Darko. ‘On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre’. College English 34.3 (1972): 372–382. JSTOR. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/375141</nowiki>>.

‘The Affect Theory Reader’. The Affect Theory Reader. Duke University Press, 2010. www.degruyter.com. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822393047/html</nowiki>>.

‘Utopias in Unlikely Places: Literary Utopias, Race, and World-Building in the Present - ProQuest’. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.proquest.com/openview/a132f3e2bd38522b206ee173fbec4038/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y</nowiki>>.

Watts, Michael. "The Central Ideas in Being and Time." The Philosophy of Heidegger. Acumen, 2011. 39-80. Print. Continental European Philosophy.

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Willis, Anne-Marie. ‘Ontological Designing’. Design Philosophy Papers 4.2 (2006): 69–92. DOI.org (Crossref). Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.2752/144871306X13966268131514</nowiki>>.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T08:21:27Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding to illustrate a practice engaged with the computational envisioning of speculative alternatives, by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==
The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. To reference the fraught mode of existence of our present, I’ll draw on William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’:<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>Gibson refers here to the difficulty of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. Today, asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change complicate our ability to think of a future - I’ll further argue here that it specifically complicates our ability to think of a future within the current parameters that the world operates in. As Mark Fisher stated ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, becomes a difficult exercise. Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective exploration of modes of being otherwise. As Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the nature of fiction, ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there.’ (7). Thinking speculatively with algorithmic renderings, can, therefore, allow us to think beyond the master narratives of the present and envision the possibilities that lay there in affectively-charged ways.

I propose here that envisioning worlds through the affordances algorithms is an exploration of ‘the seeds of the people to come’ (Deleuze 221). Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari first outline the concept of the minor in relation to literature in their book Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1986), however this framework can be further applied to other modes of expression. In Cinema 2, Deleuze proposes the idea of envisioning a future through moving image: ‘Art, and especially cinematographic art, must take part in this task: not that of addressing a people, which is presupposed as already there, but of contributing to the invention of a people.’ (Deleuze 217).

The concept of a minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalised and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation. The use of the word ‘minor’, rather than suggesting a sense of the small, signals “the becoming-minor of a major language” - Deleuze does not base a minority on identity or size (a minority is not envisioned as being smaller, as the naming suggests), but “to do with a model – the major – that it refuses, departs from or, more simply, cannot live up to” (Burrows and O’Sullivan, 19).

When applied to practices of worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worlding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. The creation of alternative spaces where marginalised voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge becomes possible. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalised.

When applied to worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists and creators in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. They create spaces where marginalized voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalized.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures. By utilizing computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling. They embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity.

In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalized voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalized to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

The transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, we recognize the inherently political nature of this artistic practice. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalized, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation.

In summary, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms embodies the spirit of minor literature, as described by Deleuze and Guattari. It enables artists to transcend traditional boundaries, reimagine narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging in worldbuilding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to create immersive and transformative experiences that challenge dominant ideologies and empower the marginalized. Worlding becomes a political act of resistance, inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and envision new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards a more inclusive, just, and equitable future.

== References: ==
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Burrows, David, and Simon O’Sullivan. Fictioning: The Myth-Functions of Contemporary Art and Philosophy. Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Print.

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Cheng, Ian et al. Ian Cheng: Emissary’s Guide to Worlding. 1st ed. London: Koenig Books and Serpentine Galleries, 2018. Web. <<nowiki>https://shop.serpentinegalleries.org/products/coming-soon-ian-cheng-emissaries-guide-to-worlding</nowiki>>.

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Jameson, Fredric. ‘Progress versus Utopia; Or, Can We Imagine the Future? (Progrès Contre Utopie, Ou: Pouvons-Nous Imaginer l’avenir)’. Science Fiction Studies 9.2 (1982): 147–158. JSTOR. Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.jstor.org/stable/4239476</nowiki>>.

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Kavey, Allison. ed. World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010. DOI.org (Crossref). Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230113138</nowiki>>.

Palmer, Helen, and Vicky Hunter. 2018. “Worlding”. New Materialism – How Matter Comes to Matter, 16 March. <nowiki>https://newmaterialism.eu/almanac/w/worlding.htmlScavo</nowiki>, Nick. ‘Against Worldbuilding’. Tiny Mix Tapes. (2018) Web. 1 May 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2018-against-worldbuilding</nowiki>>.

