Anthropocene
GRADUATION
Currently we are living in the Holocene Epoch, the now forming rock layer which started more than 11,500 years ago as the last Ice Age came to an end. Because human activity is leaving an omnipresent signature on Earth, debate continues about whether a new Epoch needs to be declared, the Anthropocene. This name comes from the term Anthropogenic, which means of, relating to, or resulting from the influence of human beings on Earth. Thus far the layers have been natural without human impact. In archeology, natural is a term to denote a stratum(=layer) in the stratigraphic record where there is no evidence of human activity. When looking at the Anthropocene, one can’t help but wonder; what kind of layer are we leaving behind? In the following research that has been conducted, there is elaborated upon human’s impact on Earth’s current crust and will investigate five places that have been profoundly reshaped by human mediation.
If you can imagine a future geologist, a hundred million or a billion years from now, studying the various strata that have been laid down, perhaps going through a Grand Canyon- like structure that cuts through the stratum of our time, you could see this rich layer with all of these unusual materials and crystals. There are things that are going to persist for hundreds of millions of years, meaning that humans are creating their own geological time strata.
My project is based on what these future geologists will find and what the discovery of our layer will tell about humans and their impact on earth. My collection pieces are the artifacts of our time found in the earths Anthropocene layer as technofossils.
