Visiting the Seminar “Heated Planetary Futures” at Goethe University Frankfurt

In July 2025, Malve Jacobsen gave a talk on “Mosses Against Heat” in the seminar Heated Planetary Futures at the Department of Human Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt. The seminar, led by Alexandra Wirobek and Marc Boeckler, sought to understand heat through its socio-spaital consequences and infrastructural demands, as well as the systems of knowledge that produce and respond to it. The seminar explored the politics of thermal governance, the ambivalences and promises of cooling technologies, and how heat might shape planetary futures.

The seminar session on Urban Cooling Strategies critically engaged with municipal endeavours and the limitations of efforts to cool urban space. In her talk, Malve outlined administrative, biological, and technological strategies for cooling urban environments, and discussed a biotechnological air filter in terms of its promising – but also spatially limited – potential in mitigating urban heat. Furthermore, her talk raised questions about the agency of urban green and volatile airs: How are they sensed, measured, regulated, and governed? This inquiry connects to Malve’s research project, “Technonatural Mediations of Urban Air“. The talk was followed by student questions on the techno-political dimensions of these moss machines and their socio-spatial implications. In the second half of the seminar session, students delved into a text discussion on the absence and presence of shade in Los Angeles.