Sheldrick

In Anthropocene, Sheldrick presents a series of generative AI video artworks that signify the fast and pervasive changes occurring in today’s human-driven evolutionary epoch. Each of these 25 micro-views of the natural world highlights the rapidly interconnected changes happening on our planet, and prompt reflection of humanity's impact.

While Earth's geological eras are typically measured in millions of years, the Anthropocene – or ‘new human era’ – has emerged with startling immediacy and change. Though the formal recognition of this epoch is still debated, the evidence of human influence is unmistakable: from the depletion of the ozone layer and the sprawling Great Pacific Garbage Patch, to the alarming rates of forest and jungle loss. These large-scale devastations on the intricate network of this world are driven by human activity that extends in ways that mirrors our evolution: swift, extreme, and reaching to every corner of this planet.

The pieces in this series visualize how the world evolves in the Anthropocene, using small and natural subjects to suggest that nothing remains unaffected – nothing is in isolation. Whether through direct environmental degradation, a butterfly-effect chain of events, or the transfer of unseen energies – even the tiniest elements of our world are vastly and quickly changing, from flora and insects to seemingly untouched landscapes and geological elements.