Fear & Wonder was a symposium surrounding the possibilities of world building and pondering of what would be possible and yet, nothing seemed impossible, nothing seemed out of our grasp and in fact, forced us to reckon with how much of our own world we are not aware of. 

Fear and Wonder was a day-long symposium hosted at SCI-Arc in downtown Los Angeles, on November 11, 2017, organized and moderated by Liam Young, coordinator of the Fiction & Entertainment, MA program. An ensemble of fourteen directors, concept artists, video game designers, and storytellers came together for an expedition through an atlas of imaginary worlds, fictional cities, and speculative geographies. The focus of the event to explore the landscapes of fiction, exploring a range of representations of fictional and semi-fictional landscapes through their representations in fiction. 

The symposium was organized intro three sections, The City, In the Wilds, and Off World Archipelagos. As animator and game designer David O'Reilly eloquently put it, "the only rule which defines a world is that a set of events is coherent within itself, no matter where the world is located or how big it is". Keeping with the triptych format and execution of presentations, the review and overview will be organized in the same manner, three sections - texture, proxyism, and coherence. 

the only rule which defines a world is that a set of events is coherent within itself, no matter where the world is located or how big it is

Every discussion in some way referenced these three points as being integral acts in successful worldbuilding. Texture is the visceral immediacy of the contents of a world, the aesthetic gateway to feeling present in another place. Proxyism is the way in which fictive worlds are given the license to reflect on our own world while providing a critical distance from it. Coherence, a tenet of gaming described above, is the notion that a world is defined only by internal coherence within itself. 

Texture 

No film in recent memory does a better job using texture to create richness and resonance than Moonlight, the coming-of-age masterpiece about a gay, black man named Chiron in the Miami neighborhood of Liberty City. A veritable fever dream, the original playwright aimed to evoke a Miami that he referred to as a beautiful nightmare. The visual setting of the film is consistently pushed up: the Miami neon, bright pastels, and caribbean accents.

Hannah Beachler, Production Designer of Moonlight, led off the event with a walk-through of design decisions, many of which began with color palette as a generative element of the narrative film. A film which amongst many things explored race, the event was lead by the recognition that fiction is political, and aesthetic choices such as color are equally political.

The opening third of the film, Chiron's youth, begins in bright pastels. Though timid and lonely, he is looked after by a kind, nurturing drug dealer named Juan, who serves as a temporary father. The opening shot features a baby blue ‘73 Chevy Impala pulling to a stop, filling the frame completely, as Juan steps out of the car and walks across the street. The camera circles continuously, painting a washed yellow and green background of trees and pastel housing projects. By way of contrast, the film dampens into harsher hues during the middle section, as Chiron's emergent sexuality is greeted with pushback and violence. 

Beachler framed their color decisions in regards to the exploration of sexuality and blackness, recalling that the original title of the play was In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. The racial implications of color and lighting decisions are a core component of the film, especially in the favoring of single lighting techniques coupled with deeply saturated color, together enhancing the sharpness of edges, increasing contrast, and foregrounding reflective glow on the topography of skin. In the frame above, Chiron has been betrayed by a friend and beaten. The same color which led the film is now the setting for a nightmare, fluorescent lights flicker in camera as he lifts his bleeding face from a sink of ice water.  

The beautiful nightmare of Miami which playwright Tarell McCraney hoped to evoke is built in large part by the textures it depicts. The degree of immediacy a viewer experiences is linked to the precision of color and experience of texture. 

Proxyism

Fictions can operate as a proxy to understand the worlds in which we live. By giving a critical distant from immediate experience, but still containing important parallels, a fictive world retains the license to reflect on ours. Because of this, a critical cultural function of fiction is the exploration of themes which are otherwise challenging and uncomfortable. In a film like District 9, aliens are a proxy for black South Africans under apartheid, giving a critical distance from which the experience of empathy for the plight of a racial Other can become possible. At second glance, The Rebel Alliance in Star Wars bears resemblance to Al-Qaeda, a decentralized rural contingency of passionate martyrs combating global imperialism by flying into the heart of the Evil Empire and blowing it up. 

