The various artworks of Chris Jordan seen here all depict the magnitude of waste and consumption that humans today produce/use. Eugene Rosa wrote a paper speculating on Jordan’s work, and in general he found them very powerful images. She liked how he visualized information that can be difficult to grasp sometimes, but she liked his real photography better than his digital photography. I see where he’s coming from, an image has a lot more impact when it seems more real and tangible. But I also really liked Jordan’s digital work too. It allowed him to create a more visually appealing art and use materials that perhaps would be hard to gather or manipulate. The art may distract from the message, and it could be argued that the message might be interpreted in the wrong way, like that all of this waste and consumption is somehow beautiful. But I believe that once people take a closer look and realize that what they’re actually looking at is only a fraction of the waste that we create or what we consume, they will be able to understand the magnitude of the problem. I do also think that recreating famous works of art like “Starry Night” with 50,000 cigarette lighters will allow his artwork to appeal to a larger audience, and allow his message about waste and consumption to be spread more easily.
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