Worldbuilding

Morales, J. (19 de noviembre de 2021). 5 razones para (re)descubrir 'Frank Herbert’s Dune' (John Harrison, 2000) aquí y ahora. Grupo RIRCA. Representación, Ideología y Recepción en la Cultura Audiovisual. https://www.rirca.es/5-razones-para-redescubrir-frank-herberts-dune-john-harrison-2000-aqui-y-ahora/

We live in the digital age's golden era, and how we communicate is constantly changing. People create brand-new digital media content to tell different stories almost every day. We are surrounded by numerous digitally created worlds for interaction, such as video games, movies, or Metaverses. They use real-world influences for ease of perception. They must create a constructed culture set as a distinctive sign of humankind. Anthropologists divide the cultural products of mankind into two. Abstract features like skills, norms, customs, and mythology are considered the “intangible culture”, whereas concrete features of tools, clothes, and architecture compose the “tangible culture” or “material culture”. Creators of the mentioned digital worlds appoint (or create) either set of cultures for their stories.
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is an American animated television series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio, and aired for three seasons between 2005 and 2008. The series was set in a heavily Asian-influenced fictional world divided into four nations representing the four classical elements. Some people have the ability to kinetically manipulate the element of their nation through the “bending” practices inspired by Chinese martial arts. The only individual who can bend all elements is called the “Avatar” and is responsible for maintaining harmony among nations. The avatar reincarnates in all four nations in order.
The ”Air Nomads” are based on Tibetan and Buddhist cultures. They are monastic people with bald heads who practice vegetarianism and meditation. Their “Air Temples” architecture resembles brick pagodas like the Pagoda Forest of the Shaolin Temple in China. The “Water Tribes” represent the Arctic and Siberian peoples. They believe in the moon and ocean spirits, practice fishing, and wear anoraks and mukluks. Their architecture heavily relies on igloos and yurt tents. People of the “Earth Kingdom” are diverse in their outfits and diet, similar to Chinese society. Their palace and capital city have Forbidden City influence, and almost all buildings in the country are covered with East Asian hip-and-gable-roofs with upturned pointed corners. The “Fire Nation” culture is less diverse and more centralised. Their cuisine closely mirrors Sichuan, and their appearance resembles Japanese and Han Chinese clothing. This imperial rich nation has more elaborate structures like pagoda temples and palaces, implying even metal and gold together with classical wood and stone building materials.
Architecture in the Avatar: The Last Airbender series is not just about aesthetics but a powerful tool for storytelling. It can convey many messages about a constructed world, just as in the real world. By observing the structures, one can decipher many aspects of society, such as the economic cycle, technological grade, and social organisation. This is true for the constructed worlds of the series as well. Through its architecture, the physical environment plays a significant role in conveying the story, making architecture a crucial sub-element of worldbuilding in the series.

I recently presented a paper for the first EHU PGR Palooza, a conference-like event that brought together numerous PGRs from different disciplinary backgrounds. I am not sure my overly technical paper was very appropriate, all in all. In the paper, I outlined some of the general contours of my PhD research on Mass Effect and liberal approaches to politics and media (specifically via my posthumanist reading of Charles Mills' racial contract, the "rhizomatic contract" as Tampio has phrased it in his book on Deleuze and politics). The handout is included with the original script and contains some definitions of key terms.

Original abstract: A plethora of speculative fictional franchises, from Lord of the Rings (1937-present) to The Expanse (2012-present), perforate contemporary popular culture. Many engage with political themes and the political issues of their times–sometimes explicitly, sometimes covertly. One such franchise is Mass Effect (2007-present), a “militarized” space opera science fiction franchise that in my view engages with one such political theme (among others): what are some of the political consequences of post-anthropological forms of personhood? However, the “primary” texts are role-playing videogames (according to its creators), where players can interact with the Mass Effect universe through player choices and decisions. But how do these videogames hang together with the various “secondary” non-ludic novels, comics, and the animated movie? Through a politically liberal oriented textual analysis of the officially licenced Mass Effect transmedia, I attempt to show how the question of personhood (as expressed through Mass Effect’s narratives and characters) is consistently ambiguous and agnostic. However, despite such political ambiguities, Mass Effect’s various texts express an underlying liberal social contract in tension with itself: between an (expansive) rhizomic contract and a (contractive) racial contract. One of the goals of my research is to show that liberal political philosophers should take sf texts and franchises seriously. They can be utilized for the (re)engineering of critical political concepts, including personhood. To this end, I draw together Deleuze-inspired radical liberals and Charles W. Mills through Mass Effect so as to think liberalism differently. Specifically, to think through a rhizomic contractarianism for a more-than-human cosmos.

