Worldmaking as Techné

This collection of essays and projects outlines a practice that challenges the World and how it could be through a kind of future-making, and/or other world making by creating alternate realties as artworks that are simultaneously ontological propositions. In simplified terms the concept of techné is concerned with the art and craft of making - in particular a kind of practice that embodies the enactment of theoretical approach that helps determine the significance of the work, how it was made, and why. By positioning worldmaking as a kind of techné, the authors seek to create a discourse of art making as an enframing of the world that results in the expression of ontological propositions through the creation of art-worlds. The volume focuses on the involvement of the techné of worldmaking in participatory art practice. Such practice can be found in all areas of art, particularly: interactive, generative, and prosthetic art, architecture, and music practices that depend for their vitality and development on the participation of their observers. Organized into four sections (po(i)etic, machinic, cybernetic, and ethic), the book explores the aesthetics, systems, methods, and ontological underpinnings of a worldmaking based practice. Each section contains historical texts alongside new texts, each carefully chosen to highlight the integration of theory and practice in approach. While the foundation of this worldmaking is deeply philosophical and rigorous, there is a need to connect this work to the World of our everyday experience. As we contemplate issues of why we might want to make a world, we are confronted with the responsibilities of making the world as well.