The grim darkness of the far future harbors an ontological abyss – the Warhammer 40k universe unfurls as a delirious cosmology of hyperspatial paradoxes and spectral becomings that undermine all conventional spatio-temporality. My contribution plunges into the vertiginous “non-spaces” permeating this dystopian cosmos – rifts, folds, and lines of deterritorialization that deconstruct rigid human constructs of place, identity, and being itself.
To do this, I will employ conceptual frameworks modeling reality as a rhizomatic meshwork of perpetually morphing, non-linear relations. Rather than fixed, hierarchical structures, I will trace the decentered, rizhomatic flows of hyperspatial domains like the Immaterium/Warp – a realm of pure cosmic chaos that distorts space and time itself. The Webway labyrinth, an ancient system of interdimensional tunnels, exhibits similar paradoxical qualities as it connects realms that undermine conventional boundaries of self/other, material/immaterial. I will examine such paradoxical quantum entanglements, where distant elements co-influentially intertwine in defiance of classical spatio-temporality – as exemplified by travelers can be trapped in the Warp for subjective centuries. Specific focus will also be given to the Necrons’ fundamentally atemporal, deathless existence outside linear time, and the decentralized cognitive models of the Tyranid Hive Mind – a distributed intelligence spread across an intergalactic species – as well as the Ork Waaaghs – massive psychic gestalt fields generated by the combined consciousness of the Ork racial mindset. Phenomena like these fracture linear historicity and human subjectivity, compelling a perpetually generative, never-quite-present conception of space-time as sheer radical indeterminacy.
Such reconfigurations compel us to instances of “unhuman” thought – divested of fleshy identitarian residues and intra-galactic human/posthuman border binaries. Warhammer 40k’s non-spatial becomings, thus, become a crucible for rethinking the limits of representation, challenging us to embrace the disorienting, spectral nature of being. In doing so, I seek to position Warhammer as a crucial site for 21st century thought, where the very grounds of ontology and epistemology are fissured open.
Author bio
This talk is presented by Victoria Mummelthei. In her own words, Victoria says:
Feeling like an intellectual nomad with a PhD in Arabic Studies, I’ve ventured far beyond that formal training into uncharted territory such as metascience, anarchic knowledge, reader-focused scholarly writing, game worlds, data visualization, you name it. Rather than gather dusty laurels, I prefer sharing my exploratory teaching (e.g. in Interdisciplinary Studies of the Middle East) and research radically open online, e.g. in the blog “no discipline” or – in the future – on the postdoc project website META-STRAND, fostering an evolving knowledge space. I welcome fellow boundary-pushers committed to experimental cultural studies.
