COVID-19 Control Wars: Collaborative worlding and the invocation of futures-to-come

10 min readApr 28, 2020

“Truth is a matter of the imagination” Ursula K. Le Guin

BUT

“We live in a state of impasse, a moment where existing social imaginaries and practices no longer produce the outcomes they once did, but no new imaginaries or practices have yet been created.” Lauren Berlant

What is Control Wars?

A tool to game transitions and open portals to other worlds

Control Wars (CW) is an open-source game and experimental research framework to invoke, vivisect and intervene in some of the futures vibrating within our present. It is a tool that combines collaborative fiction, performance, play and low-frequency conflict to

(➤) recursively simulate emerging scenarios in relation to technologies + biosphere + city-making + post-human governance + markets

in order to

(➬a) sabotage social imaginaries driving to planetary devastation

(➫b) excite new, mutant and queer possible and unexpected entanglements

(➫c) test and catalyse actions and transition pathways towards more sovereign and sustainable patterns of living, production and connection.

COVID-19 CW (C19-CW) is an iteration of this ↑ device adapted to times of confinement. It is programmed to help a number of actors to collectively navigate uncertainties in current psychic, social and institutional changes and the entanglement between evolving economical, ecological and social crisis.

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Fiction is both a reflection and a means of intervening into reality. CW deploys fiction as a technology to excite imaginaries, explore variables and stimulate transitions

As paraphrased by Ursula K. Le Guin [1], science fiction is often described as extrapolated from the present, intensifying trends from the here and now for dramatic effect, and extending them into the future. Nevertheless, extrapolations go beyond that. They engender the future, creating a mirage (dis)orienting the present. What constitutes these extrapolations create coordinates for traversing imaginaries that give way to unknown possibilities for how we might interface with the world differently.

Fiction is generally defined as the simulation of reality that presents an imaginary world. We explore post-human agency through fiction. We mobilize stories capable of creating new coordinates to deal with the complex configuration of transitions while producing alternative (imaginary) worlds to the hegemonic ones. Rephrasing Benjamin Bratton [1], fiction can -perhaps- help us to articulate what we can see but cannot name, and to identify what we cannot name even if it is in front of us.

This oscillation supports the question that guides this particular research: can fiction function as a catalyst for what we cannot articulate because of its complexity, while at the same time work as a cultural still for possible futures that are kept alive under the imaginative concrete of neoliberal and anthropocentric stories? Also, can fiction become a lab to observe socio-technical imaginaries in a controlled environment of futures projection?

With this in mind, we have crafted a participatory space in order to critically inquire about our convulsive present, examine emerging social trends and expectations, and overcome systemic inertia. We seek to explore unknown variables to fertilize alternative transitions towards more just and sustainable realities.

C19-CW is an invitation to dance with collaborative entanglements

We are faced with a crisis affording us the means to break through existing socio-economic structures and take part in a suspension and re-stabilisation of various aspects of society. The questions of what comes next, what we move forward with, what we leave behind to become otherwise have entered the public consciousness and become more complex and urgent. These questions have rendered the future, as a confrontational cultural object, dense and visibly uncertain, and by doing so awakening social imaginaries and space for change. We have already witnessed significant shifts in societal and political positionality of what is deemed right or necessary to confront the near term impacts and implications of this crisis, from Universal Basic Income to algorithmic social engineering and creating space to consider the ongoing impact of biological and economic precarity.

“It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism” Frederic Jameson

We often talk about the crisis of the imagination, and how for many, it is easier to imaging the end of the world than the end of capitalism. The Coronavirus has put a spotlight on how we’re collectively confronting what feels like the end of a world, giving way for the reimagining of various other crisis, conflicts, particularly in relation to capitalism, climate change and colonisation. Now feels like a good time to reengage our social imaginaries to conceive of alternatives plural ways of being.

The task at hand is to bridge known to unknown ways of being and explore the complexities of being in a mutating and entangled world. C19-CW embraces transition design, future studies, science and technology studies, and game mechanics to create a space for being otherwise through collaborative worldbuilding.

C19-CW participants are compelled to take control of transitions to other worlds through recursive and contestational action in a biological, economical, technological and cultural arena. We think of this as a dance, paying homage to Donella Meadows, ‘The Dance’ and sympoietic (collectively-producing) systems, which Donna Haraway [4] refers to as being ‘complex, dynamic, responsive and situated systems tied to ‘worlding[5] with, in company’.

What to expect

Truth to power, how to play, locate, encounter the otherworldly

C-19 CW works by orchestrating collective transition, whereby participants are able to overcome inertia by messing with scenarios and embracing the unknown and unpredictable

1 week > 4Gangs > 4 horizons > 1 entangled narrative that gives insight into collective disruption and transition to alternative realities.

C19-CW provides a structure whereby different (consolidated and emerging) perspectives of what the world is and should be, are confronted. These perspectives are embodied by 4 Gangs, performed by groups of participants, that come together to set visions for transitions, before devising a set of maneuvers to intervene into what will happen in the future.

C19-CW is an online trans-platform experience. Participation with C19-CW will be conducted through discussion and co-design across a set of discrete events on alternate days.

Across four rounds, Gangs will try to dominate different time horizons to reach their desired vision for the future. In each movement, a new part of a fictional (possible) world emerges, reflecting the decisions being made so far. In doing so we give insight into the change that has occurred, the complexity of the situation and the relational dimensions of power at play. The re-storied world provides Gangs a platform to locate themselves in relation to their opponents, in order to deliberate subsequent maneuvers that overcome or challenge actions taken by their opponents within remaining horizons.

As a result of the combative interaction between participants, emerging narratives will be published sequentially across the week while C19-CW is in play, rehearsing futures through different combinations of current possible phenomena.

