Consumer waste as pop art!!

Great interview on the Colbert Report on Comedy Central last night. The guest was photographer, Chris Jordan. His exhibit, "Running the Numbers," focuses on social issues such as consumerism and social welfare programs. The video of the interview can be found below (Video 1). One note about the video; it is hosted on the Comedy Central website because they want people to sit through a commercial before viewing it. They had all their content removed from YouTube for that purpose, I imagine.

Video 1. Chris Jordan on the Colbert Report.
Link:http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/player.jhtml?ml_video=111474&ml_collection=&ml_gateway=&ml_gateway_id=&ml_comedian=&ml_runtime=&ml_context=show&ml_origin_url=/shows/the_colbert_report/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml&ml_playlist=&lnk=&is_large=true


The most striking example of consumer waste, in my opinion, was the George Seurat representation of Sunday in the Park in aluminum cans! Awesome! Pointillisme in the form of aluminum cans! Brilliant!! A little background In Figures 1-3, we zoom in on the piece.

Figures 1-3. Sunday in the Park in aluminum cans! Brilliant!
Source: http://www.chrisjordan.com/






As stated in his interview, Jordan tries to visualize the scale of American consumption and waste. In the aluminum can example, Jordan states that every 30 seconds, the US consumes over 100,000 aluminum cans (the exact figure is stated in the Colbert Report interview), only half of which is recycled. The visual representation of this appeared to stun the audience. But as Jordan explained, the waste stream of the US is divided into many smaller streams such that the total extent of consumption of a given product is virtually hidden or unknown.


The extent of US consumption is monitored by a myriad of government agencies. For example, the US Department of Energy (DOE) keeps statistics on energy consumption as well as forecasts (Figure 4). I imagine every industry monitors its own consumption or has a government regulatory agency that oversees it. But tracking the habits of individual consumers may be difficult to definitively ascertain. I was not able to determine the source of Jordan's statistics but I would regard them as credible.


Figure 4. Energy consumption statistics.
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumption/index.html



In addition to the appearance on the Colbert Report, I found a piece done on the Bill Moyers program (Video 2). It is an even better piece than that found on the Colbert Report. It goes into how he started and the process by which he photographs his subjects.


Video 2. Bill Moyers appearance (no picture available)
Link: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09212007/watch3.html

Jordan also has a website to show his work and give information about exhibitions around the country. In addition to his "Running the Numbers" exhibit, Jordan also has previous exhibits along the same theme of consumer waste (Figures 5 and 6).


Figure 5. Intolerable Beauty.
Source: http://www.chrisjordan.com/



Figure 6. In Katrina's Wake.
Source: http://www.chrisjordan.com/



Lastly, I found more video about Jordan's work on YouTube (Video 3): "Depicts the staggering numbers involved in American consumption as Americans consume 25% of the world's resources and produce 25% of the environmental destruction/pollution. "


Video 3. YouTube video featuring the work of Chris Jordan.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apwvV1fMNso