Shaw, John K, and Theo Reeves-Evison. Fiction as Method. 2017. Sternberg Press. Print.

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T08:13:10Z

Teodora sinziana: /* IV. Versions and Visions */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding to illustrate a practice engaged with the computational envisioning of speculative alternatives, by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==
The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. To reference the fraught mode of existence of our present, I’ll draw on William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’:<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>Gibson refers here to the difficulty of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. Today, asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change complicate our ability to think of a future - I’ll further argue here that it specifically complicates our ability to think of a future within the current parameters that the world operates in. As Mark Fisher stated ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, becomes a difficult exercise. Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective exploration of modes of being otherwise. As Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the nature of fiction, ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there.’ (7). Thinking speculatively with algorithmic renderings, can, therefore, allow us to think beyond the master narratives of the present and envision the possibilities that lay there in affectively-charged ways.

I propose here that envisioning worlds through the affordances algorithms is an exploration of ‘the seeds of the people to come’ (Deleuze 221). Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari first outline the concept of the minor in relation to literature in their book Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1986), however this concept of “minor” can be further applied to other modes of expression. In Cinema 2, Deleuze proposes the idea of envisioning a future through moving image: ‘Art, and especially cinematographic art, must take part in this task: not that of addressing a people, which is presupposed as already there, but of contributing to the invention of a people.’ (Deleuze 217).

Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalized and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation.

When applied to worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists and creators in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. They create spaces where marginalized voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalized.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures. By utilizing computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling. They embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity.

In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalized voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalized to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

The transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, we recognize the inherently political nature of this artistic practice. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalized, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation.

In summary, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms embodies the spirit of minor literature, as described by Deleuze and Guattari. It enables artists to transcend traditional boundaries, reimagine narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging in worldbuilding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to create immersive and transformative experiences that challenge dominant ideologies and empower the marginalized. Worlding becomes a political act of resistance, inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and envision new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards a more inclusive, just, and equitable future.

== References: ==
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Kavey, Allison. ed. World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010. DOI.org (Crossref). Web. 4 June 2023. <<nowiki>http://link.springer.com/10.1057/9780230113138</nowiki>>.

Palmer, Helen, and Vicky Hunter. 2018. “Worlding”. New Materialism – How Matter Comes to Matter, 16 March. <nowiki>https://newmaterialism.eu/almanac/w/worlding.htmlScavo</nowiki>, Nick. ‘Against Worldbuilding’. Tiny Mix Tapes. (2018) Web. 1 May 2023. <<nowiki>https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2018-against-worldbuilding</nowiki>>.

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T07:48:39Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding to illustrate a practice engaged with the computational envisioning of speculative alternatives, by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==
The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. To reference the fraught mode of existence of our present, I’ll draw on William Gibson’s statement from ‘Pattern Recognition’:<blockquote>"We have no idea of who or what the inhabitants of our future might be. In that sense, we have no future. Not in the sense that our parents had a future, or thought they did. For us things can change so abruptly, so violently, so profoundly, that futures have insufficient 'now' to stand on. We have no future because our present is too volatile ... We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..." (200)</blockquote>Gibson refers here to the difficulty of imagining a future in a present that is marred by ecological, political and social unrest. Today, asymmetrical power structures, surveillance capitalism and the threat of climate change complicate our ability to think of a future - I’ll further argue here that it specifically complicates our ability to think of a future within the current parameters that the world operates in. As Mark Fisher stated: ‘it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism’. To think outside ourselves, towards possible future alternatives, becomes a difficult exercise. Worlding attempts to intervene precisely at this point and open up new formats of relational and affective exploration of modes of being otherwise. As Shaws and Reeves-Evison propose when addressing the nature of fiction, ‘far from being an escape from the world, fiction takes us to its symbolic centre and might allow us to establish some leverage within the tangled contingencies and hidden conventions that lie there.’ (7). Thinking speculatively, can, therefore, allow us to think beyond the master narratives of the present and envision the possibilities that lay there in affectively-charged ways.

Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalized and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation.

When applied to worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists and creators in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. They create spaces where marginalized voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalized.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures. By utilizing computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling. They embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity.

In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalized voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalized to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

The transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, we recognize the inherently political nature of this artistic practice. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalized, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation.

