Umwelten is a transmedia story that explores possible future interactions of organic and synthetic life. Across the mediums of illustration, animation, and kinetic sculpture, the project speculates a future where humans and machines coexist in the wild.

The term ‘umwelt’ translates as the environment. However, umwelt is also a concept discussed by Jakob von Uexkull (1934); that all entities have a unique subjective experience of living and perceiving their worlds.

In our more than human world, this project uses the concept of umwelt as a tool for designing autonomous systems that move away from anthropomorphism.

Our story begins in Hackney Wick, where a group of counterculture rebels had an idea to create machines to rewild the city. These machines would feed off sunlight, self-organise and live in social groups. The rebels built Jada, who started to mirror human gestures as a form of perspective-taking.