Visual Statistics

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 only caveat about this series is
that the prints must be seen in person
to be experienced the way they are
intended. As with any large artwork,
their scale carries a vital part of their
substance which is lost in these little
web images.

Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here
might be enough to arouse your
curiosity to attend an exhibition, or
to arrange one if you are in a position
to do so. The series is a work in progress,
and new images will be posted as they
are completed, so please stay tuned.

~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007

Chris Jordan art

Top of Page