Running the Numbers
| Theme: | Ecology |
| Date: | 24.12.08 |
| Author: |
An American Self-Portrait by Photographer Chris Jordan. Running the Numbers 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 aluminium cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on.
Chris hopes that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, Chris hopes to raise some questions about the roles and responsibilities of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming. So go to this fantastic website to see visualised the following statistics;
28,000 42-gallon barrels is the amount of oil consumed in the United States every two minutes (equal to the flow of a medium-sized river)..
320,000 light bulbs is equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage (inefficient wiring, computers in sleep mode, etc.).
One hundred million toothpicks is equal to the number of trees cut in the U.S. yearly to make the paper for junk mail.
One million plastic cups is the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.
32,000 Barbies is equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006.
Two million plastic beverage bottles is the number used in the US every five minutes.
2.3 million folded prison uniforms is equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. The U.S. has the largest prison population of any country in the world.
426,000 cell phones is equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day.
1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags is the number used in the US every hour.
410,000 paper cups is equal to the number of disposable hot-beverage paper cups used in the US every fifteen minutes
65,000 cigarettes is equal to the number of American teenagers under age eighteen who become addicted to cigarettes every month
nine million wooden ABC blocks is equal to the number of American children with no health insurance coverage in 2007.
24,000 logos from the GMC Yukon Denali is equal to six weeks of sales of that model SUV in 2004.
60,000 plastic bags is the number used in the US every five seconds.
