Yes, but, is it photography?? [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

julian

21-Jan-2007, 13:56

As you know Chris, I'm a big fan of yours, so please take my comments in the light they are intended, someone who respects your work and obvious talent but has a few quibbles with your new work.

I'm sure these will be successful, they will sell. They are in the same vein as Warhols soup can. The concept is clear, and I have no doubt they look great, but i think the aesthetic - the philosophy, is a bit glib. You could repeat this idea with different objects ad nauseum, but what does the viewer get? IMO just a picture representative of a statistic, the art version of a pie chart. As a viewer I can't take anything else from these, I can't investigate my feelings apart from a 'yup, thats bad'.
Unlike your earlier work, there is no way i can 'play' with these images (in the modernist sense). I get them, then move on.
I often visit your site and look at your work - I 'get' something more each time as your images invite a close contemplation over time. With these, I don't think I can as i don't think there is anything to 'get' beyond your very clear explanations, and a tip of the hat to your intelligence and sense of humour.
As I said, I'm sure they are immaculate and will sell well, but i can't help thinking that this is a postmodern hole that is hard to get out of

domenico Foschi

21-Jan-2007, 14:37

Photography?

It has a component definetly.
I woldn't be concerned with that problem, you are growing immensely as an artist and now you are willing to explore new venues.
It takes guts and bravo to you.
I feel the impact is there, and you still come through at your best when color is involved.
The images of the containers and prison uniforms are striking, I don't go crazy for the B/W's but overall, Chris, beautiful and important work.

Armin Seeholzer

21-Jan-2007, 14:53

Very good and like it very much!
Good luck with the sales to. Armin

Lee Hamiel

21-Jan-2007, 15:03

Thanks for the link to your site

As to the question as to whether or not it's photography - yes it is

As to the message - very well done

I just read an article in Invention & Technology that showed a pile of cellphones awaiting recycling - similar to your shots - maybe it was yours? In any event it gave the visual impression as to how much e-waste is going on & will only continue even more so.

Congrats on a well done theme & photography & the best of luck with wherever you take it.

Regards

Randy H

21-Jan-2007, 15:17

Sorry, but here goes the flames.

Photography? not to me. Art most definitely.

Agreed. I feel kinda like the NY cabbie in "Curious George" the movie. Yep. Seen it. It evokes no emotion whatsoever. It is graphic art. Period. Computer generated. A project any high-school student is capable of, given Photoshop and the time. IIRC there was same basic style work done in mid-late seventies. In particular the cans. Oh yeah, and a gorgeous landscape, from twenty feet away. Garbage (literally) up close. Another NY piece of art-work.

I love your photo work. It boasts of a skill level to attempt to attain. It gives reasons to continue going back for a second look. "How did he do that?" "What was light, lens, filters, time-of-day, etc etc etc"

But all art is not photo, and all photo is not art.

windpointphoto

21-Jan-2007, 15:22

Depicting 106,000 aluminum cans, equal to the number of cans consumed in the US every thirty seconds.
Oh man, that's the hard way to get your daily fiber.

chris jordan

21-Jan-2007, 15:27

Hi guys, thanks for all of your interesting thoughts. Julian, your comment raises one of the issues that is difficult for this series, which is that the pieces have a drastically different effect in person than they do on the web. The little JPEGs give you a general sense of how they will look in person, but it's like the difference between watching a movie on the big screen versus seeing it on an iPod. For that reason I had some reservations about putting this series up on the web at all, but I decided to to it because it will reach people who might be interested in seeing (or arranging) an exhibition. Judging them from the little web images unfortunately misses the real essence of what they are about, which can only be experienced in person, but that's a limitation of this project that I'll have to deal with.

best,

~cj

paulr

21-Jan-2007, 15:43

Yeah, I wouldn't want to blab too much about these without seeing them in person. Your website sketches the idea, but this work is obviously going to be about first-person experience. I'd very much like to see them in person, based on the sneak preview.

But without having seen them, I'd be inclined to think of them as conceptual art that uses photography. Depending on the scale and the presentation, they might even end up feeling like installation pieces.

But I don't know how much is to be gained by worrying about categories. I'm more interested in looking at what the work tries to say, how it says it, and what the experience of looking at it is like. Unless you enjoy mulling over categories for its own sake, I'd let the curators worry about what shelf to put them on.

Finally, as a graphic designer (day job) I'd be quick to dismiss the idea that this work is graphic design. Graphic design is a commecial pursuit, done for hire to communicate clients' ideas and sell their products and services. This work is personal; it explores your own concerns, and by its nature is anti-commercial, not commercial.

Frank Petronio

21-Jan-2007, 15:50

Nicely executed but it's just predictable liberal dogma. Can the Guantanamo Bay and Global Warming pieces be far behind?

In the end it won't move people but only preaches to the chior. You need more of an edge if you're going to promote your brand of propaganda.

Oren Grad

21-Jan-2007, 16:11

Sorry to be blunt, but ax-grinding can have a paradoxical effect if you turn up the volume too far. In the context of your work to date, this latest is perilously close to self-caricature.

Ken Lee

21-Jan-2007, 16:54

GPS

21-Jan-2007, 17:45

Simplistic, after a few examples truly "ad nauseum". A self-caricature? Involuntarily, unfortunately and very surely yes, beating the dead horse is yet another expression for it. But dreaming of a deep impact (heavens!) - how far can one's simplicity go? If this works on the Vietnam wall - why not making a visual fractals in form of a cemetery (hospital, etc. you know) from all the cigarette butts smoked in one hour in the US... you got the idea... Heavens..!

Walter Calahan

21-Jan-2007, 18:21

Cool!

domenico Foschi

21-Jan-2007, 19:01

I think it's very effective communication.

The problem, however, is not how much we consume - It's how many of us there are.

If you cut the world population by 10, a lot of these ecological problems go away.

Some nations are aware of this, others have their heads buried in the sand.

I do not agree.
Do you mean that our obsession (in the US) with buying, buying and buying doesn't create extra waste?
Do we need to upgrade continuosly our cellphone?
I could go on and on....

domenico Foschi

21-Jan-2007, 19:07

I hope I didn't sound harsh, Ken, it wasn't meant confrontational.:)

Ken Lee

21-Jan-2007, 19:30

I hope I didn't sound harsh, Ken, it wasn't meant confrontational.:)

I don't think you were being harsh, Maesto :)

Your point is well-taken: Being concerned about overpopulation doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about wastefulness.

They are both becoming more important every day.

Darin Boville

21-Jan-2007, 19:40

Since you asked for opinions...

I think what you have here is an idea for an interesting direction but the idea has not had enough time to "cook" yet, and I doubt very much seeing the full-sized originals would mitigate that sense (indeed, it would likely augment it...see below).

You need another layer or level of depth to this to make it interesting (at least to me).

For example, you depict a zillion aluminum cans as a comment on our culture which allows/encourages vast over-production and over consumption of certain goods. The work is all about excess.

Yet the work has no self-awareness to it on this very topic. These are extremely large prints (dare I say excessively large?) which in and of themselves represent and contribute to the problem you are criticizing. It is further worrying that, as you claim, you need to see these full-sized for them to "work" since only a small number of people will ever see them in that size--reproductions in the New York Times simply won't do.

It will an irony too great for me to see these purchased and displayed by people who wish to demonstrate their commitment to environmental awareness.

In fact, I'm tempted to do a work in the style of Chris Jordan where I make a huge print made up of thousands of reduced ten foot test prints of your images!

So, again, I think you are starting down an interesting and possibly productive road here--sort of a Hans Haacke for the post-Vietnam generation--but something is missing...

I would suggest that the "unexpected" is missing...seeing lots and lots of products piled up is only unexpected, briefly, on the first viewing.

Anyway, since you asked...

--Darin

(edited for spelling--my two-finger technique leaves something to be desired...)

domenico Foschi

21-Jan-2007, 20:44

Off topic,
but it needs to be said.

Ken, fantastic work!

Your compositions, tonalities....
You have been working hard lately!
Some of the pieces are just masterful.
I bow to you, sir.

JBrunner

21-Jan-2007, 22:05

Absolutely fantastic. I don't know why you would think there would be a problem with this, but I am curious as to how large format photography was involved as an element in the production of this work, and if so why you choose use it.

The simple identity of medium and size is greatly appreciated, indeed, I could not have really imagined the scope and impact of the work without it.

Thanks for sharing.

JBrunner

22-Jan-2007, 00:14

Absolutely fantastic. I don't know why you would think there would be a problem with this, but I am curious as to how large format photography was involved as an element in the production of this work, and if so why you choose use it. It is not photography, but it is very well seen digital art that apparently uses photography as an element.

The simple identity of medium and size is greatly appreciated, indeed, I could not have really imagined the scope and impact of the work without it.

Thanks for sharing.

neil poulsen

22-Jan-2007, 00:26

Is art supposed to make you think?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Randy H

22-Jan-2007, 02:48

"Office Paper, 2007
Digital C print, 6x8 feet

Depicts 30,000 reams of office paper, or 15 million sheets, equal to the amount of office paper consumed in the US every five minutes."

Just curious. Does this include the paper the images were/will be printed on? It is kinda hard to decry the evils of clear-cut timber practices from the top of a wooden crate.

Phil Edmonds

22-Jan-2007, 02:49

The more pertinent question is not 'is it photography' but 'is it any good'. Well if it's meant as a poster for some green cause then, well... we've seen this many times before but why be picky. If it's meant as art, then it fails on charges of triteness and shallowness.

Warhol's soup cans (and the many derivative works that followed) had the advantage of not telling you what to think, thereby clearing that art-bar of raising questions without forcing an answer down your throat. So now we have yet another rehashing of a 40 year old idea, but now considerably worse than the original(s), and yet another series of photomosaics.

For those who think it's a lot of work, or for those who want to make their own, just Google for photomosaics. But no, the lack of effort is not the offensive part: the lack of intelligence is. Seeing derivative work from Mr. Jordan is not a first, but who knew he could dumb others' work down as well as copy it?

David A. Goldfarb

22-Jan-2007, 07:15

If you're going to do this sort of thing, you might as well make a statement. How about Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove as a Mt. Rushmore mosaic composed of bleeding and dismembered bodies? That could garner some attention.

