A Numerical Look at the Often Overlooked

It is so easy to not think about how much one wastes during the course of an average day; a plastic bottle gets thrown away, or a light gets left on. Things like these happen all of the time, to everyone. Some might say, “So what? It’s just one piece of trash and a little wasted electricity.” Unfortunately, such wastefulness is a big deal, especially when one considers the total magnitude of it in regards to the U.S. population as a whole. Modern-day artist Chris Jordan does a great job of giving people a more accurate perspective. Through his stunning and often beautiful ink-jet prints, Jordan reminds everyone just how important it is to limit our consumption of already limited resources.

At Chris Jordan’s exhibit Running the Numbers in the WSU Art Museum, a few works stand out in particular. His ink-jet print entitled Lightbulbs (2008) is both incredibly beautiful and eye opening. From far away, one might look at the print and see what appears to be a gorgeous celestial body of some kind, possibly a galaxy suspended in space. The galaxy spirals inward and draws its viewers closer. Once up close however, it becomes clear that the galaxy is not made of stars but of light bulbs; 320,000 of them in fact. That large amount of light bulbs represents, according to Jordan, the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted through residential use every minute. That is a ridiculous waste of electricity. However, an obvious question one should ask about this work is, “How exactly does Jordan define wasted residential use?” If those numbers are coming from power companies, there is no way to really know if all or any of that electricity is truly being wasted. Someone might have turtles which require a heat lamp all night, or someone might live in a neighborhood with a lot of burglary and he or she leaves the lights on at night as a crime deterrent. There is just too much variability in electrical usage. Yet even if the actual number was more like 100,000 light bulbs worth of wasted electricity, that is still a significant waste. This print however, was not the only one that stood out within the gallery.

Chris Jordan’s work entitled Toothpicks (2008) also contains a very strong message for its viewers. Just like with Lightbulbs, this ink-jet print can also be very deceptive from a distance. At first glance one sees what appears to be a peaceful wheat field. Upon a closer, second glance however, it becomes obvious that those are not stalks of wheat but toothpicks; approximately 100,000,000 in fact. According to Jordan, that number of toothpicks represents the number of trees cut in one year to make just the paper for all the junk mail that circulates the United States. Yet can such a staggering number be accurate? Again, one must call into question the validity of such a statement. Jordan does not mention what exactly he considers junk mail to be. One person might view an ad for a shoe sale as junk and another person might see it as an important notification. Such a subjective measure requires some definition. However, just as in the case of Lightbulbs, reducing the number of trees cut down to 50,000,000 would more than cover the percent error and still effectively display how wasteful Americans have become.

Another one of Jordan’s works, appropriately named Ben Franklin (2007), again provides an impressive representation of consumption. In this work, Jordan not only raises waste issues but political ones as well. This print, which from afar appears to be just the standard face of Ben Franklin from the $100 bill, is actually contrived of 125,000 individual $100 bills each shaded a little differently. This amount of money ($12.5 million) is how much the United States government was spending on the Iraq war per day in 2007. The statement Jordan makes with this work is very strong because not only is his statistic staggering, but there is much less debate behind the accuracy of these numbers. There is no room for subjectivity surrounding what Jordan meant by dollars spent per day. As a result, the viewer is definitely left with a strong sense of disgust about how frivolously the United States government spends money it simply does not have.

With just one quick walk through his exhibit, Chris Jordan uses his computer-generated prints to develop a very strong theme. Each one of his works appear to be nothing more than a simple image if one does not take a closer look. The wasteful consumption of Americans is very much the same. Most people do not see their wastefulness as a big issue until they take a closer look and notice what is really going on. While some of Jordan’s statistics do raise some questions, even those works still succeed in getting people to talk about the issues at hand. Overall, Chris Jordan does a phenomenal job of raising awareness about the consumption crisis that is starting to plague our country and our world.