In summary, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms embodies the spirit of minor literature, as described by Deleuze and Guattari. It enables artists to transcend traditional boundaries, reimagine narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging in worldbuilding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to create immersive and transformative experiences that challenge dominant ideologies and empower the marginalized. Worlding becomes a political act of resistance, inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and envision new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards a more inclusive, just, and equitable future.

== References: ==
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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T07:42:21Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding to illustrate a practice engaged with the computational envisioning of speculative alternatives, by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==
The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalized and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation.

When applied to worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists and creators in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. They create spaces where marginalized voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalized.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures. By utilizing computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling. They embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity.

In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalized voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalized to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

The transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, we recognize the inherently political nature of this artistic practice. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalized, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation.

In summary, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms embodies the spirit of minor literature, as described by Deleuze and Guattari. It enables artists to transcend traditional boundaries, reimagine narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging in worldbuilding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to create immersive and transformative experiences that challenge dominant ideologies and empower the marginalized. Worlding becomes a political act of resistance, inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and envision new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards a more inclusive, just, and equitable future.

References:

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Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T07:23:38Z

Teodora sinziana:

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding to illustrate a practice engaged with the computational envisioning of speculative alternatives, by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==
The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalized and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation.

When applied to worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists and creators in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. They create spaces where marginalized voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalized.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures. By utilizing computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling. They embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity.

In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalized voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalized to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

The transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, we recognize the inherently political nature of this artistic practice. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalized, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation.

In summary, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms embodies the spirit of minor literature, as described by Deleuze and Guattari. It enables artists to transcend traditional boundaries, reimagine narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging in worldbuilding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to create immersive and transformative experiences that challenge dominant ideologies and empower the marginalized. Worlding becomes a political act of resistance, inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and envision new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards a more inclusive, just, and equitable future.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T07:22:10Z

Teodora sinziana: /* Rendering Worlds */

[[Category:Toward a Minor Tech]]
[[Category:5000 words]]

= Rendering Worlds =
'''A Research Agenda for the Cartographing of Computational Worlding Practices'''

Author: Teodora Sinziana Fartan

Keywords: worlding, algorithmic storytelling, container model, virtual elsewheres, critical rendering

== Abstract: ==
This paper formulates a strategic activation of the artistic practice worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. Through the situating of worlding as a practice engaged with the contemporary networked condition and its integration with LeGuin’s container model, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a ‘minor literature’ and Anna Tsing's theory of scale, an investigation into the multidisciplinary theoretical underpinnings of worlding practices is launched, with particular attention to how of the affordances of software can challenge dominant narratives and offer alternative scales of engagement. By exploring the intersections of these frameworks and their implications, an initial mapping of how worlding operates as a multi-faceted, critical and anti-colonial storytelling practice is envisioned.

== I. Introduction ==
<blockquote>''Imagine an empty grid. A flicker. One single coloured pixel appears. Bytes are stirring. Imagine more and more pixels blinking to life, filling the plane, melting into arrays. A three dimensional mesh emerges, amorphous. A raw scaffold. In an electrically-charged, networked order of here and there, affection makes way where vision cannot. Inputs call out to outputs; data streams flow in the two-way traffic of the interface. So long as the algorithm is processing, an Elsewhere opens.''</blockquote>

What does it mean to ‘world’ an instance of a world? To think it, to carefully plot it out, then render it alive and, finally, entangled in its web of relations, feel it through the affordances of its interfaces? What kind of entanglements of practices, philosophies and technologies need to be activated in order to conjure such complex imaginaries, where new scales of engagement operate? The possible answers to these questions will most likely be, themselves, intricate webs of philosophies, practices and techniques, bound together by mystical energy - this paper, therefore, sets out to formulate a research agenda for the exploration of such answers, aiming to situate worlding as a complex artistic practice traversing storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked exchanges, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking. By opening up such a process of mapping, this text aims to activate the term ‘worlding’ within the context of the computational affordances involved in the immersive, relational and affective rendering of a world instance.

Algorithmic renderings of possible worlds are increasingly emerging today as a critical storytelling practice concerned with the conjuring of portals into virtual elsewheres: fictional terrains where alternative modes of being and knowing are envisioned. Materialising through the data exchanges of networked algorithmic structures, these speculative imaginaries enmesh new possibilities for agency and embodiment within the inexhaustible capacity of the virtual. This paper formulates a strategic activation of the term worlding by setting up a research agenda to map its open-ended entanglements of practices and processes spanning storytelling, computational code, fiction, data flows, networked processes, virtual architectures, mysticism and ecological thinking.

