2/11/08

:: Description :: Chris Jordan









I stumbled upon Chris Jordan's work through a digg.com link leading to divinecaroline.com . Jordan's most recent work is 'Running by Numbers' where the artist photographs everyday objects, then multiplies them to represent the quantity found in a statistic, such as the number of plastic bottles used in 5 minutes. Instead of quantifying the answer, Jordan visually shows the scale of those 2 million bottles. The large photographs from a distance appear as patterns, but when the viewer goes in closer they are surprised to see what comprises the image. It is a very visual way to describe everyday statistical numbers.

Images by Chris Jordan depicting 200,000 packs of cigarettes, the number of cigarette smokers who die every 6 months. The skull image is based on work by Van Gogh and the additional images are details of the work. The final image is actual size.

2 comments:

Lydia said...

Wow, that is amazing how he put all the cigarette brands to make up the piece. I wonder, however, if he had the image to work with first and placed the brands by the color they represent (just speculating). Did he say how he put this together? I guess I could look at the website to see if there is any mention of that.

Mike said...

I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with something for show and tell that is a good description, so it's very cool to see this idea. It suggests how description doesn't have to just be words.