The third volume in the Future Wunderkammer series, Umwelten (plural of Umwelt), takes its name from Jakob von Uexküll’s early twentieth-century concept. Using the metaphor of a “soap bubble,” Uexküll theorized that the world as experienced by animals differs fundamentally from the one perceived by the human mind. Each organism inhabits its own perceptual world—an external environment and inner experience sufficient in its own right, independent of our own. These manifold worlds remain strange to us humans, yet fully coherent to the creatures that inhabit them. The essays gathered here explore emerging paradigms of planetary flourishing and multispecies ecologies, whose individual and collective behaviors suggest sophisticated subjectivities—each a distinct and evolving Umwelt.
Contributions by Claire Isabel Webb, David Gruber, Giovanni Petri, Glenn Kaino, Jonathan Blake, Jennifer Bourne, Wendi Yan, Liam Young, Freddy Avis (Arswain), Harry Yeff (Reeps100), Trung Bao
Artwork by Thibault Tourmente, Fenna Schilling Jimmy Linear, Shay Azari, Mariano Pascual, Wendi Yan, Harry Yeff, Trung Bao