This letter takes place as a conversation with my newborn about the struggles and desires I see on the horizon at the moment of writing. The letter's simple style and straightforward language invite you to immerse yourself in an intimate sharing between myself and my oneyear-old and consider the perspective of a young child coming to grips with the world around them. I draw on past conversations with my mother about her illness and her ecological work, as well as elements of our family history working and living on the river Clyde. Falling somewhere between a poem, a story and a letter, I explore themes of change and hope, ecological precarity, health and illness, and a path towards more livable worlds. Two photos included with the letter share intimate moments with the reader related to my writing-the moment Clyde reaches for his grandmother at the water's edge, an ode to the river on which she grew up and after which he is named; and the moment my mother unfolds her hand letting an edible flower sit delicately along her hand's life lines as an offering of nourishment and interconnection.

In this special issue, we propose the letter as a form with geographic potential. Building on prior work on letters in geography, Black feminism, and Indigenous studies, we draw on a collection of sixteen letters in the section to build a case for letters as time travel, anticolonial epistemology, feminist geographic method, and worldmaking praxis. We bring together letter writers who speak to their ancestors known and unknown, to future generations, to ideas, to activists, to places, and to strangers-and weave them into a messy and generative conversation on the kinds of spaces that letters make between and among us. Our intention is to build on recent work in geography to experiment with what the letter makes possible for us as geographers.

In Coptic apocrypha pseudepigraphy is ubiquitous. This article outlines the various types and layers of pseudepigraphy employed in this literature, and describes the ways in which authorship is attributed to both biblical characters and later patristic figures, often in combination. It also discusses its various possible functions, ranging from bestowing texts and teachings with authority and authenticity, to contributing to readers' or hearers' constructions of the biblical storyworld. The article concludes that considering the ubiquity of the device in the literature under scrutiny, and the various functions of its use, it is not helpful to view the practice of pseudepigraphy in Coptic apocrypha primarily in terms of forgery or deception.

Historically, brands are a fairly recent phenomenon in the entertainment industry. Just a few early films became sequels, and most remained largely as standalone stories developed without thought for subsequent extension or commercial exploitation beyond their initial releases. The product was also linear: a passive experience that consumers watched from start-tomiddle-to-end with no personal interaction or influence. Successful film promotion was geared towards the crucial first weekend of release by raising consumer awareness via a “push” approach: making consumers conscious about the product via direct communications methodologies such as advertising, or incentivising a cinema visit via promotions such as pre-screenings. Positive word-of-mouth (WOM) was crucial in raising awareness of a film to ensure its retention in cinemas beyond the opening weekend. Major releases such as the early films in the Batman franchise enjoyed large advertising campaigns funded by high marketing budg...

In the fictional universe of Dune, Herbert lassos our attention to the landscape and inhabitants of the desert planet in stark and immediate terms by conferring on them Arabic or at least Arabic-sounding names and embedding them in a deeply Bedouin-based culture.  His fictive neology involves extensive linguistic borrowing from Arabic and less frequently, from other languages. Rather than inventing alien neologisms from scratch, Herbert selected words and phrases from foreign languages and modified their meanings to suit his narrative intent. This study examines the Arabic of Dune from a neo-Whorfian cognitive linguistics perspective, linking imagined landscape with imagined language and focusing on names of key characters.

It is a curious irony that the greatest of satirical world-builders, Jonathan Swift, should be popularly remembered as a writer of children's stories. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Swift never wrote anything for a juvenile audience and there is certainly nothing childlike, for instance, in his suggestion that the British government should alleviate the poverty of the Irish by allowing them to sell their children as food to rich English landowners, as was the case in his satirical essay A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick, published in 1729. Yet it is interesting to note that such misinterpretations-suffered by Tolkien as well, thanks to the overriding popularity of Bilbo Baggins-actually reflect their great characters' universal appeal. A child can appreciate that much of Gulliver's Travels is funny, even if not for the right reasons. When discussing the subject of world-building for satirical purposes, Jonathan Swift looms as large on the horizon as Tolkien does with respect to world-building in general. The term "satire" (i.e. a literary or dramatic work that uses exaggeration, irony, parody, caricature and ridicule to criticise human frailties) entered the English language in the 16 th century, via French from Latin. The golden age of English satire came in the early 18 th century, the principle figures being Swift himself and his friends Alexander Pope and John Gay. Their targets, in addition to feeble and vice-prone humanity in general, included government, royalty, religion and the law, as well as their fellow writers and poets. Gulliver's Travels, titled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World when first published in 1726, was initially devised by Swift as a parody of the "travellers' tales" subgenre which had reached a pinnacle of popularity seven years earlier with the publication of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Over the course of its composition, however, it became much broader in scope. Swift was an admirer of the great English statesman and philosopher Thomas More. He would have been familiar with More's Utopia (1516) and may well have decided to borrow More's narrative devices-an invented country and a decent but gullible visitor who reports on his travels-to provide the framework for his own, considerably more aggressive commentary on the prevailing social and moral conditions of England. As his work progressed, however, Swift began to create something quite novel, a story containing not just one but numerous invented lands, including a flying island and a bizarre range of inhabitants. By the time Gulliver's Travel's was complete, a new literary subgenre had come into being: world-building for satirical purposes. The story itself is for the most part ingenious and highly inventive, though the tone darkens considerably towards the end. Swift was a clever and innovative world-builder. Gulliver's Travels is divided into four parts, in each of which its hero, Lemuel Gulliver, visits a new country. These tend to be islands lost in vast oceans which no-one has yet discovered. In Part I Gulliver is employed as a ship's surgeon and his vessel is wrecked in a storm. In the following parts, he is successively marooned, attacked by pirates and finally, having ascended to the position of ship's captain, abandoned in a small boat by his crew following a mutiny. In each case he ends up ashore in a strange land where he meets the inhabitants, learns the language well enough to discuss politics with the local dignitaries,

