Prototyping a Micro-pluriverse: Performed Cosmologies to Decolonize Augmented Reality

How do we apply theories of decolonization to an emerging technology such as augmented reality (AR)? We explain how our co-creative pilot laboratory contributes to efforts in decolonizing augmented reality through embodied prototyping, and designing pluriversality in AR to “augment” de-centered narratives. Our initial methods included facilitating reading discussions and affinity mapping (to transpose theories into action). “Thinking-feeling” (Escobar, 2015) and “power-geometries” (Massey, 1991) became a means to engage with our own mental models and constructs, as they relate to colonization. This led us to build a series of prompts organized into a “Cosmology Toolkit” (Escobedo, Kris & Sweidan, 2020). We conducted field research in our local geography, as a means to critically engage with space and address historic psychogeographies. Using TorchAR (a free, proprietary AR design tool), we performed expressions of our personal cosmologies, which were recorded as videos and layered in situ, to prototype a micro- pluriverse.