John Flavell

22-Jan-2007, 07:28

Yes, it is photography. And judging from the conversation here, it's very effective.

paulr

22-Jan-2007, 08:31

Just curious. Does this include the paper the images were/will be printed on? It is kinda hard to decry the evils of clear-cut timber practices from the top of a wooden crate.

Don't you think that's a bit of a specious argument? For one thing, it's a stretch to interpret a piece like that as saying "using paper is evil." If anything, the work seems to be commenting on colossal scale of industrialized production and consumption. Something we all participate in (Mr. Jordan included), but something represented much better by day-to-day mundane examples than by a very small edition piece of art on paper, no matter what its size.

I also think it's unhelpful to hold the messenger to higher standards than other people. I've never gotten a sense from Chris that he's preaching from a soap box, talking down to us, or considering himself separate from the problems he explores. I see him screaming out "look what we're doing!" not "look what YOU'RE doing."

I agree with everyone who finds work that's purely agitprop to be uninteresting. If the only thing going on in this work was a condemnation of industry, or capitalism, or humans, it would be a big yawn for me. Whether or not i agreed. But I see more going on. For one thing, the work is pretty. The graphic forms, the almost fractal looking repetition, the interplay of detail and textures at different scales, are all mesmerizing. There's a kind of terrible beauty. It's much like the experience of looking at New York City from an airplane or a high window. The scale of it is at the same time breathtaking and horrifying. It stands simultaneously as a monument to dozens of things that are admirable and regretable about our species.It doesn't offer the viewer any obvious explanations or answers. If it was Chris's intention to create simple propaganda, then I think he failed beautifully.

tim atherton

22-Jan-2007, 08:56

Is art supposed to make you think?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Great art is supposed to "grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality"

which may or may may not include thinking/re-thinking

Al Seyle

22-Jan-2007, 09:56

Well, it makes me glad we decided never to have children.

...and no, it's not "photography"--it's photographIC.

Bruce Watson

22-Jan-2007, 10:01

The problem, however, is not how much we consume - It's how many of us there are.

Exactly. This planet is well beyond it's "carrying capacity" for humans. And those who don't understand this will have it smack them over the head in the coming years.

The real problem is going to come down to food. Our agricultural productivity right now is very high, but it's based on cheap oil. The vast majority of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides are based on oil. Mechanized farming runs on oil. Transporting food from where it's grown to where it's consumed by train, plane, and truck takes oil. Today in the USA, it takes a liter of oil to put a pound of beef on your table. What happens as the price of oil rises??? And if you haven't noticed, the price of a barrel of oil on the world market has doubled in the last few years, so this isn't a hypothetical "it's not going to happen in my lifetime" question. It most assuredly is happening in our lifetimes.

It's been estimated that agricultural productivity as been increased from 3-5x (depending on the crop) because of oil-based fertilizers and other products, oil powered machinery, and oil powered transportation. As the price of oil rises, so too does the cost of food. Either due to the price of oil alone, or through the cost of lowered productivity due to the lack of oil-based fertilizers and pesticides. While this is going on demand is rising because the population is increasing. Any way you look at it, this isn't going to be pretty.

Yet only China is putting in a good faith effort to curb its population. And even they say their population peak will occur several decades from now. The voluntary curbing of populations takes generations.

If Mr. Jordan's art makes anyone think about the vast amount of resources being consumed by humans and makes them think that maybe this is a bad idea with really bad ramifications, well, I'm all for it. It's pretty clear that we can't depend on governments or religions to guide us.

Precious few are willing to step up and call attention to the obvious. An amazing number of these are artists.

Marko

22-Jan-2007, 10:37

Is art supposed to make you think?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

Art either makes me think or it makes me yawn. This definitely makes me think.

Art in general and photography in particular was always supposed to depict reallity, wasn't it? I can't really think of any really good photograph out there that does not carry a message, although I'm sure good folks here will come up with examples.

There are many layers and points of view regarding this particular topic, and I think Chris has done really well representing that too, using a large mosaic of large format photographs.

I agree with Paul on this, there is no "Here's what YOU are doing" in this, only "Look what WE have done".

Not something I would put on one of my walls (none of them being big enough is only one of the reasons), but defintely great art, IMHO.

Frank Petronio

22-Jan-2007, 11:27

Yeah but the same demonstrations of consumption have been popular in art and editorial worlds for several years now, even National Geographic ran a story with pix of the average household's consumption -- with all their stuff laid out on the lawn, etc. So it is hardly new ground to abstract it and make it into some large upscale gallery friendly work. I mean if some LA collector wants to drop $25K one more power to Chris, but you might as well admit that the art is in the irony of making something to be consumed and the folly of the buyer consuming. Not the work itself.

It's rather like Prince Charles flying into an ecology summit with his just only a third full -- making quite a carbon deficiet in the process of saving the environment.

Or when I did corporate annual reports and the Fortune 500 company would have eco-police to enforce recycling office paper whilst their factories spewing tons of pollutants.

I appreciate Chris being here and I like to hear how he is doing as he garners a higher profile in the fine art world, but at the same time we ought to be honest with him and push him a little harder to be critical. It seems to me the gallery world and the photo buyers are about as sophisticated as a 1982 MFA showing at RIT... cause those 20-30 year old themes are just now becoming commercially viable.

Kirk Gittings

22-Jan-2007, 13:21

I appreciate Chris being here and I like to hear how he is doing as he garners a higher profile in the fine art world, but at the same time we ought to be honest with him and push him a little harder to be critical. It seems to me the gallery world and the photo buyers are about as sophisticated as a 1982 MFA showing at RIT... cause those 20-30 year old themes are just now becoming commercially viable.

Why is it that people who make comments like this have usually not done anything truly original in their entire career? Your work is good Frank, even very good sometimes, but like myself we are treading well worn paths that are far older and far more worn than the 20-30 year old themes you see in Chris' work. Everything from some point of view has been done before. That is not the question. The question is is it any good, is he bringing anything new to the plate and I would say yes, definitely.

chris jordan

22-Jan-2007, 13:33

Hi guys, what a bunch of provocative postings. The truth is, every critical or negative comment here echoes my own fears about the limitations of this work. It is difficult to put a body of work like this out there; it would have been far easier and safer for me to continue taking 8x10 photographs of piles of garbage and selling the prints on into the future. But I am committed to a different path, so here I am getting my butt raked over the coals just as I anticipated!

I realize this new series has lots of limitations, and I don't like any of them. The choice I have made is to accept those limitations as necessary evils, in the interest of putting a message out there that I care deeply about. I have focused narrowly in on this particular message, and to do so I have had to cut away a lot of the photographc process to get there. I don't see any other way to say what I am trying to say, and I recognize that the work is full of limitations too. But so is any work; the motivation for this project is that I saw the limitations of my photographic work, and wanted to overcome those. I think I have done so with this work, but at a cost.

Frank's comment goes right to the heart of the matter of self-reflection also. It is a strange ironic experience to fly on a jet somewhere to give a talk about consumerism, or to use an entire 100-foot roll of Epson paper doing test prints for an image that is about paper consumption. I have been doing this kind of work for four years, and this issue has come up a hundred times in my own mind, and in questions that people ask me about my work. So those who don't think any of this has occurred to me must not think much of my intelligence; my own role as a consumer is at the forefront of my thoughts about my work.

I think I probably consume more than the average American consumer, despite various efforts I make to reduce my own consumption, because of all the flying I do, and also because of all the photo/inkjet products I use. This is something I talk about openly when I discuss my work, and that I have addressed in interviews. I think the intentional irony in my new work is obvious to some (the fact that they are so huge and use so much paper), but to some others it looks like I am not self-reflective. Those who are truly self-reflective can see that their comments about my lack of self-reflection might actually reflect more on themselves; and those who aren't truly self-reflective won't understand what this sentence means any more than they get what my new series is about.

In any event, apart from the occasional openly hostile and mean remarks that people have made (which have no value for anyone), I welcome this discussion. If I can stay open enough, and control my urge to be defensive, then your feedback can only help me improve on my future work. So thank you all for taking the time to engage.

~cj

adrian tyler

22-Jan-2007, 13:35

Ybut at the same time we ought to be honest with him and push him a little harder to be critical.

hey chris, frank maybe a neo-con tobacco spittin' redneck (god bless him), but he has hit it right on here, i was gonna stay out of this but frank's comment has made me think twice.

first, once your work is in collections, and institutions/galleries have "invested" in you, then said institutions/galleries are duty bound to support you and defend you. whatever. you have to use that privelage wisely.

here in this thread most of the comments are polite/supportive/sycophantic. you should delete all those comments and only work on the rest. this series has potential but i think it needs at least a year's more reflection and edition, if only because 2007 is gonna be the year that even bush speaks out about the catastrophe we are all facing.

ade.

http://www.icp.org/site/c.dnJGKJNsFqG/b.1994175/k.7233/Ecotopia_Exhibition_Images.htm

julian

22-Jan-2007, 13:37

Chris, a great response. I know you are 'on the path', and I know you take your work seriously, I look forward to future projects

Michael Gordon

22-Jan-2007, 13:48

Hey Chris: I've never really been overly concerned with what people think about my photographs as long as I'm being honest with myself and doing the work with integrity. It seems pretty evident that this is your criteria, and I admire you for it. Keep it up.

I hope to see your new work in LA in the near future.

paulr

22-Jan-2007, 13:59

Yeah but the same demonstrations of consumption have been popular in art and editorial worlds for several years now ...

Couldn't you say about portraiture, that depictions of what people look like have been popular in the art and editorial worlds for several years now?

I don't think this work is a news story. I don't think anyone expects you to say "Omigod! People use a lot of paper! I had no idea!" I suspect this work is about taking a phenomenon you're proabaly well acquainted with intellectually, and giving you a new way to experience it.

Frank Petronio

22-Jan-2007, 14:01

Yeah, in addition to classic art themes like religious iconography, portraiture, and nationalist glory we could add "American Intellectual Self-Loathing" to the mix ;)

I call it the Robert Adams paradox. I love his work and much of his writing -- but after having met him years ago, I came away thinking that he simply didn't want all those people in those ugly subdivisions and driving those big trucks to exist. Like not exist period. Which is maybe scarier than tire tracks and clear cuts IMHO.