Panelist Jimmi Simpson briefly touched discussed his character William in HBO's hit series Westworld who grapples with what it means to love a host, an android named Dolores, who experiences a compelling desire to understand her origins and purpose. Through the fictional device of an android theme park, the character wrestles with an ethics of constraint.  Westworld becomes an allegorical device for a digital wild west in which humans can explore their darkest dreams without apparent consequence. 

Rebel Alliance in Star Wars bears resemblance to Al-Qaeda, a decentralized rural contingency of passionate martyrs combating global imperialism by flying into the heart of the Evil Empire and blowing it up. 

Victor Martinez, concept artist for Blade Runner 2049 draws out some of his inspiration and process. In a stunning piece of concept art, he shows the crossing of two architectural extremes in our current landscapes. The image below is created from an overview shot of the massive greenhouse complexes of El Ejido, Spain, which are themselves so expansive that they appear visible as a gray-white planetary skin from outer space. Martinez takes this expanse of greenhouses, but sets them on top of massive Kowloon-esque slums, dropping the dirt streets of the Spanish countryside into vertical urban canyons.

The acceleration of extremes in fiction, a landscape of greenhouse roofs topping deep urban canyons, is an overused and yet consistent theme used to recalibrate our disposition towards such extremities. On the one hand, dystopic fiction has the potential to serve as a cautionary tale, steering humanity away from its darker directions, and on the other hand, dystopias can desensitize the viewer, making palatable possibilities that are otherwise repulsive. In either case the proxy function leaves the question open. Within a fictive world a systems dynamic can be tested with less consequence, serving culture as a kind of sandbox to test what it might eventually do. 

Coherence

Among the range of decorated guests, none spoke better or dressed worse than the game designer, animator, and filmmaker David O'Reilly. Speaking broadly on worldbuilding, his comments provide a precise, overarching framework for understanding what is meant by the term worldbuilding. A world, he says, is definable primarily by coherence. Do all of its internal components agree with one another or are there logical inconsistencies? From a 2009 essay, "The rules governing a world can be arbitrary and artificial as long as they are kept consistent." A poorly drawn set of characters can capture as much emotion as actor can, so long as there is a consistent quality or set of rules that are observed. 

The flipside of this for worldbuilders is that if you elect to introduce a single inconsistent component of a world, then by relation the entire world changes in accordance with resolving the incoherence. This is a powerful device, one which underlines the connectivities of complex worlds like our own. Guest and writer Lauren Beukes explores this in her book Zoo City. In an alternate version of Johannesburg, criminals are punished by the magical assignment of an animal familiar. The implications of being animalled ripple outward across the world, altering architecture, health, economy, and interpersonal relations. The arbitrary change which many might even find desirable, receiving an animal companion, becomes associated with all of the wrong things, forming a ghetto. 

Fear & Wonder was framed as a symposium surrounding the possibilities of world building and the questioning of what is possible and yet, nothing seemed impossible, nothing left me in fear or wonder,  nothing seemed out of grasp and in fact, it forced us to reckon with how much of our own world we are not aware of. What do we risk by the constant projection of undesirable futures? Do we even wonder or fear what world we are building for ourselves and what then comes from such a conversation? Is the cautionary tale a busted device in this era? Is fiction only an excuse for turning a blind eye to critically and the embracing of pure unadulterated entertainment? If so, what place does that have in academia if left to its own devices? Where does the line between fiction and nonfiction even get drawn now and should it? With news, fake news, reality, augmented reality, virtual reality and pure imagination, what is Fear? What is Wonder in todays world? What happens when fiction is not impossible, but only one mouse click from reality?

What Fear & Wonder left me fearfully wondering is what happens when fear and wonder are no longer possible but just a distant memory. What world is that?

For a schedule and breakdown of the event, click here.