The Incomprehensible Nature of Human Consumption, waste, recklessness, and overwhelming destruction.

Chris Jordan: Running the Numbers www.chrisjordan.com

The 3 photos above are a collage of photos of Dog and cat collars

Dog and Cat Collars, 2009
Depicts ten thousand dog and cat collars, equal to the average number of unwanted dogs and cats euthanized in the United States every day.

Talk about in comprehensible??? TEN THOUSAND EVERY DAY

This is the work of Chris Jordan, an artist who understands that most people do not understand statistics, or numbers, so his goal is to help us see through his photo collages the nature of human consumption and waste.

Oil Barrels, 2008
Depicts 28,000 42-gallon barrels, the amount of oil consumed in the United States every two minutes (equal to the flow of a medium-sized river).

Plastic Bottles, 2007
Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

Handguns, 2007
Depicts 29,569 handguns, equal to the number of gun-related deaths in the US in 2004.

“Running the Numbers 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 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities we each play as individuals in a collective that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming. ”

https://www.oitzarisme.ro/2011/07/29/chris-jordan-running-the-numbers/

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Ben Franklin, 2007
Depicts 125,000 one-hundred dollar bills ($12.5 million), the amount our government spends every hour on the war in Iraq.

Cans Seurat, 2007
Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.

Prison Uniforms, 2007
Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. The U.S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world.

I believe it is worth connecting with these issues and allowing them to matter to us personally, despite the complex mixtures of anger, fear, grief, and rage that this process can entail. Perhaps these uncomfortable feelings can become part of what connects us, serving as fuel for courageous individual and collective action as citizens of a new kind of global community. This hope continues to motivate my work.”

Please visit the links below to learn more about Chris Jordan’s work.

https://usaartnews.com/events/motion/chris-jordan-running-the-numbers

https://acidcow.com/pics/7684-running-the-numbers-an-american-self-portrait-83.html

https://www.oitzarisme.ro/2011/07/29/chris-jordan-running-the-numbers/

https://www.artworksforchange.org/portfolio/chris-jordan/