Abstract: Research identifies the value of rites of passage in helping individuals navigate transitional experiences. Research, however, also highlights the decline of importance assigned to formal community-driven ritual in much of contemporary Western culture. My study explores the illustrated fantasy narrative as potential facilitator for rites of passage; specifically, how illustrated fictional worlds may act as ritual spaces. This notion is explored within multimodal analyses of the illustrated books The Ship that Sailed to Mars (1923) by William M. Timlin, and Lost Forest (2018) by Alexandra Dvornikova. What is uncovered within the literature review and the analyses of the selected texts, is then further explored, within a research-led practical body of work, which takes the form an illustrated book and an exhibition, both titled ‘between worlds’. Through analysis and practice, the process of developing illustrated fantasy worlds is explored with the purpose of uncovering how ...

Contemporary authors of science fiction have taken up the challenge of imagining digital technologies whose functions and effects elude human awareness. Such technologies differ from earlier examples in their environmental aspect, brought on by networks that operate at levels “above” and “below” those of a human subject. Another way to describe environmental digital technologies is through the concept of assemblage, involving not only many forms of human labor and material resources, but also collectivities of entities performing cognitive acts, circulating information, interpretations, and meanings. While these collectivities obviously do involve human subjects pursuing different interests, the way that the assemblage functions as a whole does not correspond to human levels of behavior, perception, or scale.

In this article, we build on the idea of the environmental aspect of digital technologies to examine strategies used in science-fictional attempts to represent in narrative the effects of these technologies on both individual and societal levels. Our case studies, the novels Ancillary Justice (2013) by Ann Leckie and Autonomous (2017) by Annalee Newitz, employ more-or-less technological, individual actor-characters to guide readers to think about the effects of human-technical assemblages within the wider fictional worlds. These novels hinge on the literalization of three literary conventions in their attempts at representing these effects: omniscient narration, character-focalization, and mind-reading of fictional characters.

Through the actor-characters and literalizations, the environmental aspect of digital technologies and their effects are woven into the plots, worldbuilding, and narration of the novels. They are thus able, up to a point, to represent tensions between conscious actors and the various forms within which they operate. However, the novels also illustrate the limits of narrativizing environmental technologies in guiding the readers to think about human-technical assemblages and their effects through forms that remain human-centric in scope — including “gender play” as well as narratives of bildung, quest, and romance. In making the effects of digital technologies accessible for readers, the novels are unable to escape the constraints that the conventions and forms impose.

El objetivo general de este trabajo es indagar sobre la transmedialidad entendida en cuanto fenómeno discursivo asociado a relatos no-ficcionales como el periodismo y los documentales interactivos. En lo particular, se analizó diferentes piezas informativas transmedia a los fines de detectar la presencia de elementos comunes y recurrentes que permitieran realizar aportes para una sistematización y tipificación de las narrativas transmedia no-ficcionales. Desde su diseño, esta investigación constó de tres fases sucesivas. En la primera se procedió a integrar y sintetizar las seis tipologías de las narrativas transmedia más difundidas a hasta el 2016, las de: Henry Jenkins, Laurel Ryan, Jeff Gómez, Carlos Scolari, la del MIT Open Documentary Lab e IDFA DocLab, y, la del colectivo de investigadores, realizadores y autores firmantes del Manifiesto Transmedia. De esta forma, se obtuvo una tipología resultante constituida por un total de 12 principios dentro de los cuales se pueden englob...