When I lived in Oregon and my buddies in Earth First (I was briefly drinking their KoolAid as a college student too) stopped some logging operations. Family men making $26 per hour suddenly went on welfare. I think that is sadder than chopping down the trees, really.

Not to mention the irony of watching what happens here when all the nature photographers post threads about their favorite 4x4 vehicles...

It makes a lot more sense to channel that energy into solutions. Put those artistic energies into promoting sustainable forestry rather than locking it all up IMHO. Duck hunters are still the most effective convservationist organization. Show me a better alternative to my SUV that makes economic sense and I'll jump on it. No socialist worker's paradise ever implemented widescale environmental clean-ups and protections -- you need those exploitive capitalists, corporate efficiencies, and a clear profit motive to do it.

paulr

22-Jan-2007, 14:03

hfirst, once your work is in collections, and institutions/galleries have "invested" in you, then said institutions/galleries are duty bound to support you and defend you.

Yeah, that's a lovely thought.

If I give you a short list of curators and collectors who have supported me once upon a time, would you be kind enough to call and remind them that they're delinquent in their duties?

Darin Boville

22-Jan-2007, 14:53

I think I probably consume more than the average American consumer, despite various efforts I make to reduce my own consumption, because of all the flying I do, and also because of all the photo/inkjet products I use. This is something I talk about openly when I discuss my work, and that I have addressed in interviews. I think the intentional irony in my new work is obvious to some (the fact that they are so huge and use so much paper), but to some others it looks like I am not self-reflective. Those who are truly self-reflective can see that their comments about my lack of self-reflection might actually reflect more on themselves; and those who aren't truly self-reflective won't understand what this sentence means any more than they get what my new series is about.~cj

As one of the people who made comments on the irony of using an excess of resources to produce work about over-consumption let me push just a *little* harder...

I'm not sure it is fair to call the size you are printing these in "intentional irony"--that doesn't sound honest to me. I am convinced that you chose the size of the work based upon visual impact and market demand, and perhaps other factors. But irony wasn't a driving force in choosing the size, was it?

I can understand that the irony of the situation has occurred to you on many occasions and has been brought to your attention by many others--it is sort of an obvious thing to notice and a difficult thing to wrestle with. But that is different than having the irony or self-reflection *embedded* in the work, I think.

The irony seems sort of undesirable from creator's point of view and if there was a way to do away with the conflict between the excess use of resources displayed by the work and the message you are attempting to convey by the work I'd bet money that you would take the opportunity to remove the conflict...thereby clearing the work of taint but at the same time showing that the irony was not integral to the work.

The viewer will, of course, notice the problem, too. But I suspect that rather than empathizing with the artist (we too are part of the problem) they will judge him (as it all fell apart those with financial resources and a public voice spent their time consuming still more resources, creating works for other elites that decried the wasting of resources).

So there is lots of irony here, in all kinds of different ways, and I'm sure that you know most of them--I think I see many of them. But I don't see much of it really embedded in the work. Not really.

So I think you have a problem that needs resolved in some way *within the work.*

I have a few additional thoughts about the connection or jump from micro-picture to mosaic picture that might be constructive but perhaps this post is long enough already...(see, there's a little irony right there, as I suggest that the post had run on too long, thereby making it run on longer yet...)

--Darin

Bruce Watson

22-Jan-2007, 15:10

No socialist worker's paradise ever implemented widescale environmental clean-ups and protections -- you need those exploitive capitalists, corporate efficiencies, and a clear profit motive to do it.

So you think that GE just voluntarily decided to clean their PCB mess out of the Hudson River? I'm curious: What corporate efficiencies do you think dictated this action? How much profit did they make in the cleanup?

Or did they do it at pain of indictment at the hands of EPA?

Frank Petronio

22-Jan-2007, 15:30

Kevin Crisp

22-Jan-2007, 15:47

Is there a way to block out things that belong in The Lounge but won't stay there?

chris jordan

22-Jan-2007, 16:02

Frank, I agree with some of your points. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to control the actions of any corporations, so my hope is to able to influence the people who are, through my artwork. A guy like Bob Dylan, for example, doesn't channel much of his energy into corporate solutions, but he sure does have an influence on the world. It would be a shame if he got solution-oriented and went and volunteered all his time in an activist office instead of doing his music.

I think art, if done well, can reach into a deeper and more moving place than the usual arguments can (numbers, statistics, profit margins, doom and gloom reports, etc.). I'm not saying my work has that kind of power by itself, but maybe it might contribute something along with all the other voices that are calling for a paradigm shift.

I consider myself as being like an alcoholic in a family of alcoholics, and my photographs are saying "look at the huge pile of bottles in the corner, guys, those are ours." Whatever solution there is to it all, I'm sure not smart enough or educated enough to know what it should be. But I do feel an urge to stand up and at least say "we need to have a talk."

I wish I was independently wealthy and didn't need to make a living, because then I could give my prints away for free and my argument would be more pure. As it is now, some people accuse me of being a hypocrite who is profiting from the very consumer system I am raging against (e.g., my prints are consumer commodities for sale, which is true). But unfortunately I do need to make a living for my family, so my prints are for sale and I have to deal with the paradox of it. I gave away all the money from my Katrina project because it just felt right to do that, but consequently right now I am now very close to dead broke, so that solution won't work very often.

Onward we plunge...

Greg Lockrey

22-Jan-2007, 16:11

Is there a way to block out things that belong in The Lounge but won't stay there?

What are you referring too? When a piece of art makes a political statement it is going to cause a discourse. If all it did was to effect a "oh wow that's cool" response then all it is just mere gimickry. These are obviously doing more.
Now is it photography? No, it's one of the tools used to make the piece of art.

tim atherton

22-Jan-2007, 16:21

Is there a way to block out things that belong in The Lounge but won't stay there?

c'mon, photography frequently intersects with politics - always has always will. It's a major part of what photography is about. It's not all just about photographing cabbages

Randy H

22-Jan-2007, 16:51

It's not all just about photographing cabbages

or cans.......:) :)

Truthfully, (in diametric opposition to my own previous post) if in fact these art pieces of Chris's does make enough people stop and say "Doh!! That is a lot of waste", perhaps the right person with the right stuff (MONEY) just "might" take it a step further, and do something about it.
A wise man told me one time that you can't just sit around and wait for shit to happen. You need do "something". If you wait, it will eventually come up and bite you square in the ass. Another wise man wrote some 5-6 thousand years ago, "where there is no ox, the stall is clean". In other words, the more people there are, the bigger the mess is gonna be.

Bruce Watson

22-Jan-2007, 17:06

BTW, Republican villian Richard Nixon created the EPA.... and conservative Teddy Roseveldt broke the trusts and created the national parks. It's with no sense of irony that I wish we had leaders like them these days.

At least we can agree on something ;-)

Eric Leppanen

22-Jan-2007, 17:30

It is a strange ironic experience to fly on a jet somewhere to give a talk about consumerism, or to use an entire 100-foot roll of Epson paper doing test prints for an image that is about paper consumption.

It makes a lot more sense to channel that energy into solutions.Chris, take it easy on yourself! The environmental movement seems to suffer from these occasional episodes of self-flagellation, which I have never understood. That jet plane is going to fly its route, regardless of whether you are on it or not. If you need an entire roll of Epson paper for test prints, fine! The paper will get recycled (at least it would in my neck of the woods). Should Al Gore have stopped flying around the world giving his presentations on global warming because the jets he used released CO2 which contributed to the problem? Of course not. The problems of environmental waste and overpopulation are not going to be solved by people becoming ascetics and decrying all forms of consumption or consumerism. These problems will have to be addressed via a combination of conservation, environmental protection, socio-economic change, and improved technology/productivity. And problem resolution starts with social awareness, which is where your work makes its contribution.

We are hooked on oil because OPEC keeps oil prices just low enough to keep us hooked. Why do you think Saudi Arabia is in no hurry to discuss oil production cuts right now even though the oil price has plunged to $50 per barrel or so? Because (ignoring the added benefit of declawing hostile countries such as Iran) prolonged high oil prices spur development of oil alternatives, which have skyrocketed in the last several years. Did you know that 20% of all electricity in California will be generated by alternative sources (wind, solar, etc.) by 2010 (actually more likely 2011)? Have you tracked the latest developments in solar technology (see this article for example: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=643C3D30-E7F2-99DF-3108C4CB8A197667&sc=I100322). What about improvements in lithium batteries for electric cars? Improved enzymes for cellulose-derived ethanol? Low sulfur diesel fuel for cars and trucks? There are a lot of exciting things going on, everything is not gloom-and-doom. I think if you examine potential solutions to our global problems that go beyond mere conservation, I think you might feel a bit better about things. Maybe if you had spent a little less time lawyering...:)

Social awareness/protest art may be arguably repetitive or didactic in some aspects, but that doesn't make it any less important. People get lazy, people forget, and they need to be reminded. In earthquake-plagued California, most earthquake-related legislation is passed right after the latest earthquake. Theoretically indefensible, of course, but its human nature. Keep at us, Chris, keep us inspired, intrigued, outraged, pissed off, or whatever, but regardless, you've gotten us to thinking. And that by itself is a meaningful accomplishment.

naturephoto1

22-Jan-2007, 17:31

There never would have been an EPA to begin with. Witness the USSR and China with regards to clean-up.

Capitalism isn't perfect. But it works better than the alternative.

BTW, Republican villian Richard Nixon created the EPA.... and conservative Teddy Roseveldt broke the trusts and created the national parks. It's with no sense of irony that I wish we had leaders like them these days.

Actually Frank, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was signed into law in 1969 and went into effect as of January 1, 1970. This Act was tacked on to the back of a Bill and signed by Congress. Some very smart members of Congress did this and most members of Congress had not read to the end of the document and did not realize that this was signed into being. NEPA is the Grandfather of all of the Federal, State, and Local Environmental Laws that came into being. It was set up for the purpose of Requiring a study, review, modification prior to the implementation of any major work/action by any Federal Agency that would have a major impact on the environment, people, etc. In the law, the Environmental Protection Agency was set-up to implement, monitor, and oversee these activities through Environmental Impact Statements (EIS).

