This thesis examines technology as a facilitator of diversifying the lens or framework through which an individual perceives and interprets the world around them and as such shapes the knowledge or skills that someone gains through direct involvement or exposure to it. The research brings forward a critical reflection of the interconnection technological developments have with the articulation of diverse cosmologies. To initiate this discourse, the concept of the horizon is introduced and contemplated as a political metaphor of a linear vision that instructs ideas of modernity. This analogy is explored as a means to analyze and dismantle homogeneous Western oriented visions of technology as much as futurity. Framed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s concept of perspectivism, there is a call to take up the crucial task of developing a multiplicity of frameworks in shaping reality. By taking into account the prominent role perspective has in defining world views, the text argues for a reconsideration of technology as a space for multicultural exchange.

It aims to acknowledge the presence of technology as an inherent part of our ways of building the world. In order to investigate this, an analysis of various stages of technology, from its material development to gaming platforms in the twenty-first century, is carried out. Attending to the multiplicity of ways in which technical relationships have shaped collective and individual space, the text turns to digital gaming worlds in particular as examples of heterotopias. Framed using concepts stemming from Latin American philosophies, such as nepantla a concept used by the Aztecs to describe a state of being that occurs when one is in the midst of a transition or transformation, these digital spaces are explored as radical spaces of exchange. Ultimately arguing for the effect these exchanges can have in the weaving of new world narratives and collective “grounding.”

Author: Alexandra Martens Serrano