With DeathTolls Experience, Iranian Dutch artist Ali Eslami won the IDFA DocLab Immersive Non-Fiction Award in 2016. His new project is a game, but not one you can complete. Instead, you enter a simulation capable of almost endless variation.

Inspired by the Illuminationist philosophy of the 12th-century Persian philosopher Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi, Eslami translates its ideas into an open world in which, as a “soul,” you can take possession of different agents. Each moves in its own way, from free-floating spheres to simple human figures. Eslami describes it as a “cognitive playground.” The many modules that make up these worlds can be combined in different ways and set in motion using spells.

Several levels have already been built, including replicas of an Amsterdam canal and the Ziggurat of Ur, a temple tower dating from the 21st century BCE. In a blog, Eslami reflects on the philosophical insights emerging from this ongoing experiment.

This project has been supported through funding from the Creative Industries Fund NL, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, and CIIIC