This did in fact take place under the Nixon Administration, however, I do not believe that President Nixon really had any idea of what had been signed into being.

There really was little that the Congress and the President could do since with the signing of NEPA and the setting up of the EPA it was law. All that the Congress and President could have done was to try to change the law. However, and having worked in the Environmental Field for 8 years, we should all feel fortunate that this law was signed into being and the far reaching effects that it has had on our world and society today.

Rich

Ed Richards

22-Jan-2007, 17:44

As long as we are way off topic, I was involved in the environmental movement way back when the National Air Pollution Control Administration was being displaced by the EPA. Nixon knew what he was doing when passed laws - he may be the last president who really understood governing. We were convinced at the time that it was just a way to cripple the existing agencies, much as Homeland Security has destroyed FEMA and a bunch of other agencies. In retrospect, it was a great law. In retrospect, Nixon's national health insurance plan, which did not pass, looks pretty good too. Neither were terrific at the time, but given what has passed for governing since then, they look great. I am no fan of Bush, or Clinton (either one), and thought Nixon was the devil back in 1970. Now, when I teach administrative law, I have to explain to the students that when you really look at government function, it has been downhill since Nixon and LBJ. That is without regard to liberal or conservative, just pragmatics about getting the work of government done.

kmgibbs

23-Jan-2007, 10:36

Exactly. This planet is well beyond it's "carrying capacity" for humans. And those who don't understand this will have it smack them over the head in the coming years.

Yet only China is putting in a good faith effort to curb its population. And even they say their population peak will occur several decades from now. The voluntary curbing of populations takes generations.

You admire forced abortion??? It's hardly voluntary for anyone except the government who mandates it.

I know, let's kill everyone who is mentally defective or handicapped. Next we can kill off anyone over 50 yrs old. Then we can start offing people groups who don't tow the 'global village' line. Then if anyone dares to have an independent thought we kill them too. Who's next,, Jews, Christians, Gypsies, black folk, red folk...who's next???

By the way, that 'voluntary curbing of population growth' you are so giddy about is already starting to cause problems in France and Germany. Not enough indigenous people to keep their economies going. This is why Germany has started giving huge tax incentives to couples who have children.

Oops, I guess maybe 'voluntarily curbing population growth' really isn't the answer.

I live in a state that was severely impacted by the Spotted Owl listing, some towns and cities in south west Washington almost disappeared. Now I know this is no concern to the Fiends of the Earth crowd (misspelling intentional), but thousands of people, families lost virtually everything they had for a bird it turns out is not nearly as endangered as was originally thought. Much of so called environmental science (ROTFL) is voodoo.

For all you global warming alarmists, where were you to warn people at the end of the last ice age. Really could have used you then.;)

Kent

naturephoto1

23-Jan-2007, 10:47

Juergen Sattler

23-Jan-2007, 10:49

Maybe it's time to move this over to the lounge! Let them have their political fights over there!

kmgibbs

23-Jan-2007, 11:13

Kent,

Unfortunately you know little about the environment and ecology. As to your ROTFL and indicating that much of environmental science is voodo you are full of .....

As to questions of global warming and acid rain, they are quite probably of major concern on a global basis.

Rich

I'm sorry, are you an environmental scientist? I would have thought that a scientist had a sufficient command of the language that resorting to name calling wasn't necessary. Further, 'quite probably' doesn't cut it. "Facts and data will set you free!"

I'm not denying global warming, what I am questioning is how much man has an effect on it. There is not enough empirical data going back far enough in history to prove that this is anything more than a natural cycle. Period. Please prove me wrong!

Is there pollution? Yes there is and it should be cleaned up. I hate nothing more than finding someones trash when I am out hiking. I have always made it a point to try to pack out more trash than I carry in. But there needs to be balance between the environment and the needs (not necessarily wants) of people. The environment has been elevated to 'god' status at the expense of people.

I'm done. I'm going out to play with my digital camera that was produced with more toxic chemicals than I can list here.

Kent

naturephoto1

23-Jan-2007, 11:42

http://zfacts.com/p/49.html

http://zfacts.com/p/222.html

Ralph Barker

23-Jan-2007, 12:14

Because the subject of the work has socio-political underpinnings, discussion of those issues as they relate to the work is natural and appropriate. But, let's keep the discussion to the issues, please, and not get personal.

Decaf coffee and calming teas are now being served in the hall. ;)

naturephoto1

23-Jan-2007, 12:20

Thanks Ralph,

I at least did try to refrain from...;) :eek:

Rich

kmgibbs

23-Jan-2007, 12:41

http://zfacts.com/p/49.html

http://zfacts.com/p/222.html

Hardly an unbiased witness. By his own admission the jury is still out on the causes of global warming. Does CO2 increase global warming? Yes, but water vapor is even more efficient. (got to get rid of all them jet skis) Is man the cause? A huge maybe. No certainty.

Check out this link:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

You might want to think about this as well. Without CO2 plant life cannot exist. In fact there is evidence that in the short term a little CO2 can go a long way toward making vegetation grow larger and faster. Not to mention longer growing seasons.

I'm baaack.

Kent

kmgibbs

23-Jan-2007, 12:43

By the way Rich, in spite of your political views, you do have some outstanding images on your website.

Kent

Marko

23-Jan-2007, 12:46

By the way Rich, in spite of your political views, you do have some outstanding images on your website.

Kent

Indeed, but I wonder what could possibly political views have to do with the quality of someone's photography? Provided, of course, that we consider environmental issues political rather than scientific.

kmgibbs

23-Jan-2007, 12:59

Indeed, but I wonder what could possibly political views have to do with the quality of someone's photography? Provided, of course, that we consider environmental issues political rather than scientific.

Can't accept a compliment? geez.

Randy H

23-Jan-2007, 13:12

Hi guys, I've just posted a new series on my website that will surely cause some controversy around here, judging from the recent thread about "message versus medium." To convey the issues that are the essence of this project, I have had to part with some cherished aspects of the photographic process, and I do so with no small reluctance. These images are not as easy to sit through as traditional photographs; they do not carry the same aesthetic sense of light, color, depth, and composition that can draw the viewer into a beautiful photograph of an otherwise frightening subject. So the project has some limitations that I have to face right off the bat; in any event I welcome your thoughts and comments.

Cheers from Seattle,

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com

Just to remind what this thread is about.
It has degenerated to the point that I am not sure even the Lounge would tolerate it.

Colin Graham

23-Jan-2007, 13:13

You might want to think about this as well. Without CO2 plant life cannot exist. In fact there is evidence that in the short term a little CO2 can go a long way toward making vegetation grow larger and faster. Not to mention longer growing seasons.

Kent

Animal life exhales co2, volcanic out gassings are co2, as is burning organic matter. I doubt the forests will starve without the coal burning and automobile emissions.

kmgibbs

23-Jan-2007, 13:20

Just to remind what this thread is about.
It has degenerated to the point that I am not sure even the Lounge would tolerate it.

'nuff said. (Who can I go irritate now) HMMMMM.........

Kent

Brian Vuillemenot

23-Jan-2007, 14:06

Man, I wish this whole global warming thing would hurry up. It's been so cold lately that I feel like I'm in New England rather than California! ;)

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 15:54

Man, I wish this whole global warming thing would hurry up. It's been so cold lately that I feel like I'm in New England rather than California! ;)

And here in the Tundra (Michigan) it hasn't snowed yet.:D You can give me all the global warming they can give. Riding my bike throughout the month of January, is next to heaven.

Randy H

23-Jan-2007, 17:20

claudiocambon

23-Jan-2007, 19:50

I love it. The mechanical reproduction in Evans' work magnified into the mega-reproduction in for example Gursky, also in your own pictures of waste, is now rendered so big, you can't see it for what it is as individual units, only as the idea expressed in the image. It's an interesting comment on the relation of an idea to its sublime reality, one which does not let itself be empiricially grasped but for your formation of it into a unified concept. Who, for example, can "see" the national debt in terms of what all those dollar bills look like? Can we see the "tragedy of the commons" in one of us buying a Hummer and how that contributes to an overall picture of waste and environmental catastrophe? These pictures conceptualize that in a very interesting way, and make for a very powerful statement. It's a very interesting evolution to your previous work. Congrats!

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 19:58

And in Oklahoma, so far this winter, we've had the snow-storm of the century for this area,(November) and the last week and a half we've been covered under several inches of ice. Send some of the global warming this way, will ya Greg?

Actually what your getting is more like what the rest of will be expecting pretty soon. In other words global warming isn't the issue but a return of a mini ice age like from 1100 to 1750's is. BTW it snowed in Pennsylvania in 1735 during July. That was the end of the mini ice age. A couple of years ago we had a snow that came in December but didn't really melt till March-April. Good thing it didn't keep snowing in January-February otherwise it would have gotten pretty deep.

tim atherton

23-Jan-2007, 20:30

Actually what your getting is more like what the rest of will be expecting pretty soon. In other words global warming isn't the issue but a return of a mini ice age like from 1100 to 1750's is. BTW it snowed in Pennsylvania in 1735 during July. That was the end of the mini ice age. A couple of years ago we had a snow that came in December but didn't really melt till March-April. Good thing it didn't keep snowing in January-February otherwise it would have gotten pretty deep.

yep - I was up at the Polar Continental Shelf Project in Tuk last year - talking to the US, British and Canadian climatologists and geophysicists there, the receding winter and summer Arctic ice packs is a pretty good indicator of a new mini ice-age.... sure is

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 21:10

See...Oklahoma...it's global warming and man caused it. Nevermind the platonic shifts under the oceans causing average sea temperatures to rise and fall, it's your SUV. How about the theory that there are too many people on the planet, I mean just sitting there you let off 98.8 degree of heat times your body mass.. how does that add to the increase of geothermo entropy? Well measure that against the mass of the earth and see how man really affects climate change.

claudiocambon

23-Jan-2007, 21:28

There is an irrefutable link between an increase of carbon emissions and the warming of our atmosphere. The two biggest culprits are our burning of fossil fuels, which spew carbon dioxide into the air and our cutting down of forests which are one of the main engines for converting carbon dioxide into oxygen.

