Seven Prophecies of the Future--Part 4. Reign [Nandita Biswas Mellamphy and Arshin Adib-Moghaddam]

Overview

“Seven Prophecies of the Future—Part 4: Reign” (Venice Biennial / Italian Virtual Pavilion 2021) is presented as a transdisciplinary “future studies” episode. It uses mythic and artistic “oracles” to explore how reign (regnum, kingship/rule) and governance (rule/administration/conduct) shape power—publicly and privately—across space, time, and increasingly virtual/digital realms.

Core Discussion: “Reign” vs. Governance and the Design of Power

• Nandita Biswas Mellamphy and Arshin Adib-Moghaddam take up a question from the prior episode: whether a benevolent monarch (or ruler) is imaginable—and what such a system would look like.
• They distinguish reign, which often implies a person/ruler, from governance, which can be headless—an apparatus or assemblage rather than a single sovereign.
• They argue that power tends to become more oppressive as it aggregates, since hierarchy and formalized authority expand the scope of control.
• A less oppressive alternative is distributed power, “cut power down” into smaller units, enabling greater resistance and less domination.
• Political arrangements are treated as problems of institutional design:
  • “Utopias” for one group may become “dystopias” for another.
  • Any governance model must account for plural perspectives and future generations (human and non-human).

Mythic Image 1 (Nandita): The Ouroboros and Cyclical Transmutation

Nandita frames the ouroboros (serpent/dragon eating its tail) as a cross-cultural symbol of:

• unity
• cyclicality
• feedback loops
• transformation (spiritual and material)

She connects it to:

• Egyptian and Indic cycles of renewal/decay
• European alchemical “dragon” transmutation, including imagery tied to poisonous diffusion/erosion that paradoxically enables regeneration

Governance question (open-ended):

• Does the ouroboros imply a single cosmic unity suitable for sustainable governance (a “federation” of living forms)?
• Or does it suggest no single coherent unity, only multiple divergent worlds—meaning governance cannot be reduced to one ordered design?

Mythic Image 2 (Arshin): The Ghoul as Empire, Expansion, and Global Cultural Logic

Arshin shifts to the ghoul (and related monsters like ghouls/jinn/goliath-like figures) as an emblem of:

• rule tied to scale
• territorial expansion
• the monster as a global cultural logic

The ghoul is described as trans-spatial, appearing across:

• Middle Eastern tales (e.g., 1001 Arabian Nights)
• global pop culture (e.g., Tokyo Ghoul, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, horror narratives, and a gentler version in Harry Potter)

Arshin complicates the stereotype of the monster as only “the ultimate other”:

• Monsters can also be sites of compassion, resistance, and processing trauma and marginalization.
• Because the ghoul adapts and migrates culturally, it shows how power’s categories (“evil,” “enemy,” “other”) travel and shift with political context.

Broader thesis: monster myths encode enduring patterns of human politics—size, conquest, gendered fear, and cultural diffusion.

Artistic Image 3 (Nandita): Chinnamasta, Self-Decapitation, and Governance by Transgression

Nandita uses Chinnamasta (the “severed head” goddess) and a modern reworking of her iconography to argue that:

• transformation arises through violent self-destruction
• death is bound to erotic vitality and to multiplicity
• death is not external to life but intrinsic to it

She portrays Chinnamasta as transgressing civility and utility-based ordering, contrasting with rational/recognition-centered models.

Political angle:

• These figures dramatize untameable becoming, suggesting that governance—especially “networked” future governance—may resemble uncontrolled, plural, virulent processes rather than stable rational order.

“Speed,” Virtual Space, and Techno-Politics (Arshin)

Arshin frames reign as fundamentally about space and speed:

• sovereign power requires territory and rapid expansion
• historically through conquest/hunting
• increasingly via virtual borders and data-driven governance

He connects this to surveillance and control mechanisms such as:

• biometric data
• social media footprints
• algorithmic effects on employment, housing, and parole

Claim: contemporary tech politics makes governance borderless, immediate, and hard to see—a “supersonic” form of rule.

Emerging Phenomenon (Nandita): Drones, Militarized Surveillance, and Virality

Nandita’s emerging phenomenon is 1800 drones forming a globe during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics opening ceremony—an aesthetic of global coordination and non-human technicity, but also a metaphor for data-driven pursuit.

She links drones to philosophical/political critiques:

• they embody an “all-seeing” metaphysics of power (an “eye of god” logic)
• militarized surveillance normalizes wartime logics in civilian life

Key warning: pre-crime / predictive policing (e.g., Minority Report) raises ethical dilemmas by criminalizing people before wrongdoing.

She broadens the critique of global governance and cosmopolitanism:

• liberal “humanist” cosmopolitanism may be surpassed by posthuman/planetary frameworks
• but transhuman technological agendas risk reinforcing inequity and instrumentalizing bodies and societies

Additional thesis: drones and networked systems can function like a virus:

• virality spreads
• corrodes
• loosens civic institutions from within These conditions may enable new authoritarian or reactionary politics, including strategies associated with the alt-right.

Closing Reframing (Arshin): Resisting Oppressive Governance with the “Cyborg Ghoul”

Arshin responds by softening the earlier gloom:

• The ghoul becomes an analogue for cyborg/hybrid futures, where the “other” is reframed as a site for new alliances.

The interregnum—the space between restrictive reign and the next emergence—becomes a political opportunity:

• techno society can help marginalized “fallen” figures form trans-spatial and trans-human alliances
• alliances can oppose restrictive authority

He closes with questions:

• does fascination with monsters signal a cultural celebration of deviance?
• does it encourage identification with underground/minority groups and anti-authoritarian impulses?

Final takeaway: the ghoul can be enemy or friend—resistance remains a choice.

Presenters / Contributors

• Andrea Cedrullo (host/guide)
• Nandita Biswas Mellamphy (oracle; political theory)
• Arshin Adib-Moghaddam (oracle; global thoughts/comparative philosophies)

Guests referenced for the next episode (summoned)

• Anna Longo
• Dayan Lukich