We are living the golden age of the video games. And there is a growing interest in studying them on academic grounds. Videogames are a mode of storytelling, a skill as old as the mankind. Though many archaic stories were verbal, modern ones need spaces to be told. Spaces, as a part of storytelling, are used in different methods. Antique theater stage decors can be considered as the oldest narrative spaces. In last two and a half centuries, the film and television industries also heavily employ architectural concepts for storytelling purposes. In current era, video games also desperately need those artificial spaces. And in near future, we will experience the so-called “Metaverse” virtual spaces via wearable technology as the VR glasses. Since they are not common yet, the video games provide the closest space experience to real life, comparing with movies. Therefore, the space design, or the architectural design, becomes more important for the video games since we do not perceive it from fixed perspectives but can roam around.
Also, the term worldbuilding gains significance especially with the fantasy genre of these storytelling modes. Since this category promises magical surroundings, nonhuman civilized races, and lots of imagination, a well-designed world in de- tails becomes spontaneously crucial. Along with the supernatural creatures and nature, the story almost always focuses on the characters. Designers spend vast amount of time on creating their fictional cultures, and especially the features of the material culture, as the tools, outfits, and architecture. And for building a fictional cultural architecture, the vernacular architecture samples from the real world are heavily brought into action.
Many visual stories are considered successful in terms of their worldbuilding. To name a few, The Lord of The Rings, the Star Wars, the Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the Game of Thrones are known as the “masterpieces”. This study focuses on another of them, the World of Warcraft, as one of the most played video games of all times and attempts to unders- tand its use of vernacular architecture in terms of creating fictional cultures and in broader scale, the worldbuilding.

The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not­for­profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided:

The attention to detail J. R. R. Tolkien showcased in medieval scholarship, widely recognized for its influence on the discipline, did not diminish in his fictional writings. In the sequel to The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), Tolkien made significant additions to the prequel’s revisited locations. Among this supplemental material, the cultural addenda to Rivendell bear ulterior significance. If the fate of the expedition is, in part, determined in H’s Rivendell, it can be argued that the destruction of the Ring and the fall of Sauron could not have occurred without Rivendell’s assistance in LotR. This short article will prove this often-overlooked fact while it charts the cultural evolution of Rivendell from the prequel to the sequel.

A persona, neither true nor false to the individual, is a mediatized identity used to navigate social connections (Marshall 238). Digital content creation and interpersonal aggregation generate an archive that "is never a single act, object, profile, or account," but a series of "communicative acts of self-expression" privileging a certain narrative (21). Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhou (2021), presents a society where boys dream of co-piloting colossal mechas-Chrysalises-to reclaim humanity's lost territory north of the Great Wall. Girls dread the concubine-pilot's role of being sacrificed like a disposable qi-battery. Far from balance, the number two in Huaxia equals deception. Irreverent, three and five correspond with disruption and transformation. Wu Zetian, the fictional counterpart of China's first and only female emperor, subverts Huaxia's binary world order by proactively controlling the mediatization of her public persona.

Mapping is the sensorial world made apprehensible in service of an emerging culture's commercial, military and political expansion (Padrón 32). Worldbuilding in Amanda Joy's young adult fantasy novel, A River of Royal Blood (2019) is the asymmetrical allocation of urban spaces to reinforce the Killeen Dynasty's claim to power. Princess Evalina (Eva) Grace Killeen agonizes over her family's tradition of ritual sororicide, repulsed by the expectation of killing her sister, Princess Isadore, for the Ivory Throne. Born with magick of marrow and blood on the summer solstice, Eva grows in the shadow of her ancestor, Raina I, who founded the human dynasty by overthrowing the Khimaer Queendom. In the case of Killeen Queens, historiography, material culture and sacrifice reveal the constant anxiety of dispossession inherent in empire-building cultures.

Versiones para gran espectáculo y versión minimalista de la adaptación de la obra de Héctor Germán Oesterheld (con Solano López). La versión minimalista se estrenó en 2007 en el Teatro Argentino de La Plata, 10 funciones, con dirección de Siro Colli y elenco de la Comedia de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. La versión para gran espectáculo se publicó en el libro "Teatro 2001", de Ediciones Corregidos, Buenos Aires, 2003.C

Images of the future are representations of possible worlds different to ours. We access these worlds through written stories, plans, scenarios, statistics, trends, and many more. Oftentimes, those images only implicitly describe the world’s context but still guide current actions and decisions. Thus, we lack the exploratory and reflective space for their deliberate discussion. In this paper, we present a framework to explore and reflect own, current images of the future. The framework is based on the process of speculative worldbuilding with the aim to create a ‘thick description’ of a possible world to (self)reflect on the present assumptions and to understand and reframe today’s actions and decisions.

