A Crooks and Liars Art Break
You've got to see Chris Jordan's work.
Image above shows detail of blocks made of blocks indicating the number of US children without health insurance.
From Running the Numbers, an American Self-Portrait:
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. My underlying desire is to affirm and sanctify the crucial role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.
Chris promises to add pieces as they are completed; well worth the bookmark.
Fist.
Jordan was featured on Bill Moyers Journal last night. Wonderful stuff.
you're fist, I'm frist
chlorocardium @ 1:
Oh yes, Moyers!
Great art!! Thanx for the eye candy after baking a Berkeley Bomber!Thats a joint for all you rethugs and such. West coast hippy cannabis. The best in the west.
you want art? i got some art for ya.
music by Lou Reed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCutvXccFlA
and my favorite cartoonist--Mr. Fish
http://laweekly.blogs.com/fish/
Here's a 1.5 million ways to say STFU to your favorite Rethug.
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/donate.html
I like how he mixed in Denial logos with the Yukon Denali piece.
The problem is, this is art... and you know as well as I how much the typical conservative pays attention to art. Now if Chris Jordan made these look like tits and explosions, they might pay attention to it... maybe.
Brilliant idea and execution. Don't cha love the Internet?
http://blog.oregonlive.com/politics/2007/09/sen_smiths_food_plant_fined_...
Nice little story on Senator Smith and his processing plant he owns that violated Oregon's environmental law for the third time since 1990.
"It doesn't look good," Marc Siegel, spokesman for the Oregon Democratic Party, said about the fine. "If your charge is to make laws, and you are charged with breaking laws, you've put yourself in a bind."
Great Post. I missed some of this last night and so glad you have it here. More reason to destroy my television. Makes me wonder what a million TeeVee sets would look like.
paranoia @ 9:
$3,000?!?! That's it?!?! Jesus Christ! I bet Smith's stock portfolio makes that much money whenever the market makes the ever slightest tick upward.
I don't know crap about what is good "art" or not - but I know when a messages resonates with me. These are like tuning forks for the soul....
I like Jordan's work because it puts something tangible to the numbers. When we round off and estimate these statistics and slap a number behind them, it becomes completely abstracted. Most people can not conceive what a million is. Back in the 70's, a 300+ page book was published that had one million dots in it. Each page was numbered the ordinal range of dots on that page, and various statistics pointing to certain dots.
A paperclip is approximately one gram, therefore a million paperclips is 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs), which is the same as 1 metric ton. A fingernail is about 1 mm long, therefore a million fingernails stacked in front of each other is about 1 km (0.62 miles) long. These sort of things make the enormity of these numbers more concrete.
er, it's not really a "break" if it's political, is it?
Medford Tim @ 12:
It's all very subjective. If it moves you somehow, you can say it's good. No license required.
here's a bit of art:
tunes, lou reed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCutvXccFlA
toons, Mr. Fish.
http://laweekly.blogs.com/fish/
I like the "art break". This is very interesting. Of course, I'm e-mailing it all over the world.
In Asia, they give away disposable wooden chopsticks for hot noodles and other foods. Recently they imposed a tax on them in China (I wish they'd do the same here in Korea.) The Chinese use about 45,000,000,000 pairs a year. Think how many trees that takes. One quick snack and into the garbage. Many Chinese are now carrying their own washable pair with them now, they re-use.
And, I knew I'd find a way to spread this tidbit again (big numbers from Professor Astronomy-- http://www.professor-astronomy.com/blog/2005/08/1000000000-and-counting.... ):
100 seconds = 1 2/3 minutes
1000 seconds = 16 2/3 minutes
10,000 seconds = 2 hours, 46 2/3 minutes
100,000 seconds = 1 day, 3 hours, 46 2/3 minutes
1 million seconds = 11.5 days (I'm rounding off from here on)
10 million seconds = 115.7 days
100 million seconds = 3 years, 2 months
1 billion seconds = 31 years, 8 months
10 billion seconds = 317 years
1 trillion seconds = 31,688 years
Wow. What a great post. thanks.
I know these are best seen in person, but would love to see prints of these to hang in my living room.
carl h @ 4:
sorry charlie, i just moved out west(s.d.,o.b.) dope here=ave. (and expensive)
Artistic genius. Thank you.
How many computers dumped each year so we can have access to the Internet tubes? :)
Amazing perception this artist. Beside it being an unique way to stir the "Self-Absorbents" to look out side of themselves.
Thanks for the link and the diversity in the C&L posts.
Blue Buddha @ 12:
To me this story is a perfect demonstration of being a corporate owned and run politician. They release the waste knowingly, and risk being fined. Meanwhile there is a fund raising effort underway to clean the river. The whole community coming together to clean the river with donation because the govt don't have the fund, and then his corporation just basically said "screw you people"! I know many of the Portland, Oregon people read this, and they need to see this hypocrisies of Senator Gorden Smith.
Chris rocks. Thanks for this post
ALWAYS something unexpected, thought-provoking, and RELAVENT!
Thanks for this post.
Nice find Bluegal! Love the work and look forward to seeing it in person.
Erik
Truth & Beauty
[...] the NumbersPosted September 23, 2007 Via Crooks and Liars, Running the Numbers - An American Self-Portrait featuring digital art by Chris [...]
sorry about #17, i'm getting old and repeat repeat repeat myself sometimes.
Comments are closed on this entry