Ian Cheng

Joseph Constable

Rebecca Lewin

Veronica So

Emissaries (2015 - 2017) is a trilogy of simulations about cognitive evolution, past and future, and the ecological conditions that shape it. Each simulation is centred on the life of an emissary who is caught between unravelling old realities and emerging weird ones.For artist Ian Cheng (b. 1984, Los Angeles), the making of Emissaries became a lesson in Worlding - the unnatural art of creating an infinite game by choosing a present, storytelling its past, simulating its futures, and nurturing its changes.This book is for anyone interested in bridging the complexity of Worlding with the finitude of human psychology. Reflecting on his experience making Emissaries, Cheng derives practical methods for seeing and making Worlds as a whole-brain activity. To produce a World, one must summon the artistic masks who already live within us but rarely get to exercise their power.We will get to know the masks of the Director, the Cartoonist, the Hacker, and the Emissary to the World. As we enter into a strange transitional era, Worlding becomes a vital practice to help us navigate darkness, maintain agency despite indeterminacy, and appreciate the multitude of Worlds we can choose to live.Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Ian Cheng: BOB at Serpentine Gallery, London (6 March - 22 April 2018).

Ian Cheng: Emissaries Guide to Worlding

Raphael Gygax

Franziska Bigger

Forking at Perfection

"Darwin said the greatest live simulation is nature herself, who incessantly tries and fails aloud, never stopping at perfection. But nature is often too fast, too slow, too big, too small for us. We need live simulation at scale with human spacetime, but unending in its variety and blind to our barometers of quality. A live simulation that we can feel, but does not give a fig for us," says artist Ian Cheng. Distorted views, mutated images, and varied texts are exemplary of Cheng's interest in behavioural change and the potential of working with live simulations. Live Simulations is the first monograph to visualize Cheng's artistic practice and make its principles tangible in book form.

Ian Cheng

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