Volumes: New Babylon

By making use of digital worldbuilding and prototyping tools “Volumes: New Babylon” revisits the ideas in early game studies (Huizinga, Caillois) informing Constant Neiuwenhuys’ avant-garde body of work in the context of “metaverses”, worldbuilding platforms and decentralization in order to engage with (digital) infrastructure as a moldable space. Moreover, it reinterprets 60s and 70s avantgarde aesthetics and philosophy from a feminist, migrant and situated perspective that interrogates and critiques homo-ludens as an archetype of the playful subversive actor, and incorporates multiple subjectivities into Constant’s idea of creative-subjects as players/citizens, repositioning the homo-ludens in relation to non-human environments and actors that are usually left out of modernist worldbuilding projects, digital and urbanist utopias.

The project was commissioned and funded by Projekt Atol Institute that supports producing works of art, situations and projects, scientific and technical research and publishing. The Projekt Atol Institute has been operating since 1992, and was formally established in 1994. The contents within the projects Rewilding Cultures and More-Than-Planet that Volumes: New Babylon is part of is co-financed by the European Commission’s Creative Europe Programme.