What does it mean to live on a flat, square planet—one shaped not only by natural processes and human land-use histories, but also by media technologies and underlying knowledge cultures? The book More-than-Planet challenges conventional, often technocratic ways of seeing and representing Earth.
From satellite imagery to planetary dashboards, digital systems increasingly render the planet as pixelated, objective, and governable. Yet behind this flattening lies a complex web of knowledge cultures, colonial legacies, and technopolitical infrastructures. This book asks how we might see otherwise—and live otherwise—on a planet made through contested, entangled, and situated perspectives.
Bringing together artistic research, environmental humanities, and science and technology studies, More-than-Planet invites readers to explore the conceptual, material, and epistemic terrains of our planetary condition. It calls for a cultural-environmental literacy rooted in plural ontologies, relational ecologies, and situated ways of mattering. Against dominant narratives of the Anthropocene and Earth-as-system, the book proposes a Planetary Public Stack—a layered framework for imagination and coexistence that recognises multiple ways of planet-making.
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Why This Book Now?
As the Earth is increasingly sensed, modelled, and governed at a planetary scale, it becomes vital to ask: Which planet is being made? With what knowledge? By which infrastructures? And by whom? Rather than treating the planet as a passive object—awaiting rescue, measurement, or control—More-than-Planet reveals Earth as a continuously constructed entity: conceptually, technologically, and politically. The book responds to an urgent need to rethink how planetary imaginaries are formed and by whom.
To address this, More-than-Planet calls for a reclaiming of planetary concept-making from technocratic or universalising frameworks that reduce Earth to data points or abstract systems. It foregrounds the importance of recognising the multiplicity of knowledge cultures, cosmologies, and ways of mattering that shape our understanding of the planet. In doing so, it opens up the possibility of reconfiguring planetary infrastructures to invite civic, artistic, and plural forms of intervention. Ultimately, the book reframes planetary mattering not as a hierarchical or top-down process, but as a situated, relational, and co-constructed engagement—rooted in diverse knowledge cultures, cosmologies, and practices of care that collectively shape how the planet comes to matter.
What this book includes
At the heart of this publication are four essays and research contributions developed by the More-than-Planet Working Group, composed of Solveig Suess, Adonis Leboho, Klára Peloušková, Lukáš Likavčan, and Chris Julien. Their collaboration emerged from a year-long exchange across disciplines, geographies, and intellectual traditions, driven by two intertwined questions: How can we understand the planet as a cultural object? and Why is it urgent to integrate cultural and artistic practices into planetary and space research?
Rather than offering singular answers, the Working Group’s collective process mapped a conceptual landscape shaped by diverse theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Their contributions are organised around three interlinked themes. The first, Cosmologies, addresses the ontologies and worldviews that shape how different communities and cultures relate to the planet. The second, Viewpoints, examines the infrastructures of sensing, mapping, and governance that mediate planetary knowledge. The third, Procedures, focuses on the situated practices through which planetary realities are enacted, negotiated, and challenged.
Together, these perspectives invite a deeper engagement with the cultural dimensions of planetary thought and offer a critical foundation for imagining futures that are more inclusive, reflexive, and ecologically entangled.
Cite as: More-than-Planet Atlas. Miha Turšič, Zoénie Liwen Deng, Bonnie van Vugt, Chris Julien, Adonis Leboho, Lukáš Likavčan, Klára Peloušková, and Solveig Qu Suess. Amsterdam: Stichting Waag Society, 2025.