The world's scientific community is in agreement on the basic facts of global warming, and if they have at all been wrong in the predictions they have made in the last few decades since this has become a palpable issue, it is only been in that their predictions for the rate of temperature increases have not been aggressive enough.

The only people who call themselves scientists who are not in agreement with the world's scientific community turn out to work for "science insitutes" funded by the oil industry and such. Unfortunately the media, whether out of complicity or ignorance or spinelessness, gives these people equal airtime to the people doing the hardcore science. To me it is tantamount to doing something on the holocaust, and giving equal time to a Holocaust historian and a Holocaust denier.

I can highly recommend 'An inconvenient truth' if anyone clings to their skepticism of the issue. It's pretty straight ahead, unfortunately. Why there are extremes in the other direction is also explained, among other things.

A friend of mine who is a big shot scientist (chair of his department at Harvard) who advises Gore extensively on global warming put it to me this way. He said we have about 20 years to turn things around before things really get out of control, and we will be at the ful mercy of an out of control climate.

Our survival is at stake, and it's time we stop making specious, pseudo-scientific justifications for not changing how we live and do things.

tim atherton

23-Jan-2007, 21:41

oh oh.. someone mentioned the G word... maybe it's time to lock the thread :eek:

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 21:42

To illustrate the point in the fashion of Chris Jordan photomurals and to keep on track: Take the total number of people and put them into a livable concentration as say London-Rome or some other large city. Now take all of the people in the entire world and concentrate them in the above manner to one location, you could easily put everyone into the state of Texas. Now another factoid to ponder. When Mt St Helens blew it's top a few years ago, the amount of CO2 and noxious sulfide gasses for three days totaled more than the exhaust of man since the industrial revolution. Sure man adds to the overall heat, but the question is: is the cure going to be more costly that the disease?

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 21:43

oh oh.. someone mentioned the G word... maybe it's time to lock the thread :eek:

WWhat's the g word, Tim?:eek:

chris jordan

23-Jan-2007, 21:48

Claudio! Your comments recharge my battery for another day's work. Thanks.

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 21:52

tim atherton

23-Jan-2007, 21:57

WWhat's the g word, Tim?:eek:

Gore...

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 22:00

Gore...

Whew, I was looking for GOD. :D

claudiocambon

23-Jan-2007, 22:25

Greg,

I realize that some people were talking about an ice age in the 60's, but that was "some people", and today we are talking about the world scientific community being in agreement, and having abundant evidence at their fingertips. There is a huge difference.

I consider it ironic that you talk about government control, when that is what one sees abundantly in the current US oilman presidency. I don't think scientists want to control society in this instance. The people who deny global warming instead generally have blatant reasons of self-interest.

As to the argument that our efforts may not matter, consider this. If we managed to change our lives by radically reducing the hydrocarbon based pollution we generate, reforesting the planet, and the scientific community improbably ends up being wrong on this.... we still did the right thing by functioning more sustainably.

Darin Boville

23-Jan-2007, 22:46

A friend of mine who is a big shot scientist (chair of his department at Harvard) who advises Gore extensively on global warming put it to me this way. He said we have about 20 years to turn things around before things really get out of control, and we will be at the ful mercy of an out of control climate.

Holdren?

--Darin

Greg Lockrey

23-Jan-2007, 22:50

claudiocambon

23-Jan-2007, 23:16

Claudio, The agreement is that there is global warming, there is no agreement that man is the cause there has been higher concentrations of CO2 before the industrial revolution found in core samples. I happen to live in the middle of the so called rust belt where everyones livelyhood is in some way dependent on the automotive industry. For the past thirty plus years there has been an assault on that industry from without and within. The government has made it almost impossible for an American manufacture to compete due to more stringent enviromental rules. So the jobs are now heading overseas. What are you willing to pay to ease so called global warming? What about that junk your'e pouring down the sink after you process your sheet of film and paper? In my parts, if you were a commercial studio, you have to make sure that that stuff is "cleaned up" before it went down the drain. As a hobbyist, no such restriction exists. Now personnaly I would like to see everybody ride their bike to work everyday. For those who can't ride due to disablities and such, can use an electric golf cart size vehicle. Face it, you don't need to go faster than 30 mph anywhere with in 15 miles of your home. That would clean the air in about a year and reduce the need for oil about 75%. But what would that do to Joe SixPack? Where would the government get their money to pay for these pie in the sky ideas?

Actually governments created the rules that allow corporations to go offshore, and ship Joe Six Pack's job elsewhere. And in terms of industry, industry has often been too lazy to reinvest in new technologies to stay competitive, and have instead continued to try to milk their current infrastructure for the sake of short term profits, but committing long term suicide. How for example did Henry Kaiser take on the steel barons by starting in the steel business in the 20th century from scratch, in California, thousands of miles away from ore deposits, with unions in from the beginning at his behest? Because he built a better blast furnace, and invested in R+D that Pittsburgh was too lazy to do. He kicked their ass for years! A few decades later, when his kids were too lazy to keep it up, the Japanese invented a new kind of blast furnace and other pouring techniques that made his technology obsolete. Everyone blamed the labor unions and government.

Yes, other countries profit from less regulation (although arguably they pay with worse environmental conditions which show up as higher cancer rates and the like), but there is no reason why we cannot continue to invent and use our technological edge to stay ahead. Instead there is a cynical disinvestment on the part of government and industry. After all Charles Schwab, before he was a Wall St. magnate, was a steel magnate. It's easier to make money than steel, and the basic problem of capitalism is that the end goal is to make money, not things, so the best situation likely does not win out, just the most profitable.

So I don't agree that environmentalism is getting government to force changes that are out to screw the common man. Government and corporations are already doing a great job of that. I think in this case our biological survival is at stake, so on one level we have no choice. On another, technology always pays. Why can't we have a New Deal, a Marshall Plan that really tries to reimagine how we live on this planet? We would profit by selling what we learn about living better.

As dire as our situation is, I also think we have solutions at our fingertips. Are we willing though to abandon traditional profit lines like oil and come up with new ones? I think we can without losing out economically. To the contrary, I think we can only gain.

Greg Lockrey

24-Jan-2007, 00:01

Actually governments created the rules that allow corporations to go offshore, and ship Joe Six Pack's job elsewhere. I agree with your statement, what was the motive? And in terms of industry, industry has often been too lazy to reinvest in new technologies to stay competitive, and have instead continued to try to milk their current infrastructure for the sake of short term profits, but committing long term suicide. How for example did Henry Kaiser take on the steel barons by starting in the steel business in the 20th century from scratch, in California, thousands of miles away from ore deposits, with unions in from the beginning at his behest? Because he built a better blast furnace, and invested in R+D that Pittsburgh was too lazy to do. He kicked their ass for years! A few decades later, when his kids were too lazy to keep it up, the Japanese invented a new kind of blast furnace and other pouring techniques that made his technology obsolete. Everyone blamed the labor unions and government. I don't know if "lazy" is the word, but cost to do the change over may have been the prohibitive factor here.

Yes, other countries profit from less regulation (although arguably they pay with worse environmental conditions which show up as higher cancer rates and the like), but there is no reason why we cannot continue to invent and use our technological edge to stay ahead. Instead there is a cynical disinvestment on the part of government and industry. After all Charles Schwab, before he was a Wall St. magnate, was a steel magnate. It's easier to make money than steel, and the basic problem of capitalism is that the end goal is to make money, not things, so the best situation likely does not win out, just the most profitable. No argument here.

So I don't agree that environmentalism is getting government to force changes that are out to screw the common man. It is a tool that the government will use to control the common man on guise of clean enviroment. Government and corporations are already doing a great job of that. Yes indeed. I think in this case our biological survival is at stake, so on one level we have no choice. That's what they want you to believe. Try crunching some of my numbers from previous posts and you should see more clearly of what I speak. On another, technology always pays. Why can't we have a New Deal, a Marshall Plan that really tries to reimagine how we live on this planet? We would profit by selling what we learn about living better. Nice jestures to be sure. A lot like a corporation spending 90% effort on 10% of their problem.

As dire as our situation is, I also think we have solutions at our fingertips. Are we willing though to abandon traditional profit lines like oil and come up with new ones? I think we can without losing out economically. To the contrary, I think we can only gain.Dire is a relative word.

adrian tyler

24-Jan-2007, 00:12

well chris, if the goal of your work is to spark debate, it works...

there are big tides of change about these issues over here in europe, there is no more "if" in the equasion, we need relevant art that will be lasting, engaging and deep.

god help us all.

Ole Tjugen

24-Jan-2007, 00:14

Claudio, I heard all of this stuff before when I was a geophyisics major at Michigan State. Only then it was that an ice age was upon us, but the think tanks couldn't get government funding to study their theories because there is nothing you can do about it, so global warming was put forth because if man was the cause, he then could be made to stop it. The government was more than happy to spend money on new ways to control society. BTW this was 1967. The year we had 2 story snow drifts on the campus and was the first time since 1855 that MSU closed due to the weather.

Greg, I consider my geophysics education to be hopelessly out of date. That was in 1987. What does that say about your geophysics education? Have you managed to keep up with research these past 40 years?

Geophysics, and especially climatology, has changed completely in the last 20 years.

Greg Lockrey

24-Jan-2007, 00:49

Greg, I consider my geophysics education to be hopelessly out of date. That was in 1987. What does that say about your geophysics education? Have you managed to keep up with research these past 40 years?

Geophysics, and especially climatology, has changed completely in the last 20 years.

I'm sure it is out of date Ole. I had a tough enough time with it when I studied it in the first place. "Geothermal Dynamics" was a killer plus "Theory of Matrixes" in calc didn't help either. :p That's one of the reasons dropped out of college and went into the Navy for twelve years until I got disallusioned with my government over some political policies. But I don't imagine the theory of the effects of plate tetonics has on the temperatures of the oceans has changed all that much since then either. My interest in the past 40 years has been more of a "hobby" level like that of the majority who post here about their photography. I can still read articles about geophysical matters with some knowledge and understanding.

