modern life is rubbish

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue May 29, 2007 3:16 am

Link to this photographer's site was posted on deadairspace, the Radiohead blog. Amazing pictures - the 'Running The Numbers' series really brings home the magnitude of the modern consumer society, those pictures have made me think more about the grotesquely wasteful way we live than any environmental information I've ever seen.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

The ones from New Orleans after the hurricane bring that devastating event home in a way that none of the news footage I watched really did.

Post by **alx5962** » Tue May 29, 2007 9:19 am

I LOVE the photos and the ideas too!
'Running the numbers' is just perfect.

Post by **sound world** » Tue May 29, 2007 1:00 pm

Oh my God

Terrifying.
How does he do those photos? remarkable.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue May 29, 2007 4:38 pm

Aren't they astonishing? I mean, as artworks they are extraordinary, the sheer beauty and complexity and textural quality of them, but also the impact when you get up close and realise what they actually are. So many amazing images .... I love the ones of the sawdust mountain, and the statue of Our Lady in amongst the wreckage of the hurricane.

The guy really has a fantastic eye and is making quite an emotional impact on you with these images, which is not something you can say about a lot of contemporary art.

Dave, for the 'Running The Numbers' series I think the large images are pieced together from thousands of individual photographs, from the blurb on the site. Incredible how he does that.

I think it must have been Jonny Greenwood who posted this link on DAS, he's well into his photography these days.

~Michael · Post by **~Michael** » Tue May 29, 2007 10:04 pm

wow, these are amazing.

blue · Post by **blue** » Tue May 29, 2007 11:33 pm

I love the fact that some of the pictures are set out in such a way that they seem to suggest a sub-textual comment on the uses/abuses of the component items - the Vicodin one looks from distance like a vortex, an ever descending spiral, and the handgun one looks like thousands of wriggling worms or creepy crawlies. Very powerful.

picsou · Post by **picsou** » Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:48 pm

Shocking, but beautiful, in a shocking way. Who really cares? Human Societies are walking on the head.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:20 pm

I think people are generally beginning to understand now the impact our way of living is having on the planet, but it's because they can see a physical manifestation of it in the weather patterns, the way the seasons no longer seem to flow into one another but just arrive suddenly with a bang - winter coats one day, bathing costumes the next. For so long, the problem with getting people to understand the connections between their actions and the environment was that the information was statistical, and human beings don't really grasp statistics, which is the point this photographer is making with 'Running The Numbers'. Actually seeing the statistics presented in real terms in that visual way has a huge impact that the numbers themselves don't. I think this work is kind of genius, actually.

I'm recycling like a maniac now.

Post by **sound world** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 2:46 pm

Has he done one about cars?
Probably too close to the bone for most people who'll give up everything except the sacred tin box of death

I invite everyone to STAND right next to a urban main road (no,not in your car,where everything is like the telly) for half an hour,think for a moment about what we are doing to our world,and imagine what the same place would have been like just 150 years ago.

Post by **RobB** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:37 am

sound world wrote:I invite everyone to STAND right next to a urban main road (no,not in your car,where everything is like the telly) for half an hour,think for a moment about what we are doing to our world,and imagine what the same place would have been like just 150 years ago.

Well,I should imagine that they'd a lot of horse shit laying in the road and I guess if we'd been about then Dave, we'd no doubt be out scooping it up into buckets and taking it home for our gardens.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 1:50 pm

At least horseshit is useful, unlike the waste products of the sacred tin box of death.

Post by **RobB** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:01 pm

blue wrote:At least horseshit is useful, unlike the waste products of the sacred tin box of death.

Still,i'm all for these 'sacred tin boxes of death'......especially with holidays in the Cotswolds,Cornwall and Wales coming up in the next couple of months.

Going by horse those distances would give me a sore arse I fear.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:26 pm

I'm equally terrified of both horses and cars. Why can't someone invent a mode of transport that doesn't have large scary teeth or a capacity to crash and kill people?

*stays at home*

Post by **sound world** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:29 pm

RobB wrote:
blue wrote:At least horseshit is useful, unlike the waste products of the sacred tin box of death.

Still,i'm all for these 'sacred tin boxes of death'......especially with holidays in the Cotswolds,Cornwall and Wales coming up in the next couple of months.

Going by horse those distances would give me a sore arse I fear.

You could always go on holiday by train.
Or go to Clacton

.

barrett · Post by **barrett** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:04 am

blue wrote:I'm equally terrified of both horses and cars. Why can't someone invent a mode of transport that doesn't have large scary teeth or a capacity to crash and kill people?

*stays at home*

How about cycling...the best way to travel....and its free...and the cyclist is free...(pedals off humming My White Bicycle)...