Video oyunların altın çağını yaşamaktayız. Akademik dünyada da bunların araştırmasına yönelik gittikçe artan bir ilgi vardır. Ancak, çoğu araştırma tek bir oyunun mimarisini çalışarak başlamaktadır. Oysa ki, bir oyunda mimarinin kullanımını anlamak için, öncelikle alanın arka planı çalışılmalıdır. Tek bir oyundaki mimarinin kullanımını araştırmak için; hem hikaye anlatıcılığı ve dünya yaratma kavramları hem de video oyunlar ve mimari ilişkisi incelenmelidir.
“Hikaye anlatıcılığı” kavramı, bir kültürel ve sosyal aktivite olarak öykülerin paylaşımıdır. Her kültürün; eğitim, eğlence ya da belli duyguları uyandırmak için başvurduğu hikayeleri vardır. Hikaye anlatıcılığının tarihi, insanın bilişsel devrimi gerçekleştirmesi kadar eski olmalıdır. Sözlü hikayeler (mitolojik öyküler, epik kahramanlık destanları, peri masalları ve fabllar gibi), en ilkel uygarlık düzeylerinde dahi karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Yazının icadı ise, hikayelerin kayıt altına alınarak daha geniş kitlelere ulaşmasını sağlamıştır. Çağdaş hikaye anlatıcılığı ise daha geniş anlamlar içermektedir. Yeni medya biçimlerinin yaratılması, insanlara hikaye anlatmak ve kaydetmek için yeni yollar ortaya çıkarmıştır. Günümüzde artık çizgi romanlardan, film ve video oyunlarına kadar çeşitlenebilen genişlikte hikaye anlatım yöntemleri mevcuttur. Örnek vermek gerekirse; Yıldız Savaşları ya da Orta Dünya evrenlerinin üstün kalitede çağdaş dönem hikayeleri, hatta dünya yaratma destanları oldukları öne sürülebilir. Yakın gelecekte hayatımıza girecek Metaverse benzeri medya setleri ise, bambaşka duyularımıza hitap ederek yepyeni hikayeleri anlatmak vaadindedirler.
“Dünya yaratma (Worldbuilding)”, hikaye anlatıcılığının bir alt dalıdır ve hikaye anlatmak için kurgusal evrenler yaratmayı ifade etmektedir. Kavram, sıradan ancak var olmayan bir köyden üzerinde yerleşimler olan bir gezegene ve hatta karmaşık galaksiler sistemine kadar değişik ölçek ve gerçeklik düzeylerini kastediyor olabilir. Ancak, dünya yaratma kavramı genellikle fantastik çevrelerin yaratılması için kullanılmaktadır. Dünya yaratanlar, yeni birer coğrafya (kıtalar, okyanuslar ve iklim), ekoloji (bitey ve direy; bitki örtüsü ve hayvan çeşitliliği) ve uygar sakinler (insanlar ya da kültürleri olan yeni türler) takımı tanımlamaktadırlar. Bir başka deyişle, bu kurgusal dünyalara yayılmış canlılar ortaya konmaktadır. Sihirli parlak ağaçlar ve kriptozoolojik canavarlar gibi yaşam biçimleri sık karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Elbette, bu varlıklarla etkileşime giren insan ya da başka antropomorfik türler biçiminde akıllı ve medeni türler oluşturulmaktadır.
Kurgusal kültürler yaratmak dünya yaratmanın anahtar elemanıdır çünkü kurgusal türler ancak kültürleri aracılığı ile var olabilirler. Kültürler, kurgu dünyanın hikaye anlatımında ve gerçekçi algılanmasında belirleyici roldedirler. Hikaye anlatıcılığı ve dünya yaratma adına ayrıntılı kurgulanacak bir kültürde soyut ve somut kavramlar ele alınmalıdır. Soyut olanları için; değerler, inançlar, kutlamalar, finansal ve siyasi sistem, sosyal statüler ve tarih gibi kavramlar sorgulanmalıdır. Maddi kültür ise, elle tutulur ve gözle görülür nesnelerden oluştuğundan kurgu dünya kültürleri için daha da ayrıntılı ele alınmalıdır. Giysiler, gereçler, teknoloji düzeyi, araçlar ve mimari gibi somut kavramlar ayrıntılı şekilde sorgulanmalıdır. Mimarinin önemli bir hikaye anlatım unsuru olduğu her dönem tartışılagelmiştir. Gerçek dünyada olduğu gibi, sanal dünyalarda da mimarlık tek başına pek çok mesajı iletebilmektedir. Sadece yapılarını gözlemleyerek, bir kültürün ekonomik döngüsü, teknoloji düzeyi ve sosyal örgütlenmesi anlaşılabilmektedir. Görsel dünya yaratma kavramı için ise mimarinin mekansal deneyimi derinleştirme becerilerinden söz edilmelidir. Fiziksel mekanın tasarımcıların anlatmak istediği hikayedeki aktarımın çoğunu üstlenmesinden dolayı; mimarinin, dünya yaratma ve üst ölçekte hikaye
anlatıcılığı düzeylerinde en önemli alt eleman olduğu rahatlıkla öne sürülebilir.
Mimari ve mekan, hacim ve sahne anlamlarında antik tiyatrolardan beri anlatıcı rolünde kullanılmaktadır. Son iki buçuk yüzyılda ise; gerek sinema gerekse de televizyon, mimarinin bu yönünden konseptüel düzeyde oldukça  aydalanmaktadır. Son altmış yılda ise yepyeni bir görsel medya olarak video oyunlar ortaya çıkmıştır. Mimari burada da doğrudan, ancak diğer medyalarda kayda değer bir farklılıkta kullanılmaktadır. Video oyunlarında mekan, gerçek dünyada olduğu gibi gezilebilir ve etkileşim kurulabilir kimliktedir.
