Tuesday, February 8, 2011

CHRIS JORDAN - Running the Numbers II: Portraits of global mass culture


This morning I found a link via twitter to the recent work from Chris Jordan on Seeds. If you're not familiar with his work visit his website here.

Chris Jordan
Chris Jordan

The art work I wish to show you is titled:

From the website  of the publisher of Chris Jordans' books - read here.

Part one of the series.

Statistics can be daunting but dry: 100 million trees cut down every year to make the paper for junk mail; 380,000 kilowatt hours of electricity wasted every minute; 2 million plastic bottles used every five minutes; 2.3 million Americans incarcerated in U.S. prisons in a single year. Renowned photographer Chris Jordan brings these staggering numbers to life in manipulated digital photographs that are at once alluring and shocking. A landscape of toothpicks, each representing a felled tree, stretches into the horizon; a looping maze of plastic cups reveals how many are used every six hours on airplane flights; and a replica of a Seurat masterpiece fashioned from aluminum cans becomes a lesson in waste. These astonishing photographs of great beauty reveal the devastating consequences of our culture of consumption.
As Paul Hawken notes, Jordan’s images are “a supplication to all who look upon them, to harm no more, to be mindful in all that we do, speak, and take."
A Seurat painting created from many small pictures of aluminum cans. The picture is composed of 106,000 cans, which is what the U.S. uses in 30 seconds (yikes). This is a 70x100 foot wall. Chris quipped that it's particularly sad as the contents of these are mostly sugared water and piss-poor beer.

poptech-chris-jordan-aluminum-cans.jpg
From Treehugger



4 comments:

LOVE STITCHING RED said...

Hi Sophie, haven't visited for a little while so there was a lot of beauty to catch up with x

ps. I'm having a little giveaway on my blog giving away one of my hearts for valentine's day and would love you to enter. Best wishes, Carolyn x

Sophie Munns said...

Hi Carolyn,
lovely to hear from you!
Must pop over!
S

Mlle Paradis said...

thanks for this sophie. i'm horrified whenever i see americans coming out of stores with stacks and stacks of drinks in bottles and cans.

Sophie Munns said...

Know precisely what you mean MP!
The once occasional 'party' drink a child was allowed is now the default water many turn to to quench a thirst...
Social conscience any soft drink corporates?

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