Meet the Gangs

Techno-libertarians

Humans are full of bugs. Overcoming our very nature is a moral imperative. Connected technologies are the best way to solve problems: our AI systems foster organizational and individual intelligence and efficiency.

Improve yourself through data, feedback loops and enthusiasm. We help you to be agile and responsive. Don’t buy, live on-demand and let yourself be upgraded without even noticing it.

We are post-ideology: the free market is the best way to allocate resources and digital technologies are improving cities and states performances.

Leftist-accelerationists

Machines threaten to take away our jobs and nothing could make us happier. We have the resources to produce enough wealth to maintain a decent standard of living on a planetary level. We only have to redistribute 80% of the wealth that is currently concentrated in the hands of the 20% of the population. Let’s take over communication and automation (infra)structures and we’ll take the power. Let’s accelerate capitalism and AI will free us from slavery. Let’s build a planetary commons.

Everything for everyone = Demand full automation > Demand real universal basic income > Demand the future

Cyborg-shamanists

We reject commercial technology. Instead, we seek complete autonomy by developing Open DIY / DIWO science, based on truly renewable, sustainable technologies. That’s how networked micro-communities will build real, respectful, vegan and livable alternatives to hyper-individualistic, polluting and surveillance-based capitalism. We are open to a radically different vision of life and tech. We are networked and connected. We see different paths transmitting through all things, for instance discovering techno-shamanic connections to our ancestors and the Pachamama through magical techno-pagan rituals. We, humans, have the same importance as mud, wind, leaves and birds. We are mutants made of flesh, roots and wires. We rave and we love. We are earth.

Flat-earthers

Western civilization has reached a point of nasty politeness. Progressive scholars, experts, scientists, politicians are discriminating THE REAL PEOPLE. Working people, people who care about their family, their money. We have fun playing online, on social network, we are pranksters. We love to have fun, we chat on Reddit, we love memes. left-wing people stink (have we already said so?).

We’re good at playing dirty in politics.

Truth? I have mine, and you won’t tell me what I have to think.

COVID-19? This pandemic was planned by pharmaceutical corporations and government agencies.

Fascist? I’m sorry, I only want to make fun.

Control Wars, not a new idea, just a new context

Control Wars, was originally conceived for commissioned by the unconventional art and communication festival ‘The Influencers’ in Barcelona in 2018 and iterated for ‘Tentacular’ in Madrid 20018, ‘STRP’ in Eindhoven 2019, ‘PRIMER’ in New York 2019, the ‘World Futures Global Congress’ in Mexico City in 2019, within the framework of ‘Digital Democracy and Data Commons’ European project, and in the ‘Design Activism Workshop series’ in Sydney 2020. The aim is to offer alternative means of knowledge production and activism through the facilitation of speculative, contestational and participatory worldbuilding and the creation of transition scenarios towards alternative futures. CW has evolved across the several iterations above to confront pressing societal challenges such as climate change, data sovereignty and global pandemics.

“We must not be limited by our present knowledge, beyond understanding we as a people must seek to emote impossible futures.” Centro las Gaviotas Paolo Lugari

Outcomes from C19-CW

Across 4 critical horizons between 2020 and 2029, teams (Gangs) devise collective actions, strategies and tactics to achieve a desired future across each horizon by surfacing new possible worlds. In this way, C19-CW can be understood as a machine for collaborative storytelling and worldbuilding.

We will be publishing 4 stories that emerge from C19-CW, consecutively and in line with each critical horizon, giving insight into the plural situations that may emerge as a result of decisions been made by various actors responding to COVID-19 with somewhat contesting values, beliefs and worldviews.
All material produced through C19-CW will be made publicly available under a Creative Commons license and accessible via Becoming Gitlab.

How you can participate

During May, between the 16th and 30th of May, Becoming will be hosting C19-CW, to collaboratively imagine possible scenarios, transitions and actions that invoke futures arising out of the COVID-19 crisis between 2020 and 2025.

Expression of interest: We are seeking expressions of interest to participate in the upcoming C19-CW Assembly. We are offering up to 40 places for a diverse group of experts and practitioners working in the fields of arts, activism, policy and city-making, social sciences, humanities, design and technology, directly affecting action towards post-COVID-19 realities. Expressions will close on the 10th of May 2020, with an anticipated launch on the 16th of May.

👉🏽Please respond by filling out this quick survey

Day 1 — Saturday 16th of May 4:00 to 7:00 pm

Summer 2020 (3 months) Mass confusion. Anticipation of the next wave. Visible effect of measures to manage containment and ‘bend the curve’

Day 2 — Tuesday 19th of May 6:00 to 8:00 pm CET

May 2021 (12 months) A cure is found. Attempt to take back control through radical interventions that stimulate post-COVID 19 transitions

Day 3 — Thursday 21th of May 6:00 to 8:00 pm CET

April 2025 (24 months) Mass disruption. Address economic precarity and its societal impacts and implications

Day 4 — Saturday 23th of May 4:00 to 7:00 pm CET

April 2029 (9 years) Restructuring of civilization and the biosphere. Life is radically changed, but what does it look like?

C19-CW is an autonomous self-funded project.

Who is Becoming?

We are an adventurous research studio messing with emerging scenarios to reframe our world otherwise. We explore them through critical thinking, interactive technologies, empirical research and experimental and participatory design in order to reflect on the unsteady, scary and potentially emancipatory entanglements between humans, technology, politics, industry and the biosphere.

We understand the future as a debatable object of design derived by contemporary actions. We design experiments and experiences to engage in changing ecosystems. We do so in collaborative and playful ways.

C19-CW is part of long-standing autonomous research where different universities, city councils, festivals and friends have collaborated. We thank them all for their generosity.