This is, therefore, a study of “what worlds make worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki>, as Haraway puts it (12), of what new imaginative ontologies become possible on the shores of virtual terrains. What kind of seeds grow into virtual cosmologies, and how?

This paper argues that technological scale sets ideal conditions for the emergence of computational life worlds, enabling these ontological experiments to exist as immersive continuums of data exchanges through their real-time processes. Moreover, it contends that these critical renderings of speculative virtual imaginaries are increasingly emerging today as a form of collective utterance, a minority language that responds to the current states of emergency that we find ourselves in socially, politically, ecologically and technologically. This recent crystallisation of worlding as an immersive, experiential storytelling practice situates itself within the political context of resistance through its yearning for modes of being-otherwise that seek, as Stengers urges us, to imagine “connections with new powers of acting, feeling, imagining, and thinking” (24) and then prototype, develop and render these into being.

A question, therefore emerges: how can we position and conceptualise these novel modes of expression that operate within the scales of virtual spaces and their underlying networks of exchange? How can practices of worlding enable us to abandon “habitual temporalities and modes of being”, as Helen Palmer puts it, and think beyond ourselves, speculatively, towards possible futures and fictions?

== II. On Worlding ==
Before we move any further into this exploration, the contested nature of the term ‘worlding’ needs to be addressed - both ‘worlding’ and its close etymological relative ‘worldbuilding’ surface within different (and often disparate) academic disciplines, contexts and practices. Particularly the latter, a highly prevalent term within fantasy fiction, games design and creative writing disciplines, tends to revolve around exhaustive how-to approaches to constructing a fantastical universe, that often view the structuring of a world as a process of conquering, as LeGuin agrees (7).

‘Worldbuilding’, in its current mode of existence, often refers to an extensive authorial process that aims to ascribe reasoning to all aspects of a fictional world, in order to increase the audience’s sense of perceived realism; it often follows the belief that when a fictional world is perfectly conceptualised, the audience should have no gaps left to fill in relation to its ontological structure. Darko Suvin emphasises the process of world-building as beginning with a “fictional (‘literary’) hypothesis and develop[ing] it with totalizing (‘scientific’) rigour” (6). This rigorous world-building is also central to the literary tradition of fantasy and science fiction, in which “an alternative society is described in totalizing detail” (Cuffman, 3). This cementation of a perspective focused on logical realism, has, in turn, resulted in the production of exhaustive lists, sets of questions and templates for an author to answer when devising a possible world, in order to clarify its context and improve its sense of realism - a never-leave-any-stone-unturned type of practice emerges here, which aims to encapsulate and quantify this process of fleshing out a world until it feels sufficiently ‘real’ to those coming into contact with it.

The complication I highlight here is that the definition of the ‘real’, as well as the mode to attain this perceived ‘realism’, becomes hinged on a particular perspective of totality and an accompanying set of specified methods, which often result in the generation of cookie-cutter patterns for thinking worlds through. Similarly to Virgina Woolf’s botulism that LeGuin draws on (2), a confined space of the imagination is starting to take shape, which steadily ferments a noxious narrative. A problematic practice, therefore, arises through the tendency to apply the rule-sets and protocols of this approach to worldbuilding to all fictional practices. Through its quantification of process and its attempt to establish master strategies for maximum realism, this generalised application of worldbuilding functions to produce “closed-network, rockstar-isms that separate forms that are otherwise matrixed, networked, open” (Scavo, 2). Whilst leaving little to nothing for a reader to envisage could hold some sort of practicality within various strands of fiction, it is also an approach that evades critical and imaginative engagement with a holistic, multi-faceted process of world-making. As Kenndey points out, “you can find any number of well-intended world-building guides which say, menacingly, something like ‘Always start with a map and a timeline’”(1), prefiguring a defined format to go about making a world: a correct pattern, a best practice, a guaranteed to succeed method - all chillingly reminiscent of LeGuin’s Ape Man, these protocols result into a master narrative of their own.

