Alice Bucknell: Ways of Worlding

Sep 5, 2024

Alice Bucknell, an innovative artist and writer in Los Angeles, discusses the intersection of game engines and speculative fiction. They explore the politics of world-building in crisis, particularly through projects like E-Z Kryptobuild, critiquing societal inequities and climate issues. Bucknell also dives into interactive narratives like 'The Alluvials,' addressing water scarcity in Los Angeles. Challenging anthropocentrism, they highlight non-human intelligence and the role of AI in creating unique storytelling experiences that reshape narrative engagement.

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Intro

00:00 • 2min

World-Building in Crisis: Artistic Reflections

01:37 • 19min

Exploring 'The Alluvials': A Multi-Perspective Narrative on Water and Ecology in Los Angeles

20:51 • 6min

Crafting Immersive 3D Worlds

26:38 • 8min

Challenging Anthropocentrism: Embracing Non-Human Perspectives

34:24 • 4min

Exploring Hybrid Languages through AI Collaboration

37:57 • 5min

The politics and poetics of building worlds

GUEST Alice Bucknell (she, they) is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. Working with game engines and speculative fiction, their practice examines interconnections of architecture, ecology, magic, and nonhuman and machine intelligence. https://alicebucknell.com/

HOST Severin Matusek is a cultural theorist and founder of co—matter, a creative studio exploring the cultural and societal impact of new technologies.

IDEAS AND PEOPLE IN CONTEXT

E-Z Kryptobuild is a work of speculative fiction that responds to architecture’s role in producing systems of global inequity and the climate emergency. https://alicebucknell.com/projects/e-z-kryptobuild
Critical fabulation is the combining of historical and archival research with critical theory and fictional narrative to fill in the blanks left in the historical record. https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/files/7498724/6/AR317_Critical%20Fabulation.pdf
Swamp City imagines the Florida Everglades as a luxury eco-tourism retreat in a near-future reality of severe climate disruption. https://alicebucknell.com/projects/swamp-city
The Martian Word for World is Mother merges science-fiction strategies with a critical approach to contemporary proposals for the habitation of Mars. https://alicebucknell.com/projects/the-martian-word-for-world-is-mother-2022
The Alluvials is a video work and playable game that explores the politics of drought and water scarcity in a near-future version of Los Angeles. https://alicebucknell.com/projects/the-alluvials-the-game-2024
Unreal Engine is a series of 3D computer graphics game engines developed by Epic Games. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US

CREDITS The Vienna Business Agency supports new companies, projects and products that develop Vienna's creative industries further. Find out more at viennabusinessagency.at.

Editorial Team (in alphabetical order): Carina Dala, Kesia Inkersole, Severin Matusek, Elisabeth Noever-Ginthör, Theresa Reimann-Dubbers, Alice Smith, Heinz Wolf

Theme Music by Hell Mutang.