Consumans - Not A Pretty Picture

Boy, the raw consumption of humans is always astounding, but when depicted in artistic form, brings the sheer volume home... with a vengeance. Check out these beautiful and terrifying art pieces by artist Chris Jordan; and be sure to "zoom in." Thanks to Chris Nelder of the GetRealList and Energy and Capital for posting this on his venerable energy blog. Now get back to consuming... the world won't end itself now, will it? -Maltok 5


Running the Numbers
An American Self-Portrait
By Chris Jordan

This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. [more]