Furthermore, in the etymological sense, the compounding of the word ‘building’ onto that of ‘world’ serves to further complicate matters - ‘building’, which can also be understood as ‘forming’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘producing’, ‘erecting’ or ‘constructing’ carriers with it the traces of colonial and extractive practices of terraforming and industrialisation, which are put into practice through the attempt of streamlining and strategizing the fabrication of worlds; this circles back to LeGuin and the idea of a story as something “to conquer” (7), of an imaginative space as something to overcome, quantify, compartmentalise and then “build” according to a master plan. Moreover, this is darkly reminiscent of the role of worldbuilding played as a colonial strategy within early modernity, where “explorers and colonialists built their own worlds, using what ancient authors and Renaissance navigators had to say to invent new maps of very old worlds<nowiki>''</nowiki> (Kalvey, 3). Through their attempts to impose a world model over an existing reality, the practice of worldbuilding was heavily used within the colonialist struggle to ‘build’ new social orders - as Kalvey points out, “exploration and colonialism, both of which exploded during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are evidently related to world-building” (1), through their use cosmological imaginations as justifications for colonial practices.

Such a terminology, therefore, not only becomes politically problematic, but also constricts the practice of worldbuilding to an activity of assembling or compiling - this is an approach that is literally interpreted the context of video games and digital design, where the notion of worldbuilding is oftentimes directly interpreted as the labour of assembling digital objects into a more complex three-dimensional scene, and the world reduce to the visual or volumetric complexity of the backdrop.

But what of symbolic meanings and metaphors? What of the possibilities for the visitors of these worlds to infer, speculate or derive? What of the conceptual, philosophical, algorithmic processes that surround the building blocks of narrative and their presumed clarity? What of processes that, rather than aiming to impose, structure and uphold a master plan, are open-ended, matrixed and inclusive? Who chooses what a ‘complete’ world is, and to which extent does fiction need to be explained, or ‘built’ ?

I propose, therefore, to dispense with the prefix ‘building’ and its colonial legacy and suggest the use of the term ‘worlding’ instead for addressing those active processes of virtual speculation that are guided by fluidity, open-endedness and a principal focus on affective relations, embodiment and interactive affordances, rather than concentrating on full-scale, intensive, almost-industrialised processes of building a reality. ‘Worlding’, therefore, is put forward to situate those practices that come closer to LeGuin’s “strange realism” (9) than the mimicking of the megastructures that govern our own current reality.

The alternative term proposed, ‘worlding’ is not a novel concoction - initially established by Heidegger, ‘worlding’ was introduced to be illustrative of an ongoing ontological process - ‘world’ is turned into the active ‘worlding’, therefore making the transition from noun to verb, which in turn signals a move from passivity to activity, from world to an active process of world-making - as Watts affirms, “the ‘activity’ contained in the term ‘worlding’ expresses the energetic aliveness – the presencing of an environment that is a process in constant flux [...] The term “worlding” suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience”.

This verbification of a noun in order illustrate an etymological transition from a passive state to an active process is further reflected in contemporary theoretical thought by other practitioners exploring the domain of speculative possibility, such as O’Sullivan and Burroughs, who propose the transition from ‘fiction’ as noun to its verb form ‘fictioning’: “by using the term fiction as a verb we refer to the writing, imaging, performing or other material instantiation of worlds or social bodies that mark out trajectories different to those engendered by the dominant organisations of life currently in existence” (1) - we can therefore identify a shift of focus surrounding speculative realism, a strategic move towards emphasising open-ended, dynamic practices that exist in constant states of becoming.

Moreover, for Heidegger, ‘worlding’ is an open negotiation without a clear cut definition - there is no universal or fundamentally superior understanding of worlding, no master key or best practice for engaging in this process, but rather Heidegger acknowledges the open-ended nature of worlding and its multifarious character. Worlding “suggests that each environment in which we find ourselves simultaneously embraces, encapsulates and signifies our entire world of experience” (Watts) and therefore functions as an “opening of meaning” (Marx, 184); it is defined not by the specific assemblage of things, but rather by the relations existing between them, the world being understood as an “open relational context” (Singh, 217).

Furthermore, when situating the work of art, Heidegger relates this to a process of worlding, by claiming that a work of art “sets-up a world. The work holds open the open of the world”, (Heidegger, 29), therefore acknowledging the worlding possibilities of artistic experiences and artefacts, which are able to conjure possible realities with their own complex assemblages of sensations, perceptions and relations.