Tim Hyde

24-Jan-2007, 05:45

Chris-

I like your work, as you know, but I don't think I'll like the new series much (will have to wait and see it, of course). As Tim said, art and politics are almost always fellow travelers, but here it seems like you are using art as a pretext to deliver your political message, and you are delivering it in an 18-wheeler straight at us. I don't think there is anything subtle or...well...artistic about what seems to be a series of lectures to us about how wasteful we all are. Clever perhaps, but hardly profound or aesthetically satisfying. Your earlier work deftly balanced politics and art, delivered your ideas without overwhelming or hectoring your audience. Your art has always borne heavy freight, and the message was brought home for sure, but oh, so pleasing have these photographs been! This time, relying on web images and your descriptions alone (which might make me all wet in the end), I'm prepared to be disappointed this time around.

claudiocambon

24-Jan-2007, 05:50

Greg Lockrey

24-Jan-2007, 06:41

Greg,

When you say, 'they' want to control the common man, who do you mean? I doubt it is the scientists who are by and large ignored by society, and who don't have a power stake in any political or economic control. Do you think they are all in on some big conspiracy to misinform us? Why would 'they' want us to believe something that data didn't support? Was Jonas Salk lying when he said he found a vaccine for polio? Again, the only voices I hear within the scientific community in denial are these pseudo-scientist "experts" quoted in media articles who end up being oil and car industry stooges, who clearly do have an economic and political interest in their ideological viewpoint.

The only control I see is our current government encouraging us to consume as much oil as we can, waging a destructive foreign policy to keep that addiction going, touting mirage solutions like hydrogen cars (which under Carter already, were just 20 years away, if you remember), not investing in more plausible, efficient technologies and research.

As far as the data you quote, I am not a scientist, but many of the examples you offer are specious. Our biomass and ensuing temperature are not tipping the earth's atmosphere. Our consumption of resources is. That biomass has always existed; it used to be called biodiversity before we started replacing other species with our own fat arses. All I can tell you is every time I put one of these examples to my scientist friends, I patiently receive an explanation of why it's wrong.

"They" is those that are in control of the government....it doesn't matter which political party they come from either. The scientists are just willing dupes that spout the "party line" in order to get their think tank funding.

Don't get me started on Carter. I was stationed in Chaleston, SC when the "Oil Crisis" was at it's highest. Tankers as far as the eye can see were trying to get into port only to be told that there was no room to drop their loads. The whole thing was a fabrication. As far as cheaper alternatives, if there is one, you'd be using it.

As for oil being renewable, there is a theory in the geophisics world that states the oil is constantly being manufactured by the internal actions of the earth itself. It is not a result of decaying animals. There are numerous "played out" wells in operation today. If this knowledge ever got "accepted" what would you think the price of oil will be then?

For a last little brain teaser to help in understanding of what "global" means: assume the earth circumfrence is 25,000 miles (40,000 km). There is a steel band wrapped tight on the circumfrence. Now add just 10 feet (3 m) to that steel band and move that band equidistant off the earth. Will you: A) Be able to walk under the band B) crawl under the band on your hands and knees C) barely slide a piece of paper under it? Have fun. :)

kmgibbs

24-Jan-2007, 09:08

"They" is those that are in control of the government....it doesn't matter which political party they come from either. The scientists are just willing dupes that spout the "party line" in order to get their think tank funding.

And there are truck loads of money to made by scientists and environmental groups. See, no crisis=no funding. My brother is an astro-physicist working in Arizona on a government (taxpayer) funded project. The 'holy grail' of science today is not discovery, it's getting funding. Either from the taxpayer or some private source. So yes, 'voodoo' science does take place and more than many would believe. If a scientist does tow the popular line, he/she is not going to get funding for their research. This is fact not fiction.

By the way, I am not anti-science just anti 'voodoo' science and far too much that is merely theory is being stated as fact. That's not science, it's speculation.

Now this gravity thing. That's something I can get my head around.

As to the photos in question, I find them very well executed but trite, cliche' and condescending.

Kent

neil poulsen

24-Jan-2007, 09:24

One thing I like about these photographs is the combination of near to far and of sequence. Both of these are time honored in photography; both are done in a different way. This approach also plays with the concept of pixel.

Kirk Keyes

24-Jan-2007, 10:31

For a last little brain teaser to help in understanding of what "global" means: assume the earth circumfrence is 25,000 miles (40,000 km). There is a steel band wrapped tight on the circumfrence. Now add just 10 feet (3 m) to that steel band and move that band equidistant off the earth. Will you: A) Be able to walk under the band B) crawl under the band on your hands and knees C) barely slide a piece of paper under it? Have fun. :)

Answer is "B".

2*pi*r = circumference. Solve for "r", and the all you really need is the difference in the two circumferences to do the calculation. So:
3 meters/(2*pi)= 0.477 meters => 1.56 ft

So really more of an army crawl than hands and knees...

I personally suspect long term changes in solar flux (output) to be the driving force for planetary temperature. Stars are constantly changing in output, and it takes so little for it to change in the course of a a few hundred or thousand years to make a potentially big change in the temps here. And we only really have about 20 years of high resolution data (from satellites) and about 600 years of low resolution data (from sunspot counts) at this point that I think this theory cannot be discounted.

And I'm not a geotech scientist, just a chemist. But I took my thermodynamics classes in college.

As for Chris' art, they are not photographs, they are photoillustrations.

Chris - I'm curious as to how one makes images like this - you must start with the larger image that has been digitized so it's made of pixels. Then you must assign new images to each pixel based on the color content of the original pixel. Is there some software what does this in a semiautomated fashion or is a pretty hands on process?

neil poulsen

24-Jan-2007, 10:50

As for Chris' art, they are not photographs, they are photoillustrations.

Define photograph. :p

chris jordan

24-Jan-2007, 11:25

Hi guys, I was wondering if someone would ask how I make these. Each one is a bit different; a couple of them were made with the help of photomosaic software (such as the Denali piece). For that one I took about fifteen photographs of the logos on the sides of variously colored GMC Denali cars, and processed them in Photoshop into a stepped series of small identically-sized images from black to white. Then I used the photomosaic software to create the final image of the Ansel Adams photo. The original Denali logos are all photographs, and the Ansel Adams image I used as the source image was a photograph, and the final print is a Type C photographic print. But whether the whole thing adds up to a photograph is another question (and I'm not sure if the answer really matters either).

I used a similar process for the aluminum cans piece. First I photographed about 40 aluminum cans in my studio, each from several different angles, and made 160 identically-sized small digital images that were the source images for the mosaic. The mosaic came out pretty rough looking even after many tries, so it took some cleaning up afterwards by adding cans manually. I then laid the Seurat painting image as a layer over the top and faded it in various different ways. I think it would be really cool to construct this image with actual cans some day. It would be 70x100 feet in size.

The others are made differently. For the prison uniforms, valve caps and office paper and some others I'm working on right now, I collect a bunch of that item in my studio and photograph it over and over. For Office Paper, I bought 8 reams of paper and stacked them on my studio table and photographed them with a digital SLR. Then I unstacked them and restacked them, and photographed them again. I did this about a hundred times, and then processed each image individually so I had 100 different photographs of paper that were all identically cropped and scaled.

Then I manually assembled all of the small images into the huge image, and cleaned up all the edges. It is pretty painstaking manual work; once I did all the photographic part, the digital assembly took something like 30,000 mouse clicks. Like the Denali piece, the Office Paper, Valve Caps, and Prison Uniforms all started with photographs that I took, and are printed as photographic prints, but I'm not at all sure that the final product can be called a photograph.

For the Ben Franklin piece I scanned a hundred-dollar bill (which is probably a crime but hopefully the Feds will get that it's for a non-criminal reason...), and compiled it into the huge prints pretty quickly. Then I made a very high-resolution scan of only Ben Franklin's portrait on a brand new hundred-dollar bill, and spent about a day cleaning up all the small errors that the engraver made (which are invisible on the bill because Ben's face is so small). Then I laid the portrait of Ben over the top of the three panels and faded it various ways until I got the fractal effect I wanted.

That one started with a scan and ended up as an inkjet print, so although it looks like a photograph, there isn't anything photographic about that particular piece. Same thing with the Suicide Mandala-- I made about 40 little watercolor paintings of the word "Life," and scanned them, and then spent about a week assembling them manually into the mandala shape, which I designed as I went. The only part of that piece that I could automate at all was filling in the black background, which I could do in sections of 10x10 tiles instead of one by one, but otherwise it was a purely manual process from beginning to end. I even got to use paints, which was fun; for a moment there I felt like a real artist!

Every one of these takes a lot of math in advance, to determine how many of that particular thing I can fit on a print, and how big each item needs to be to acheive the visual effect I am looking for. I make a bunch of test prints of valve caps, for example, at different sizes, until one looks right; then I calculate how big the final print has to be to portray the number I have in mind.

The resulting prints are as sharp and finely detailed as small prints made from 8x10 photographic originals, and yet the prints are enormous. It's a cool effect-- you can walk right up and put your nose on the 10-foot-wide print, and the closer you get, the more you see, like a contact print almost. For me it's an interesting metaphor for our consumerism-- it looks like one thing from a distance, and then when you start to zoom in (so to speak) it looks like something different. There is no place you can stand and see it all; you can stand back and see the whole picture, or you can walk up close and see the details, but you can never see both at once. Of course this effect is only visible when you see the prints in person. The little JPEG's look like they are giving away the essence of the pieces, but all they really do is show the underlying idea. The full-sized prints are quite shocking to see in person. I made the first one yesterday (Ben Franklin, for a show in Texas) and was quite amazed at how huge it looked sitting on my studio table.

Okay that's probably far more information than anyone wanted so I'll sign off...

~cj

Kirk Gittings

24-Jan-2007, 11:38

As for Chris' art, they are not photographs, they are photoillustrations.