Seyirciler (“audience”; muhatap alınan kimseler) burada oyunculardır ve oyuncular mekan deneyiminde tam bir özgürlük yaşamaktadır. Oysa diğer görsel medyalarda seyirciler, mekanı sadece kendilerine sunulan perspektiften algılayabilen pasif kimselerdir. Mimari ayrıca, video oyun dünyasında fiziksel ve ekonomik sınırlamalardan tamamen sıyrılmış kimliktedir ve tüm yönleri ile hikaye anlatıcılığını desteklemektedir. Fantastik dünyalarda, mimari tanımlayıcı rolünü de üstlenmektedir. Buralarda insandan başka medeni türler görme olasılığımız yüksek olduğundan; onlar için tasarlanacak mimari, kültürleri konusunda çoğu mesajı verecek biçimleniştedir. Başka deyişle, kurgusal yerel kültürlerin nesnel varlıkları, onlarla tam uyumlu bir
vernaküler mimari yaratılmadan anlatılamaz.
Kurgu oyun dünyalarındaki kültürlerin yapılarına da vernaküler mimari denebileceğine göre, önce bu kavram anlaşılmalıdır. Vernaküler mimarinin tanımının zorlayıcı olduğu ve üzerinde tartışmaların sürdüğü, akademik çevrelerce kabul görmektedir. En kısa ve en bağlayıcı tanım “mimarsız mimarlık ”tır. Biraz daha genişletilmiş bir tanım aradığımızda ise, akademik çevrelerdeki şu ifadeler yardımcı olmaktadır: “mimar ya da usta gibi bir
profesyonelin görevlendirilmediği; kabile, köylüler, halk gibi kullanıcıları tarafından yapılan yapılar”, “çevresel bağlam, yerel kaynaklar ve geleneksel teknikler kullanılarak, halkın kendine kurduğu yapılar”, “dışarıdan bir teknik ya da malzeme almadan içinde yaşayacak bireylerin inşa ettiği yapılar”. Vernaküler yapılar, gezegenin her köşesinde karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Ancak bu çalışma, kurgusal dünyalardaki vernaküler yapı örneklerine
odaklanmaktadır. Buradaki kurgusal sözcüğü; özellikle fantastik türden roman, film ve video oyunlarındaki gerçekte var olmayan yapıları ifade etmektedir. “Yüzüklerin Efendisi”, “Yıldız Savaşları”, “Son Havabükücü Avatar” ve “World of Warcraft” gibi farklı evrenlerin yapıları; üstün kalitede vernaküler örnekler olarak değerlendirilebilir. Level tasarımcısı, sanat yönetmeni ya da formel eğitimli bir mimardan hangisi olursa olsun; bu yapıları yaratan kimselerin vernaküler mimarlık konusunda derin bir içgörüye sahip oldukları, oldukça başarılı sonuçlara bakarak saptanabilir. Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment firmasının yarattığı ve video oyunları, romanlar, filmler ve diğer medyalardan oluşan bir markadır. Bu markanın amiral gemisi olan World of Warcraft video oyunu ise, özellikle dünya yaratma ve mimarlık açılarından ayrıntılı şekilde incelenmeyi hak etmektedir. Oyun, bir yüksek fantezi (high-fantasy) dünyası olan “Azertoh”ta geçmektedir. Blizzard Entertainment, Azeroth’un hikaye anlatıcı yönünü büyük bir özenle tasarlamaktadır. Oyunun dünya çağındaki başarısının anahtarı da bu olmalıdır. Tasarımcıları, oyuncuların kuracağı duygusal bağı bildiklerinden, bu dünyayı yaratmak için oldukça uzun zaman harcamaktadır. Azertoh’ta okyanuslar ve kıtalar bulunmaktadır. Kıtalar; her birinin özgün birer bitki ve hayvan çeşitliliğine sahip oldukları, gerçek dünyadan bataklık, orman, ormanlık biyomları benzeri bölgelere ayrılmaktadır. Beklendiği gibi, çok çeşitli akıllı türler de yaratılmıştır.
World of Warcraft, oyuncuların; görevleri tamamlayarak, canavarlar ve birbirleri ile savaşarak, Azeroth’u keşfederek ve yeni beceriler, silahlar ve zırhlar edinerek karakterlerini geliştirdikleri bir MMORPG yani Kitlesel Çok Oyunculu Çevrimiçi Rol Yapma Oyunudur. Oyuncular, oyunun en başında; her birinin özgün ve ayrıntılı bir kültürü olan insanlar, orklar, troller, taurenler, elfler ve benzeri pek çok ırktan birini seçerek bir karakter (avatar) yaratırlar. Gerçekten de tüm ırkların farklı giysileri ve gereçleri ile oldukça geniş çeşitlilikte mimarileri vardır. Mimarinin hikaye anlatıcılığı altındaki maddi kültür odaklı anahtar rolü bilindiğinden, oyundaki her bir yapı özenle detaylandırılarak tasarlanmıştır. World of Warcraft’taki yapı tasarımı, bir grup nedenle başarılı olarak değerlendirilebilir. Birincisi, Azeroth’un bir üç boyutlu dünya olmasından dolayı mimarinin iç mekan ve dış mekanların kimliklerini belirlemesidir. İkincisi, yapı biçimleri kadar yapı malzemelerini de hikaye anlatıcılığı için çalıştırmasıdır. Burada ne taş ne de ahşap gerçek malzemedir. Tüm yapı malzemesi görsel imajlardan oluşmaktadır ve malzemelere gerçek dünyada atadığımız anlamlar gereği yapıyı kullanan ırkların ne kadar ilkel ya da endüstrileşmiş olduklarına dair mesajlar vermektedir. Üçüncüsü; Azeroth’un çizgi film benzeri teması ile, çoğu hiperrealistik oyunun aksine, mimariyi oynanabilirlik düzeyinde optimize etmiş olmasıdır. Dördüncüsü ve en önemlisi se, yapıların farklı kültürleri ifade edecek şekilde mükemmel vernaküler kimlikte olmalarıdır. Genel bir mimari değerlendirme sonucu; World of Warcraft’ın, özellikle mimarinin gerçekliğini değil de hikaye anlatıcı rolünü ön planda tutması ile, bir diğer çağdaş dünya yaratma destanı olarak değerlendirilmesi gerekliliği rahatlıkla öne sürülebilir.

