Emissaries Guide to Worlding

This blue hardcover book sat on my bookshelf for a year.

I wish I hadn’t waited so long to open it, because after the first page, I was already blown away.

What is Worlding?

When we think of Worldbuilding, we think of Fantasy worlds, like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Or we think of Game worlds, like the ones Dungeon Master’s craft for their weekend D&D games.

Well-built Worlds enable new stories. Think of the Star Wars universe, with its huge collection of books, prequels, sequels, video games, and fan fiction.

“…a World needs an engine of ongoing-ness that can generate complexity and therefore surprises, without the supervision of its original author”

But Worldbuilding can be used for so much more than fiction or games.

In the title of his book, Cheng chooses to use ‘Worlding’ instead of ‘World-Building’, to separate the concept from our preconceived ideas around the term. His vision for Worlding goes beyond fictional worlds.

As an artist, Cheng is interested in how worlds begin. In his book, Emissaries Guide to Worlding, he explains Worlding through the example of his art project, Emissaries.

”Emissaries (2015-2017) is a trilogy of simulations about cognitive evolution, past and future, and the ecological conditions that shape it. Each simulation is centered on the life of an emissary who is caught between unravelling old realities and emerging weird ones.” These simulations, built in a video game engine, are projected onto art gallery walls. Viewers watch as the main character, the Emissary, attempts to push the narrative forward in a procedurally generated ever-changing world.