They are photographically based art, much like collage, as in Ulesmann's work, but with the obsessive qualities of a Philip Glass composition.

kmgibbs

24-Jan-2007, 13:08

I used a similar process for the aluminum cans piece. First I photographed about 40 aluminum cans in my studio, each from several different angles, and made 160 identically-sized small digital images that were the source images for the mosaic. The mosaic came out pretty rough looking even after many tries, so it took some cleaning up afterwards by adding cans manually. I then laid the Seurat painting image as a layer over the top and faded it in various different ways. I think it would be really cool to construct this image with actual cans some day. It would be 70x100 feet in size.

So this wasn't 100's of thousands of cans? 40 cans? So this is a contrived scene? Rather misrepresentative isn't it?

When I was in the USAF I remember building beer can mountains against the squadron barracks wall. But it took a couple of hundred people at a squadron party to accomplish. Wasn't near 70x100 either.

I do tend to agree with the solar output theory though as at least partially responsible. Even a very slight increase in output could very easily significantly increase surface temperatures of land and water on the earth.

Kent

tim atherton

24-Jan-2007, 13:11

So this wasn't 100's of thousands of cans? 40 cans? So this is a contrived scene? Rather misrepresentative isn't it?.

Kent

that's the nature of photography - it's a wickedly deceptive medium. It would be pretty boring if it wasn't

Darin Boville

24-Jan-2007, 13:46

So this wasn't 100's of thousands of cans? 40 cans? So this is a contrived scene? Rather misrepresentative isn't it?
Kent

Surely you say this in jest? As I said before, I find there are serious conceptual problems with Chris' work but this aspect of it--reproducing the cans (or whatever) from a small set or originals seems to be right at the very essence of the work and one of its attractions.

It makes perfect sense to me and adds a little intellectual interest to the work that it was created with something akin to the production process--producing mass quanties of an item with a streamlined and directed process. In fact, hearing some of the details of the process as Chris describes them makes this aspect even more interesting as what he describes sounds to my ears like a real production process (not as simple as it might at first appear) rather than just some dude using photo-mosaic software.

The conceptual problems still remain:

1) The work (not the artist) seems unaware of the fact that it is a huge, wasteful print.

2) The connection between the micro image and the overall image (The Denali logo and the Ansel Photo; the cans and the painting, the dollar bills and Ben Franklin's portrait, the other objects which become geometric patterns of millions of themselves) do not seem to add much value to the overall work.

--Darin

Kirk Keyes

24-Jan-2007, 14:37

but with the obsessive qualities of a Philip Glass
composition.

I guess I would have said Kraftwerk instead of Philip Glass...

Greg Lockrey

24-Jan-2007, 14:41

Answer is "B".

2*pi*r = circumference. Solve for "r", and the all you really need is the difference in the two circumferences to do the calculation. So:
3 meters/(2*pi)= 0.477 meters => 1.56 ft

So really more of an army crawl than hands and knees...

I personally suspect long term changes in solar flux (output) to be the driving force for planetary temperature. Stars are constantly changing in output, and it takes so little for it to change in the course of a a few hundred or thousand years to make a potentially big change in the temps here. And we only really have about 20 years of high resolution data (from satellites) and about 600 years of low resolution data (from sunspot counts) at this point that I think this theory cannot be discounted.

And I'm not a geotech scientist, just a chemist. But I took my thermodynamics classes in college.

As for Chris' art, they are not photographs, they are photoillustrations.

Chris - I'm curious as to how one makes images like this - you must start with the larger image that has been digitized so it's made of pixels. Then you must assign new images to each pixel based on the color content of the original pixel. Is there some software what does this in a semiautomated fashion or is a pretty hands on process?

Thank you Kirk. I wonder how many"felt" that the answer was "C"? My final for Chemical Thermodynamics (My freshman year 3rd Quarter) was to answer this question: Accererate a 10 gram solid Gold sphere to 1000 m/sec. It travels 2000 meters during a 50 C atmosphere at STP. It hits a block of ice. What is the temperature after the 10th time constant? Now I do not recollect some of the other controlling factors but that is the jest of it.:) I'm with you on the sun also.

Kirk Gittings

24-Jan-2007, 14:53

Kirk,

Kraftwerk doesn't have enough edge.

Ole Tjugen

24-Jan-2007, 14:59

They are photographically based art, much like collage, as in Ulesmann's work, but with the obsessive qualities of a Philip Glass composition.

Thanks for bringing this back on topic, and at the same time stating so eloquently how I feel about these pictures. :)

Slightly off topic - did anyone else notice that some of the Denali logos are spelled "Denial"?

Even more off topic: Check out Milanković cycles. They're well described and documented, and a part of all climatological models. Sorry - solar output variations are not a valid excuse for the current warming trend.

Greg Lockrey

24-Jan-2007, 15:00

And there are truck loads of money to made by scientists and environmental groups. See, no crisis=no funding. My brother is an astro-physicist working in Arizona on a government (taxpayer) funded project. The 'holy grail' of science today is not discovery, it's getting funding. Either from the taxpayer or some private source. So yes, 'voodoo' science does take place and more than many would believe. If a scientist does tow the popular line, he/she is not going to get funding for their research. This is fact not fiction.

By the way, I am not anti-science just anti 'voodoo' science and far too much that is merely theory is being stated as fact. That's not science, it's speculation.

Now this gravity thing. That's something I can get my head around.

As to the photos in question, I find them very well executed but trite, cliche' and condescending.

Kent

Thank you for giving us a real life example Kent.

Peter Sills

24-Jan-2007, 15:38

The "Is it Photography" question seems moot. It's like asking if Rauchenberg's combines are paintings or sculptures. Maybe the better question is how well the work fits our understanding of Art.

To do this, I'll default to the only good defenition I know which is the Utilitartian rule.
(Anything created by people with no utility is art).

Doe this Art have more Utility than Esthetic? Is it more about the message? Are the political messages delivered from the work a utility of the work? If we remove the messages from the work, does the work hold up?

Pete

Oren Grad

24-Jan-2007, 16:21

Ralph Barker

24-Jan-2007, 16:56

I suspect the average viewer will get stuck on the "cool" and never mentally progress to the "why".

chris jordan

24-Jan-2007, 17:33

Oren, that's a toughy. One thing I try hard to do with my work is keep my feet on the ground. I run my pieces past my friends who have no interest in conceptual art, and listen carefully to their feedback, and I try to stay away from hoity-toity academic art theories. My hope with my new series is to keep going with an aspect of my previous work, which was that it was able to reach a wide public audience that weren't necessarily art afficionados. My Intolerable Beauty series appeared in all kinds of non art-related venues (stuff like yoga magazines, fashion magazines, blogs about random cool stuff, etc.) because its message was simple and clear. Unfortunately the new series will be difficult to reproduce in magazines and on websites, so the work won't reach as wide an audience that way. But my hope is that it will make it into museums and the original pieces will be seen by viewers there. The larger art museums have a couple of million people pass through in a few month period, and the majority of those people are not high-end art afficionados; they are tourists, school kids, and other members of the public who just go to art shows (just look at who is in the lobby of MoMA on a random day and you'll see what I mean). So hopefully if my new work gets into some museums that way, the full-size prints will reach a wide audience, and pass along the message that the little JPEG's can't do anyway. That's all just my hope though; what ends up happening will probably be something very different, because it always it...

Oren Grad

24-Jan-2007, 17:56

Thanks for a thoughtful response, Chris, and apologies for my earlier post, which was unreasonably snippy.

Although I obviously had a strong reaction to the concept myself, my question this time was not intended to be rhetorical - I don't think I know the answer. To the extent that you're just following your muse, and this is where you need to be right now to "scratch the itch", it doesn't matter. But to the extent that you have instrumental purposes in mind, it would help to understand a bit more.

No doubt serious market research would be way beyond your budget. But I wonder whether some sort of impromptu focus group cobbled together with friends of friends might not be enlightening. It wouldn't have to be elaborate - if you have a friend who has any understanding of how this sort of research is done and is willing to donate a couple of hours pro bono, and with whom you could talk through the issues in advance, I suspect you could get all sorts of insight from even a quite informal exercise. Rent a focus group facility for an hour so that you can sit behind the one-way glass and not contaminate the proceedings. Then sit back and see how a group of people respond to and interact around the stimulus of this work.

If you were local for me I'd be happy to moderate such a group for you. But surely there is someone in Seattle who can help.

Bill L.

24-Jan-2007, 18:07

Chris,

Sorry for the late entry - These work for me. I've been interested in communicating these types of issues in the health field (although not photographically) - i.e. "One death is a tragedy; 10,000 deaths is a statistic." These certainly get across the idea of the enormity of some statistics that just can't seem to be grasped as numbers. The down side, alas, is that none of these would fit in my living room.

Cheers!
Bill

julian

25-Jan-2007, 08:08

and I try to stay away from hoity-toity academic art theories.

to be honest Chris I think some rigerous critical thinking is what this series misses.
There is absolutely no reason to produce these mosaics in the forms of an ansel pic for example. There is no artistic reason to do so, no value added if you like. The whole thing lacks a structural integrity.
to say 'consumption is bad' is not new, you have no new message here, and the artistic form of the message is so closed that it doesn't allow the viewer to come away with a new take on the problem. there is no way, for example, someone like Frank is going to rethink his cultural values that place 'economic sense' above other forms of sense or responsability.
As an ex-sociologist, I'm also in a kind of despair at this kind of message from the left. It has no depth, no suggestion of an answer. It is on the same level as GW recently suggesting people 'buy more' (or was it 'shop more'?) to help the economy. In one respect he was right, shopping and consumption stimulates industry which makes jobs, but it is not an answer!
Consumption is a multifaceted problem, which has at its heart the belief in personal right over wider responsability. You are basically asking people to question a belief system. It isn't as if people don't know the problem exists.
This interpretation and personal questioning of a personal paradigm is exactly what great art can do - it forces the viewer inwards and outwards at the same time, it can make connections between elements that the viewer has not thought of, it can be 'universal' - in the same way that the Guernica has become a universal image that people STILL are affected by when they see it. By allowing viewers to 'play' with the elements of an image and its meaning, you permit the opportunity for wider connections to be made than you originally thought of - the scope of the work becomes greater with each viewing, if you like.
I've been thinking a lot recently about the Guernica and your series. You are depicting huge numbers. The Guernica is about an atrocity where only 100 people died - only 100. Yet the scope and intent of the artwork go far beyond that. You look at it and think Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Bosnia etc etc it can touch you. Now I believe that your exquisite pictures will not touch people. You will get a hand clap from the left, a 'right on brother', and a derisive 'who cares' from the right. I also doubt you'll move children any more than a pie chart in a text book. Children are sophisticated viewers of art, but are essentially ego-centric, so you have to engage the ego. And by having the 'meaning' of the work so closed, there is little room for a child's imagination to play.
You are going a long way beyond just (just!) 'making pictures about something.' You are trying to tie a political message into a concept and a constructed work. This doesn't just happen. There has to be some theoretical thinking - rigerous critical thinking, some delving into art theories, hoity toity or otherwise - to achieve this.
I'd strongly suggest a theoretical rethink. This kind of concept art needs to have a well thought integrity between the concept, its link with ALL elements of the image, and the role of the viewer.

kmgibbs

25-Jan-2007, 09:11

Getting away from what any of us individually thinks about the art, the science or the politics, how effectively will this mode of expression realize Chris' larger consciousness-raising objective? Is it likely to "connect" with an audience that is uninterested in conceptual art for its own sake? Why or why not?

