Paper short abstract:

Motetzahui is a multimodal co-production of immersive and multisensory storytelling technologies to evoke the alternate modes of perception afforded to the Nahuales of Milpa Alta, Mexico City.

Paper long abstract:

Motetzahui explores the co-production of immersive and multisensory storytelling technologies to evoke the alternate modes of perception afforded to the Nahuales of Milpa Alta, Mexico City and trace the processes and implications of co-creating extended reality (XR) storytelling environment with indigenous knowledge guardians. Building on ethnographic fieldwork with the Nahuales of the Nahuatl-speaking cultural organisation, Calpulli Nahui Ollin in Milpa Alta, a rural municipality in the south of Mexico City, this practice-based research will experiment with emergent forms of immersive and multisensory storytelling technologies to co-create, critically negotatiate and activate speculative futures according to the lifeworlds, narratives and alternate perceptions of the Nahuales of Milpa Alta.

The Calpulli Nahui Ollin offer a decolonising lens through which to understand the Nahual, a trickster entity understood by contemporary Mexicans to be bad brujos, evil sorcerers or shamanic shapeshifters who can turn into jaguars or curse a lover. According to the Calpulli Nahui Ollin, a Nahual is a person of wisdom (or knowledge guardian) who acquires ancestral knowledge about their local environment and plays a political role by imparting cosmic wisdom to their neighbourhood.

Motetzahui is currently at the pre-production stage - I will go on fieldwork soon after March 2023. My project will benefit from the feedback and network of peers on the concept and narrative structure of the multimodal piece.

A link to a current set of images related to the project: https://josesherwood.com/mesoamerican-futurisms/