Visual statistics – the madness of consumerism

In Running the Numbers – An American Self-Portrait, Chris Jordan has put together a brilliant set of images that…

… visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

My favourites are:

426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day:

cell phones

Detail:

Cell phones detail

Here’s a forest of 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour:

paper bag forest

Detail:

paper bag forest detail

There are some disturbing images in this clever collection.

Check out the rest of: Running the Numbers.

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Posted in Environment, Mathematics - March 8th, 2008.

2 Comments on “Visual statistics – the madness of consumerism”

  1. Andrea Says:
    17 Aug 2009 at 6:55 am Link to this comment

    I found this art work to be very powerful. I am doing a college paper on consumerism and would like to use one of the pictures (images) from Running the Numbers to illustrate a point. Can someone please let me know who i would need to contact for permissionn.

    Thank You
    Andrea

  2. zac Says:
    17 Aug 2009 at 8:42 pm Link to this comment

    Hi Andrea. Since you have no commercial intent, your use of the image constitutes “fair dealing” for academic (and educational) purposes. You don’t need to seek permission, but you do need to give proper attribution. (Say where it is from, the date you accessed it, the name of the photographer.)

    This is contrary to what he states on this page: http://www.chrisjordan.com/contact.php. If you are worried about it, his email is on that page.

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