Here is an amazing exhibition in New York City if you can make it...
http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php
Here is a brief descriptor:
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.
This series will be exhibited at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York from June 14th to the end of July. Opening reception on June 14th. More info at www.vonlintel.com.
2 comments:
Whoa. That guy is right on to what people need to see. Intense. But total reality.
One of my assignments right now is a Gen Y study along with companies corporate responsibility...these teens need to see this kind of exibit more than anyone! They (Gen Y) are so-called "environmentally aware" but this need to consume and need for materialism really takes first place. I hope this artist gets published in more places, and that this sort of awareness of our consuming habits shows change is what we choose to do on a daily basis.
(Now I feel bad when I want to print out an article to read...when I can just as easily read it on my computer.) It's changed my habits, and I feel better about it.
Question: What is it that motivates YOU enough to actually change your habits?
From my seat on the bus, most people have trouble comprehending anything over a certain number. For example, to someone who only makes $40,000 a year, $250,000 is something they might be able to imagine. Anything more is just "big" - the mind is numb to the actual gain.
Exhibits like this one give a context to an otherwise numb statistic. Can any of you really imagine six million people dead in the holocaust? It's a numb figure... so let's try this one.
It's more or less everyone in San Francisco: SEVEN TIMES.
9-11 felt awful partly because 3000 is a number we are able to understand without any assistance. It's massive. It's like watching one-in-ten people at Giants game die during the seventh inning stretch. It's horrifying.
To bring the whole topic of what I call "numb statistics" home to the world we live in as advertisers - context is everything. Whether we're trying to show how much paper & metal is used every day or how many people a marketing decision affects it's important to put the numbers in a perspective people are capable of understanding. It's not that they aren't smart (they are), it's that a mind simply isn't able to comprehend certain statistics without the assistance of a metaphor.
To close, just how much more is a million dollars than your expected starting salary as Junior Account Planers?
It's the difference between walking a block and walking 23 blocks - in the same amount of time. Put another way, it's the difference between a brisk walk and 115mph.
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