All works of fiction build imaginary worlds in which they set their stories. What makes genres such as science fiction and fantasy different is that their worlds are often created not as twins to our actual world but as cousins or even distant relatives to it. Some of these worlds are built to stage a particular narrative, others to house certain casts of characters, and yet others to offer exciting possibilities for exploration. They can be shaped by, for example, text, film, graphic novels, computer games, or combinations of these media. I find such worlds fascinating objects of study, not only as backdrops to particular stories but as aesthetic and cultural objects in themselves, and I am intrigued by how worlds can be built by elements that are not part of the narrative. Such non-narratival elements are often ignored in world-building analyses, while potentially being of great importance to the world to which they contribute. In this essay, I look exclusively at non-narratival w...

Games, as a medium, possess built worlds. The construction of and themes found within these worlds can be used as a tool to communicate values ​​and worldviews, including the philosophical, to an audience. In this thesis, based on selected concepts from worldbuilding theory, I analyze the ways in which Dark Souls builds its world and communicates it to the player, and analyze the compatibility of the Dark Souls world with Nietzschean philosophy. This analysis is based on the theories developed by Mark J.P. Wolf and Marie-Laure Ryan. In a latter part of the thesis, the world, the used worldbuilding techniques and world exposition are analyzed using seminal concepts from Nietzsche's philosophy, as both Nietzscheanism and the game are concerned with common themes. Finally, I juxtapose the analyzed world elements, techniques, and conclusions with real-world events, phenomena and processes, where commonalities would indicate that the game and its world is expressing commentary on reality. This analysis will show the wide influence of existentialism, and specifically Nietzscheanism on the worldbuilding and world exposition within Dark Souls.

L’acte de narrar histories forma part inherent del nostre comportament com a essers humans. Des de temps arcaics hem sentit la necessitat de transmetre un relat, que en definitiva significa transportar al nostre receptor a una nova realitat. L’objectiu d’aquest assaig es albirar la manera en que la realitat en que vivim influeix en aquesta nova realitat literaria. Per aconseguir-ho, proposarem una analisi per a obres literaries, que posarem en practica mitjancant dues mostres escollides del genere fantastic ( El senyor dels anells ) i del genere realista ( Madame Bovary ).

Рубрицированный и аннотированный указатель опубликованных произведений Дж. Р. Р. Толкина (включая черновики, опубликованные посмертно) и их русских переводов, а также исследовательской, научно-популярной и справочной литературы по толкинистике, главным образом на русском и английском языках. Общий объём библиографии — более 3000 наименований. Библиография произведений Толкина сопровождается обзорной статьёй с описанием основных составляющих его творческого наследия и текущей ситуации с переводом его работ на русский язык.

Для литературоведов, специалистов по искусственным языкам и широкого круга читателей, интересующихся творчеством Толкина.

