Conceptualisations and attributions of agency to co- and non co-present forms of otherness in actual, fictional, ludic and simulated possible worlds

Linguistically, and more specifically, semantically and pragmatically speaking, the term ‘agency’ has been, and still is, attributed a wide range of different meanings, some of which refer to observable cultural actualities that are fairly tangible in character, others less so. Given the amount of space available for this article it will clearly not be possible to address in detail all these different shades of meaning here. So, as a kind of compromise, and as a way of opening up one possible angle for further semiotic investigations the concept of agency, let us examine a selection of some more or less common contemporary meanings attributed to it – with a glance too, at some visual and other metaphors used as encylopedic vehicles to envision or embody these meanings. Our aim is to see if this approach can contribute to a more fruitful discussion of the notion of agency when conceived of in terms of our lived experience of enactive relationships with co-present, or non co-present forms of otherness in actual, fictional, ludic or simulated possible worlds.To provide a first overview of the tiny cluster of stars and planets that populate the sector of the global semantic-pragmatic universe we shall visit in the course of this treatise, I offer a few combinations of binary pairs of core metaphorical meanings related to the notion of agency, starting with some more tangible conceptualisations of it, and moving on to others that are increasingly intangible in character.