Worlding: A Guide for Creators in Changing Times is artist Ian Cheng's handbook on building Worlds—dynamic systems that develop a life of their own—now in print for the first time in an expanded and updated form.
About This Book
Ian Cheng is known for simulation artworks in which artificial agents adapt to environments that never stop changing. Worlding distils what he learnt developing these multi-agent video game worlds into a method that is part philosophy, part working guide, addressed to artists, game designers, entrepreneurs and makers of every kind. The book is structured around four questions—what a World is, how to create one, how to keep it alive and when to set it free—and around four creative personas: the Director, the Cartoonist, the Hacker and the Emissary. Having circulated in earlier incarnations as something of a cult text, it is revised here as a companion for navigating a period in which old realities are unravelling and stranger ones are taking shape.
Key Features
- Expanded and updated from earlier incarnations of the text
- A practical framework built on four creative personas: Director, Cartoonist, Hacker and Emissary
- Grounded in the author's experience building multi-agent simulations
- Written for creators across art, games, technology and business
What You'll Discover
- What Cheng means by a World, and how one can be designed to grow beyond its maker
- Methods for sustaining a World over time—and knowing when to let it go
- How ideas from simulation and game design translate to creative practice more broadly
- Ways to retain agency and direction in uncertain times
About the Author
New York artist and founder Ian Cheng has exhibited internationally, including at MoMA, the Serpentine Galleries, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Venice Biennale. His simulation works, begun in 2012 and culminating in the Emissaries trilogy, explore how agents respond to unstable environments. He also created BOB (Bag of Beliefs), an AI-driven creature that evolves across successive exhibitions, and in 2024 founded Opponent, a company developing AI agents for children.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Dimensions: 129 × 198 mm
- Pages: 166
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781068765728
- Publisher: Cosmogenesis
Perfect For: Artists, game designers, technologists and creative practitioners interested in systems thinking, simulation and how to build work that outlives its first idea.