El cometido del presente trabajo, de naturaleza metainvestigativa, consiste en cartografiar las palabras clave empleadas por los firmantes de artículos de impacto dedicados, en este caso, al tema de las narrativas transmedia. Ante la escasez de estudios previos similares, la intención aquí es revisar sistemáticamente estos términos y, con tal propósito, se ha seleccionado una muestra compuesta por los manuscritos divulgados en las revistas iberoamericanas de comunicación indexadas en SCImago Journal Rank desde 2011 hasta 2020.

Publicada por el diario Página/12, Revista Fierro es en este momento la única revista de historietas que se distribuye a nivel nacional. La edición actual comenzó su publicación de forma mensual en el año 2006, dirigida por Juan Sasturain, con una extensión de aproximadamente setenta a ochenta páginas por número y con la participación de diversos autores argentinos. Sin embargo, en 2017 sufrió una drástica reestructuración debido a problemas editoriales y de presupuesto: la revista pasó a editarse de forma trimestral, Sasturain dejó la publicación y su puesto fue ocupado por el anterior jefe de redacción, Lautaro Ortiz, y pasó a contar entre noventa y cien páginas. El número reseñado en este texto, el volumen 4, pertenece a esta última época.

The output is an artefact, in the form of an ecological boardgame, ‘Ecogon’ (2015), and the sequel, ‘Ecogon: Still Wasser’ (2018), commissioned by Gaiagames. ‘Ecogon’ is a portmanteau of ecology and hexagon. Gaiagames aims to be the first completely environmentally friendly game publisher in Germany. Ecogon and the sequel/expansion comprise a series of hexagonal cards, where 8 digital paintings of terrestrial species and 36 digital paintings representing an aquatic ecosystem were contributed. Research process: Research entailed study of Northern European species. The purpose of the game is to educate players on the diversity of indigenous creatures and their interrelatedness. This is represented through a hexagonal ecosystem, strategic gameplay, and engaging wildlife illustrations on each hexagonal card. Research drew on Chalmers’ long-standing research into creature design and SciArt. Research insights: The research found that the use of creature design principles can create engagi...

"Feu et Sang" et "Les Origines de la saga" sont deux ouvrages qui développent l'univers du Trône de Fer. Ils ont toutefois une particularité : ils sont fictivement écrits par des mestres de la Citadelle de Villevieille.
Cet outil narratif implique un rapport spécifique à l'écriture de l'histoire et à la connaissance de l'univers, qui est découvert par le biais non pas d'un narrateur omniscient, mais par la plume d'érudits de Westeros, qui ne sont pas contemporains des évènements qu'ils racontent et qui reconstituent les évènements en fonction des sources qu'ils ont à disposition. Une façon pour l'auteur d'utiliser l'histoire et son écriture pour créer des enjeux scénaristiques et des mystères dont les fans s'emparent.

Fantasy literature world building can suggest and support alternative paths for architectural practice using the super stimuli of fantasy “otherworlds” to promote and create more “placed” spaces and improve the wellbeing of communities. According to Edward Relph, the United States has had an issue with “placelessness” since the 1950’s, where building typologies are nationally distributed and rarely localized. Literary Fantasy has created worlds so desirable that they have permeated into a multi-billion dollar industry that reaches past literature, making the consumption of fictional worlds a central behavior in modern societies. The cultural importance and success of the genre is due largely to the importance of world building in that genre’s success, as imaginary worlds act as super stimuli, tapping into the human’s interest for unfamiliar environments according to cognitive scientists Dubourg et al. The speculative fiction genre requires a separation from our world, resulting in d...

That J.R.R. Tolkien was a storyteller is obvious, given his authorship of books like The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. He has also, and rightly so, been hailed as a great world-builder. His world of Arda is full of details existing in their own right, regardless of their use in his various narratives. But simultaneously, it is not just any fantasy setting: it is our own world, only with a different past and history and seen from a specific angle. What happens when primary world realities enter the fantasy world of Arda through a back door? Does Tolkien's desire for realism never get in the way of his stories, his mythology?

This study aims to evaluate the structures of Azeroth, the fictional built world of the World of Warcraft video game, as samples of vernacular architecture. Therefore, the scope of the study contains video game architecture, vernacular architecture, and structure samples from the mentioned video game. For the methods of the study, first, the storytelling and worldbuilding concepts are investigated. Then, the use of architecture in video games is analyzed in the light of pioneer academic studies. Moreover, the term vernacular architecture is introduced to name the structure of World of Warcraft as samples of it. The elements affecting the design of vernacular architecture samples are mentioned. Finally, in the case study, the settlements and the structures of the fictional races with distinct cultures, from the mentioned video game, are studied in detail. And in result, some unique determinations of mentioned game's use of architecture, in both video game architecture and fictional vernacular architecture terms, are proposed.