Since Heidegger’s analysis, the understanding of ‘worlding’ has been appropriated within many other theoretical contexts, such as to theorise colonised space (Spivak), to discuss women’s experiences of the international (Pettman) or to address the phenomenology of movement (Manning), to name a only very few examples from the term’s expansive repertoire of uses within the landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, the term ‘worlding’ exists within a rich web of theoretical contexts and its definitions, understandings and applications as a mode of thinking vary; perhaps this is illustrative in itself of its multifaceted character and open-ness - how many worlds can be held open at once? And how many ways of experiencing the world are there?

An argument can be made here that the term worlding’s myriad uses are reflective of its nature as open-ended process - within this constellation of meanings, however, a common thread remains in the sense of worlding always being approached as an active process, as dynamic entanglement of forces concerned with either a form of world-making or one of sense-making. I’d like to move now towards a clearer delineation for the first item on the research agenda mapped in this paper, which is an activation of the term ‘worlding’, particularly as it is understood within this paper’s own theoretical constellation, where it is intertwined with techno-artistic collaborations, computational processes and the affordance of virtual imaginaries. In doing so, I’ll circle back to Heidegger and the functioning of worlds as openings of meanings, in which we are fully encapsulated, and therefore propose that we think of virtual worlds in a similar fashion: as instances of worlds where, through the affordances of the virtual (that is, through interfaces, data flows and networked protocols), we are able to be immersed and embodied in ways that allow for perceptual entanglement with that particular world; as Kathleen Stewart puts it, worlding can be seen as “an attunement to a singular world’s texture and shine” (340), an ability to envision and attune into this space of possibility, to hold open a portal into this particular cosmology.

Worlding is approached here as an open practice, with particular attention Singh’s definition of world as a relational context - I contend that the fictive spaces of the virtual, coupled with the possibilities opened by algorithmic structures, allow for the formation of complex relational webs within virtual world instances and that this relational aspect needs to be foregrounded within the process of worlding an instance of a world. It is important to further note that complexity here does not refer to a totality of meaning or extent of representation of a world, but rather suggests an affective complexity, underscored by the relations at play within a virtual world.

Taking all this into account, I propose a definition for worlding as algorithmic practice - a definition intended to be fluid and expandable:<blockquote>Worlding is a sense-making exercise concerned with metabolising the chaos of possibility into new forms of order that communicate otherwise through relational structures. Worlding is the act of looking for the logic that threads a world together and then scripting that logic into a networked system of data flows that render it into being. To world with algorithms is to critically render instances of worlds where speculative alternatives to our fraught present materialise through the entanglements of immersive, interactive and intelligent technologies.</blockquote>One may wonder why the choice was made not to attach another prefix or an entire word to that of worlding: why not ‘algorithmic worlding’, ‘computational worlding’ or another term illustrative of technological mediation? To offer an explanation, I’ll need to turn towards our own world and the paradigm of our contemporary condition: the ubiquity of computational technologies. These processes necessary for worlding a virtual world (spanning software, data, interfaces, hardware, algorithms, rendered entities and virtual spaces) are explicitly embedded within the human condition today; we come into contact with them daily through our interactions with our increasingly computationally-mediated reality. To engage in worlding, therefore, is, as Damani puts it, to “invoke the core dilemma of the contemporary condition: how does one live a sovereign life when more and more of it is surveilled, constrained, and monetized through the instruments of asymmetrical power structures?” - to world, therefore, requires active engagement with the human condition as it takes shape enmeshed within platform capitalism, enclosed by algorithmic super structures. I argue that today, to world implicitly involves engaging with the computational structures that are so deeply rooted in our daily existence. As Haraway anticipates when welcoming the new worlds opened up by feminist science fiction in the 1970s and 1980s, their authors were “story-tellers exploring what it means to be embodied in high-tech worlds” (173).

== III. In Search of Virtual Elsewheres ==
Another vector through which the emergence of computer-mediated worlding can be traced is the notion of a virtual ‘elsewhere’ - as Berry, Kim and Spiegel theorise in their introduction to Electronic Elsewheres, “places are conjured up, experienced and produced through media” (Kim et. al., 8) - I contend here that algorithmic technologies give rise to a new typology of ‘elsewhere’ as virtual renderings of spatial relations, enabling new forms of liveness that move beyond the lively presence of television into embodiment and agency.

