This photographic series from Chris Jordan 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. Chris’ 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 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes. This project 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.

Cans Seurat, 2007
60×92″

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



Energizer, 2007
60×99″

Depicts 170,000 disposable Energizer batteries, equal to fifteen minutes of Energizer battery production.

Skull With Cigarette, 2007 [based on a painting by Van Gogh]
72×98″

Depicts 200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months.

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