Paper Short Abstract:

In this paper I explore how spatial colonial geographies in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, is decolonized by indigenous perspectives through immersive technologies and affective ambivalence. More concretely, the paper will dive into a case of an augmented reality city walk and its reception in the polar explorer neighbourhood in Aarhus, to look at how the walk could be seen as a site-specific museum activity to let audiences discover, experience and critically reflect on unnoticed colonial relics in the city.

Paper Abstract:

In this paper I explore how spatial colonial geographies in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, is decolonized by indigenous perspectives through immersive technologies and affective ambivalence. More concretely, the paper will dive into a case of an augmented reality city walk and its reception in the polar explorer neighbourhood in Aarhus, to look at how the walk could be seen as a site-specific museum activity to let audiences discover, experience and critically reflect on unnoticed colonial relics in the city.

My point of departure lies in projects such as ECHOES (2018-2021) and PLAYING WITH GHOSTS (2022-2025) that explore how colonial heritage is dealt with in city spaces by decolonial artists, activists and citizen initiatives and in PWG we look at how art and cultural practices decolonize through the lens of humour and affective ambivalence.

The AR-walk “Qallonology 101: White Male Polar Explorers and Danish Desire to Settle” makes visible the hidden and haunting layers of polar explorers street names through their various mediated representations (memes, documentary clips, interviews, songs etc). Thus, the paper unfolds the mnemonic tactics and aesthetic strategies of the AR-walk and detect how indigenous voices dismantle the ‘cool colonizer’ and take the position of political subjects through inversion and Inuit worldmaking. The paper will likewise look at how the walk was decoded, responded to and experienced by three high school classes and will focus on if and how the walk affected the audiences’ positionalities and worldview as well as to give rise to productive affective ambivalence.