Ian Cheng’s research investigates the capacity of humans to relate to change and mutation. Drawing on the open compositional principles and exploded structures of video game design and cognitive science, the artist focuses on the importance of behavior. He produces live simulations in which an agent adapts to changing and chaotic environments. The result is chains of emergent behavior that are continually becoming, never predictable, and subject to change, in a sort of “neurological gym” for viewers to inhabit. With the term Worlding, Cheng defined the research he has carried out for several years, aimed at investigating the potential of an artistic project whose basic ingredients—deterministic stories and open-ended simulations—are able to generate a new creative dimension: “something meaningful yet alive, bound yet transforming.” His participation in the 58th October Salon consists in a short story in the exhibition catalogue, in which he explores a near-future culture of Worlding. “To create a World, we must summon the artistic masks who already live inside us but rarely get to exercise their power. We will get to know the masks of the Director, the Cartoonist, the Hacker, and the Emissary.”