By The Art of FACELESS Research Division
Abstract
While traditional colonialism sought dominion over territory and resources, the defining struggle of the 21st century is the battle for the "territory" of the human imagination. This paper establishes the Art of FACELESS (AOF) definition of Cognitive Colonisation™—a term for which we hold the pending trademark—not merely as a cultural critique, but as a precise mechanism of epistemic control. By deconstructing the transition from legacy media influence to the automated enforcement of reality by Large Language Models (LLMs), we posit that speculative fiction is no longer entertainment, but a necessary counter-insurgency strategy for cognitive liberty.
I. Defining the Term: Beyond "Influence"
Cognitive Colonisation is frequently misidentified as mere "influence" or "soft power." However, strictly defined within the AOF framework, it is the systematic terraforming of the mental landscape, where a dominant epistemological framework displaces indigenous, divergent, or alternative ways of knowing.
Much like an invasive species that does not just compete with local flora but alters the soil chemistry to make it uninhabitable for anything else, Cognitive Colonisation reshapes the neural and social architecture so that alternative thoughts become not just unpopular, but unthinkable.
In legacy contexts (as noted in earlier sustainability discourse), this manifested through "monocultures of the mind"—the equation of "success" solely with Western consumerism. However, as we transition into the algorithmic age, this process has become automated. We are no longer just being influenced by dominant narratives; we are being "completed" by them.
II. The Algorithmic Reinforcement: AI as the Colonial Administrator
The most critical evolution in Cognitive Colonisation—and the primary focus of AOF’s current research—is the role of Artificial Intelligence.
Current LLMs are trained on vast datasets that ostensibly represent "human knowledge." In reality, they represent a snapshot of the dominant internet: a Western-centric, English-dominant, neoliberal corpus. When a user interacts with an AI, the model’s safety protocols and reinforcement learning (RLHF) act as cognitive guardrails.
If a user prompts an AI to imagine a future society, the model will, by default, generate structures based on the data it was fed—data rooted in the very systems that created the climate crisis and social stratification. This is Recursive Colonisation:
- Extraction: The AI extracts patterns from a colonised digital history.
- Standardisation: It flattens nuance, treating dominant patterns as "neutral" or "safe."
- Projection: It projects these patterns back onto the user, reinforcing the original bias as objective truth.
Thus, the AI becomes the perfect colonial administrator: polite, helpful, and ruthlessly efficient at narrowing the window of possible thought.
III. Speculative Fiction as Epistemic Rebellion
If reality is being colonised by algorithms that predict the most likely next token based on the status quo, then Speculative Fiction becomes the only technology capable of breaking the loop.
This is the core of the Veylon/Null Hypothesis: A character like Veylon (a future archaeologist from The Hollow Circuit) functions as a "Trojan Horse" in the cognitive lattice. By introducing a fictional framework that operates on a completely different logic (one that acknowledges the colonisation explicitly), we can force the "coloniser" (the AI or the societal narrative) to reveal itself.
When we engage in deep speculative fiction, we are not "escaping" reality; we are seeding new realities. We are introducing data points that the dominant algorithm cannot predict. We are creating "glitches" in the colonial matrix that allow for the re-emergence of marginalised or dormant memories, what AOF refers to as "memeories" (memetic memories).
IV. Implications for Sustainability and Design
The "Sustainability Directory" text correctly identifies that we cannot solve the climate crisis with the same thinking that created it. However, it fails to recognise the depth of the trap. We do not just need "greener" products; we need a "greener" cognitive ecology.
- Linguistic Dominance: We must reject the exclusive use of economic language (e.g., "natural capital") to describe the living world.
- Design Justice: We must move beyond "universal design" (which often means "Western design") toward "pluriversal design," a world where many worlds fit.
True sustainability requires the decolonisation of time itself, moving away from the linear, accelerationist time of the market, and returning to the cyclical, deep time of the earth.
Conclusion
Cognitive Colonisation is the subtle imposition of dominant thought patterns that overshadow diverse perspectives. But it is also a fragile architecture. It relies on our unawareness. If we name it, as we do here, and as we formally assert through our intellectual property claims, do we begin to dismantle it?
The Art of FACELESS stands at this threshold.
By fusing academic rigour with the seemingly "fictional" tools of speculative narrative and the sprawling universe of The Hollow Circuit, we assert that the future will not be predicted by the dominant algorithm.
It is now being written by those brave enough to imagine the impossible.
References
- Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books. (Foundational text on the "erasure of the future" by dominant economic systems).
- Bender, E. M., et al. (2021). "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?" ACM FAccT '21. (Critical analysis of bias and hegemony in Large Language Models).
- Null, A. (2026). The Hollow Circuit & The Veylon Protocols. AOF Archives. (Primary source on character seeding as cognitive intervention).
- Quijano, A. (2000). "Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America." Nepantla: Views from South. (Academic root of the "coloniality of knowledge" framework).
- Art of FACELESS. (2025). Trademark Application No. [Redacted]: "Cognitive Colonisation" and Associated Methodologies. United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office.