Virtual elsewheres, therefore, are conjured into being through acts of envisioning that are underscored by algorithmic apparatuses. As Flusser points out in his theorising of the envisioning power of technical images, computational technologies “unleashes a wholly unanticipated power of invention”: <blockquote>“Images appear as no one before could ever have dreamed they would. And the photographs, films, and television and video images that surround us at present are only a premonition of what envisioning power will be able to do in the future. Only when we focus on computer-synthesised images, images of the nearly impossible because ungraspable, unimaginable, and incomprehensible, can we start to even suspect what sort of hallucinatory power is at hand.” (Flusser, 37)</blockquote>Flusser speaks of the power of algorithms as hallucinatory and limitless - he anticipates the development of interactive and immersive media that moves far beyond the power of the television, whilst also recognising the abilities of algorithms for envisioning synthetic worlds. Furthermore, Flusser also speaks of the artist’s perspective, that of the “envisioner”, who stands “at the most extreme edge of abstraction ever reached, in a dimensionless universe, and they offer us the possibility of again experiencing the world and our lives in it as concrete” (38) - Flusser foresees here the future possibilities of worlding, where the artist creates a dimension from nothing, by volumetrically shaping a world and then imbues that space with affective relationality through scripted interactions, allowing for it to be experienced similarly to concrete reality. Envisioning, therefore, is proposed here as a crucial practice to the process of worlding, concerned with the technical apparatus that allows a world to be experienced explicitly.

Beyond the possibilities of media and computation, the notion of elsewhere is central to speculative fiction and any practice that aims to seek an alternative and envision it. As Carpenter notes, “for Le Guin, ‘elsewhere’ has always been a lens magnifying the vexations of our own time and place, including militarism, sexism, governance, and ecology” (1).

Le Guin positions elsewheres as politically-charged spaces where alternatives to the master narratives of Western thinking and historical practices of domination, which extend all the way into the narratives that we tell ourselves, can be contained. Le Guin attempts to challenge the narratives of domination by questioning the predominant hero's journey narrative structure, suggesting that stories can be open-ended, meandering, and inclusive, offering a more nuanced representation of the human experience. Drawing on Woolf, who attempted a re-fashioning of the English language into a ‘new plan’, LeGuin steers away from the paralysing myth of heroism, entrapped in linear repetition, and towards a container model of storytelling, where narratives can exist in networked, distributed and non-linear ways. An understanding of worlding is proposed within this framework, as a process that ushers energy inwards, rather than outwards - the world as container, as collection of energies and entities, all linked together through the non-linear pathways of the network; LeGuin also places great emphasis on the crucial importance of the power of relationality and acknowledges the mode of existence of a story as “neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process” (7).

When addressing technology, Le Guin proposes a refiguration of it as a cultural container in itself, which in turn enables the practices of science fiction to become a fluid, open field that is formulating a strange realism, positioned to match the strangeness of reality itself. Le Guin's approach challenges the notion of technology as a tool of conquest, emphasising its potential for cultural exchange and fostering empathy. She envisions this new form of science fiction as a socially engaged practice concerned with affective intensity and focused on multiplicity and plurality. Through the container model of storytelling, she offers a compelling framework for how the role of technology as a carrier bag of cultural knowledge can operate within the domain of narratives. By viewing technology as a vessel for envisioning speculative alternatives, we can imbue it with cultural potency - through sowing the seeds of worlds to come within the networked spaces afforded by algorithmic processes, we can start to shape new narratives.

The container model of narrative also offers a useful mode of conceptualising a story that is networked and rendered through algorithmic processes. Such worlds radically move away from a linear model of narrative presentation and into a networked format, where relationality, as LeGuin also contends, becomes the central mode of affective transmission. A world therefore becomes a cultural vessel, an information recipient that materialises a virtual elsewhere, where meaning is distributed amongst digital entities and data flows.

This paper, of course, could be considered its own form of container, of theoretical knowledge and reflections, that hopefully may lead to contemplation of how algorithms can make worlds, what those worlds can show us and how they can reflect back onto our own contemporary condition. I therefore add to my research agenda, or recipient, another entry: that of the container model, which prompts a quest for new possible forms of affective transmission.

== IV. Versions and Visions ==
The final, shorter part of this paper, will focus on connecting worlding to a political immediacy. Worlding can be understood as a political act when examined through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature and Anna Tsing's theory of scale. Both frameworks highlight the transformative potential of worlding and its implications for social, cultural, and environmental contexts.

