ANTHROPOBSCENE
Documenting the collapse of wildlife in the Anthropocene
ANTHROPOBSCENE is a transdisciplinary project combining photography, video, science, and critical thinking to document the impact of human activity on the wildlife of southeastern Iberia — yet another vulnerable region facing the global ecological collapse.
Through immersive visual storytelling, an ad hoc metric of contaminant impacts, and collaboration with scientists, philosophers, and local stewards of the land, the project explores how landscapes, organisms, and memory itself are disappearing within the age of the Anthropocene.
Blending aesthetics with investigative depth, this work exposes the hidden toxicity behind certain forms of progress, raising uncomfortable yet necessary questions about the future of wildlife — and driving reflection and action through images that confront the viewer’s conscience.
In addition to its photographic core, the project includes a citizen science app, an open educational program, and a set of spin-offs that expand its reach. Three narrative chapters and a bonus epilogue structure this project, currently in active development.
Can wildlife survive
its own imitation?
We will study the case of the endemic butterfly Euchloe bazae: critically endangered by a solar plant that mimics its wings while destroying its habitat.
Where does darkness hide?
We will cross a 400 kV line for 220 km, measuring pollution, habitat loss and the spread of artificial light over previously pristine skies.
What will Earth remember
of the Anthropo?
Anchored at the same point for more than 24 hours, I took hundreds of photographs in order to reflect the passage of a moon, the passage of a sun and thepassage of an electrical storm at night.
We are faced with a dramatic scene: bulldozers and detonations of explosives in an aggregate quarry left this tree on the verge of death, with its roots unprotected and with hardly any support.
He lives crucified; he is a silent witness of our actions. Even if you don’t believe it, we are inside a protected natural space.
Let’s look at another micro-story. 34 aerial photographs make up this spherical panorama generated by my drone camera. In it I want to highlight the current state of the wetland "Cañada de Las Norias", completely surrounded by the greenhouses of "La huerta de Europa".
The "almeriense" plastic sea, a cyborg of 40000 tons of plastic, is the only human construction that can be seen from space. Overexploitation and pollution destroyed the real "Dalías Camp".
This model of intensive agriculture gives us food but also bringswith it other impacts: illegal extraction of aggregates and aquifers, eutrophication of irrigation waters, occupation of livestockroads, landfills and change of temperatures due to high reflectivity, environmental pollution, visual, diffuse...
The microplastics in the sea of "Almería" reach triple the averageof the Mediterranean Sea. Despite this, this quagmire and its surrounding areas are mandatory residence and migratory stop for an extraordinary biodiversity. There is a question in the air: how much does our vegetable food cost?
What if civilization
was a mistake?
The intimate testimony of Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, the "wolf boy" from Sierra Morena, whose wild life an subsequent forced reintegration into the modern world compels us to rethink what it means to live outside the Anthropocene.
+ info
Artículo de Jussi Parikka:
Medios, materialidad y ecología
Artículo National Geographic:
5 claves para entender qué es el Antropoceno
y por qué la propuesta es tan polémica
Artículo National Geographic:
La ciencia no reconoce el Antropoceno
Artículo National Geographic:
¿Cuándo se inició el Antropoceno,
Artículo National Geographic:
Artículo de Helmuth Trischler: