Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding means building a world dense enough to play decisions and stories through in it. The method comes from science fiction and game design. In futures studies it makes assumptions tangible, because a built world needs rules, places and power relations. Anyone who builds a world quickly notices where their own image of the future has gaps.
In White Mirror’s pilot episode “The Empathy Algorithm”, the built world is Hamburg 2029, with an algorithm auditor and an AI mediator in couples therapy.
In White Mirroring, worldbuilding is the first step. A trend becomes the ruling logic of a world of its own, and a world profile captures this logic before a character acts in it.
At youngk, the designer Georg Jänchen is responsible for design and worldbuilding.
Guiding questions
- By what logic does this world work?
- Who holds power in it, and who doesn't?