Deleuze and Guattari's concept of minor literature suggests that literature can be a powerful tool for subversion and resistance against dominant structures of power. Minor literature emerges within marginalized and oppressed communities, offering alternative narratives and modes of expression that challenge dominant discourses. It disrupts established norms and opens up new possibilities for social and political transformation.

When applied to worlding, the concept of minor literature highlights the agency of artists and creators in constructing alternative worlds that challenge the dominant narratives and ideologies. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists can envision and manifest new realities that counter hegemonic powers and systems. They create spaces where marginalized voices can be amplified, and new forms of representation and expression can emerge. In this way, worlding becomes a political act that resists dominant modes of storytelling and reimagines the world from the perspective of the marginalized.

Anna Tsing's theory of scale further enriches our understanding of the political nature of worlding. Tsing argues that scales are not fixed and hierarchical, but rather dynamic and interconnected. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing and engaging with multiple scales, from the intimate and personal to the global and ecological. Tsing's theory challenges the notion that power operates solely through top-down structures and invites us to consider the complexities and entanglements of different scales.

In the context of worlding, Tsing's theory of scale highlights the interconnectedness of local, regional, and global contexts. Artists engaged in worldbuilding have the opportunity to consider the multi-scalar implications of their creations. They can explore the intricate relationships between microcosmic narratives and larger socio-political and environmental forces. By attending to these scales, artists can address pressing issues such as social inequality, ecological degradation, and cultural diversity.

Through worlding, artists can create immersive and interactive experiences that invite audiences to engage with alternative visions of the world. These experiences have the potential to challenge prevailing power structures, disrupt dominant narratives, and foster critical reflection. They can spark conversations, inspire collective action, and promote social and environmental justice. By expanding the boundaries of what is possible and reimagining the world through different scales and perspectives, worlding becomes a potent political tool for envisioning and manifesting transformative futures.

In conclusion, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms emerges as a dynamic and transformative force that reshapes our understanding of art, storytelling, and political engagement. By harnessing the power of algorithms, artists engage in a process of worldbuilding that transcends traditional boundaries and opens up new possibilities for creative expression and political resistance. Drawing on the concept of minor literature put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, we can situate worlding as a politically charged act of subversion and empowerment.

Through worlding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to construct alternative realities that challenge dominant narratives, ideologies, and power structures. By utilizing computational tools and algorithmic processes, artists break away from conventional modes of artistic production and storytelling. They embrace the immanent quest of the minor literature, navigating the line of infinite flight and rewriting narratives to infinity.

In the context of minor literature, worlding becomes a means of amplifying marginalized voices and experiences. By engaging in the practice of worldbuilding, artists provide a platform for those on the periphery, allowing their stories and perspectives to be heard and witnessed. Worlding disrupts the traditional hierarchies of representation, enabling the marginalized to reclaim their agency and challenge the dominant discourses that perpetuate inequality and oppression.

The transformative potential of worlding as a politically charged artistic practice lies in its ability to create new possibilities for social change and collective action. Through the construction of immersive and interactive worlds, artists invite audiences to engage critically with the complexities of our social, cultural, and political landscape. They provoke contemplation, inspire empathy, and ignite dialogues that challenge the status quo and envision alternative futures.

By situating worlding within the framework of minor literature, we recognize the inherently political nature of this artistic practice. Worlding disrupts the established order, subverting dominant narratives, and offering counter-hegemonic visions of the world. It empowers the marginalized, giving voice to their stories and challenging oppressive power structures. In this way, worlding becomes a form of resistance, enabling the creation of alternative realities and fostering the potential for social transformation.

In summary, worlding as an artistic practice enabled by algorithms embodies the spirit of minor literature, as described by Deleuze and Guattari. It enables artists to transcend traditional boundaries, reimagine narratives, and amplify marginalized voices. By engaging in worldbuilding, artists harness the agency of algorithms to create immersive and transformative experiences that challenge dominant ideologies and empower the marginalized. Worlding becomes a political act of resistance, inviting audiences to critically engage with alternative visions of the world and envision new possibilities for social change. In this convergence of artistic practice and politics, worlding through algorithms offers a pathway towards a more inclusive, just, and equitable future.

Toward a Minor Tech:Fartan

2023-06-05T07:18:25Z

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