What happens when the consequences of human actions are so pervasive and profound that everything on Earth becomes artificial to some degree?
This new 20-minute video essay explores the most iconic specimens from A Bestiary of the Anthropocene book & research, combining video footage from around the world, this 2-channel video exposes the hybrid beings humans are now coexisting with in the Anthropocene era, merging in various forms and degrees the natural with the artificial. This new video work is commissioned by the Max Ernst Museum, and will be presented together with a large-scale installation featuring our full collection of physical specimens.
BASED ON "A BESTIARY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE" BOOK 2021. An illustrated compilation of hybrid creatures of our time, equally inspired by medieval bestiaries and observations of our damaged planet. Designed as a field handbook, it aims at helping us observe, navigate, and orientate into the increasingly artificial fabric of the world. Plastiglomerates, surveillance robot dogs, fordite, artificial grass, antenna trees, Sars-Covid-2, decapitated mountains, drone-fighting eagles, standardised bananas… each of these specimens are symptomatic of the rapidly transforming “post-natural” era we live in. Often without us even noticing them, these creatures exponentially spread and co-exist with us.
A BESTIARY OF THE ANTHROPOCENE seeks to capture this precise moment when the biosphere and technosphere merge and mesh into one new hybrid body. What happens when technologies and their unintended consequences become so ubiquitous that it is difficult to define what is “natural” or not? What does it mean to live in a hybrid environment made of organic and synthetic matter? What new specimens are currently populating our planet at the beginning of the 21st century?
VIDEO ESSAY, 2 CHANNELS 4K, STEREO AUDIO, 15 MINUTES (FOR 2 SYNCHRONISED 4K DISPLAYS) VIDEO, MUSIC, DESIGN & ILLUSTRATIONS DISNOVATION.ORG
RESEARCH & BOOK NICOLAS NOVA & DISNOVATION.ORG
DESIGN & ILLUSTRATIONS MARIA ROSZKOWSKA (DISNOVATION.ORG)
BOOK PUBLISHED BY ONOMATOPEE | ISBN 978-94-93148-44-4
VIDEO ESSAY CO-COMMISSIONNED BY MAX ERNST MUSEUM, BRUHL, DE
EXHIBITIONS
Video premiere, at Max Ernst Museum, Brühl, March 2025 [DE]
Video preview, at La Générale, Paris, Feb. 2025 [FR]
Video preview, at La Gaité Lyrique, Paris, Sep. 2024 [FR]
