Encounters in the Urban Mesocosm: Charting Entanglements Between Humans and Nonhumans in Berlin-Wilmersdorf
摘要
This chapter develops a data-driven cartographic method to examine human and nonhuman coexistence in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Using digital datasets, two custom “urban mesocosm” maps frame fragments of the city as micro-sites where potential multispecies encounters can be registered, interpreted, and mobilised. Positioned against optimisation-focused digital urban paradigms, the work proposes an alternative technological approach grounded in exploratory, open-ended associations and their emerging entanglements. Drawing on ecological theory—from Uexküll’s Umwelt to Haraway’s “Contact Zones”—and Berlin’s history of urban ecological surveying, the maps spatialise time-stamped registers of human movement, vegetation, and wildlife. By folding different data sources into shared, codified visual frames, the chapter highlights the co-constitutive nature of urban life and suggests new possibilities for recognising and supporting multispecies relations in the contemporary city.