While excess waste is a concern, I think there is a grave danger to keeping these sorts of things 'too much' in peoples faces. That danger is called overload.

For example, I spent part of my childhood living a chain link fence away from a major freeway in Sacramento. When we first moved there the noise from the freeway was constant and unavoidable. However, after a few weeks we were barely aware of it anymore and months later only something unusual happening on the freeway even got our attention.

Similarly, smelling an odor, developer for instance, when first encountered is very strong. But stay near it and a few minutes later you cannot smell it anymore.

This is sensory overload. The brain tunes it out until something changes. The same thing can and does happen when issues are beat into the ground. Eventually people quit listening.

The problem I have with most environmental groups and those who scream about how man is an evil polluter, is that having failed to properly motivate change in people, they then resort to judicial or legislative lobbying to force change. So you have the few dictating to the many creating an elitist society.

As I said, while the technique used to create the images is interesting, the idea is neither original or creative. These kinds of images (images of waste) have been pushed down societies throat for 30+ years at least. Attempting to motivate people through guilt only causes negative reactions and no lasting results.

Kent

chris jordan

25-Jan-2007, 10:24

Julian, I wonder if you maybe missed the point of the Denali piece because you don't know some of the background about what Denali means in American culture. Denali is a 21,000-foot mountain in Alaska, considered by the Alaskan native culture to be the sacred place where the Great Spirit lives. It is the highest mountain in our hemisphere, and it occupies a sacred place in contemporary American culture, maybe in a tie for first place with the Grand Canyon as our most wild and beautiful primal natural wonder. The mountain’s native name was Denali for a few thousand years, but a few decades ago some white guys renamed it "Mt. McKinley" after one of our Presidents. Mt. McKinley National Park in which it resides has recently been named back to Denali National Park.

At the other end of the continuum of sacredness, the GMC "Denali" is a giant sport utility vehicle made by General Motors Corporation in Detroit. It is one of the largest and most ostentatious luxury SUV's made. It is 17 feet long and weighs almost 6000 pounds. It is so high off the ground that it has a step built in between the driver’s door and the ground so that normally-sized people can reach the door. Despite its enormous size and weight, dangerous handling characteristics, and low gas mileage, hundreds of thousands of Americans drive it as their primary “car.”

For me there is an interesting juxtaposition between this example of crass and thoughtless consumerism, and the sacred natural place for which it is named. For someone like me who is interested in provoking reflection on the issue of consumerism and what is sacred in our culture anymore, it is hard to think of two things that go together better.

So I thought that putting images of the GMC Denali logo up against an image of Mt. McKinley would be an interesting and provocative thing to do. Ansel's famous image of Denali (which is sacred in itself in the world of photography) seemed the appropriate image because it shows Denali in the beautiful and sacred light for which the mountain is known.

I also find it ironic that the words Denali and Denial are so close together linguistically—all the same letters, just moved around a bit. The concept of denial is part of our national dialog right now in connection with many aspects of our consumer culture, especially in the luxury SUV market. So I changed some of the "Denali" logos in the picture to "Denial" as a visual pun designed to raise the issue of denial in an ironic way. My hope is that it might prompt a self-reflective viewer to stop and wonder into the things we are in denial about. The whole SUV movement, for example; what are we doing driving such huge wasteful cars, and why are they getting bigger and bigger despite everything we know about the consumption of oil? How can we drive GMC Denalis and expect sacred places like Denali National Park to survive? And so on.

It also turns out that Mt. McKinley National Park is experiencing some of the most environmentally damaging effects of global warming, which has been in the news here lately thanks to a photographer named Subhankar Banerjee. The tundra in the arctic, which has been frozen solid for more than 3000 years, is melting, and the resulting effects on that ecosystem are disastrous in lots of different ways that are having effects that reach far out into the rest of the world (a huge percentage of all of the world’s birds go there to nest, for example). So Mt. McKinley also serves as a direct cultural symbol of the global warming issue in the US, as does the GMC Denali for those who are willing to consider it.

On top of all of that, there is a specific number of Denali logos shown in this piece, in keeping with my new statistical theme. I don't expect everyone to get all of that looking at the piece, but anyway there's the cultural background for it.

Kirk Keyes

25-Jan-2007, 10:33

Kirk, Kraftwerk doesn't have enough edge.

I don't know - people seem to get on edge when I play Kraftwerk records... :)

I haven't listened to much Philip Glass other than a few albums from around the 1000 Airplanes era, so I'm not an expert on him (unlike I am with Kraftwerk).

But I see Glass as more art-school, obsessive, repetitious, finely tuned music, while I find Kraftwerk more popular, obsessive, repetitions, finely tuned music.

I do see Chris' work here being something that will immediately be enjoyed by the public - they are like giant puzzles.

But the associations being made are not all that obvious; Denali - the mountain, Denali - the truck, Denail - the public's behaviour. If Chris had not told us that 24,000 trucks were being sold in 6 weeks, we would have no way to make the association between the mountain, the truck, and the word. Mt. McKinley (isn't this what most of the public calls this mountain still?) made out of thousands of little words, all of them "Denial". Is it a statement on Native American affairs or some other obscure connection? Perhaps Alaska and our use of oil? I don't know and I can't figure it out fomr the image alone.

I think I would have rather seen 24,000 little GMC trucks covering the landscape instead of the word "Denial". At least then I might have wondered why there are so many trucks there? Maybe I'd make the association that all those trucks take up space and consume resources and are helping to blot out some of our remaining pristine natural spaces. Simply putting the word "Denial" in the graphic is a bit heavy-handed and doesn't really make me think about it at all. It preaches to the viewer, instead of making them think.

So maybe you're right, Kirk, Philip Glass is a better association - it's more like a lot of stuff I've seen from art schools...

Chris, I think I would have liked to see a landscape that you took for this graphic, instead of usurping Ansels photo for this concept. I think the Franklin and the office paper images work much better.

Kirk Keyes

25-Jan-2007, 10:37

I don't expect everyone to get all of that looking at the piece, but anyway there's the cultural background for it.

Chris - looks like you were doing a lot of typing while I was doing some typing.

I think your long explaination of the piece to Julian exactly reinforces why it is not a very strong concept. That was a lot of 'splaining to do...

Kirk Keyes

25-Jan-2007, 10:42

How can we drive GMC Denalis and expect sacred places like Denali National Park to survive?

Don't worrry about that - no one ever takes those things off-road, let alone all the way to Alaska!

(Sorry for the cheap quip.)

Brian Vuillemenot

25-Jan-2007, 10:50

I thought that Chris's "Denali Denial" was the best piece in the series. To me, the meaning was quite clear, and it required no explanation. I also liked the verbal pun, and have often pondered how some of the most destructive vehicles are named after pristine places, such as the "Durango", "Santa Fe", and "Yukon". Is this to ease one's guilt over the purchase of such a gas guzzling behemouth, only used to commute 30 miles each way on the freeway to work every day? Sure, art with an anti-consumer message may not be new or the only way to solve our environmental mess, but this series really makes you think. I wonder how many people would think twice about buying a Denali after viewing the work.

Kirk Gittings

25-Jan-2007, 11:16

I thought that Chris's "Denali Denial" was the best piece in the series. To me, the meaning was quite clear, and it required no explanation.

I agree.

Darin Boville

25-Jan-2007, 11:50

I thought that Chris's "Denali Denial" was the best piece in the series. To me, the meaning was quite clear, and it required no explanation.

Hold on...you feel that the idea of Mt. McKinley as a sacred place for Alaskan Indians is represented clearly in the work? That the choice of the Ansel photo is clearly because it is "sacred" to photographers? (I've always found it to be one of his weaker works, myself...)?

From what I see, the vehicle was chosen because it is a huge, wasteful thing (an obviosu choice), the wordplay was chosen because it sort of jumps out at you when pondering environmental themes (an obviosu choice), and the Ansel photo was chosen because it was a picture of a mountain by the same name and was a picture that represented the opposite of what the Denali vehicle stands for, pure, un-ruined nature (another obvious choice). There's nothing about Indians in this work of any other of Chris' that I know of that would justify such a claim. There's nothing that I know of that would justify any claim for this photo to be sacred to photographers--the Ansel candidate in that regard is Moonrise, or go for Weston's Pepper No. 30.

So there are some very weak links here, maybe non-existent ones.

But don't get me wrong--the work (and new direction by Chris) has interesting potential--I wouldn't spend my time here otherwise!

By the way, now that I see the explanation for the Mt. McKinley photo I'm even more bewildered about the Sunday afternoon painting...what was the thinking behind the choice of that work--the only thing that strikes me is the so-called pointillism technique used for the work...unless there are French Indians that I am unaware of... :)

chris jordan

25-Jan-2007, 12:58

Hi guys, I must say that putting my work up against Picasso's "Guernica" is a pretty tall order. I think of Guernica as being one of the most emotionally powerful pieces in the history of visual art. If any of my work ever has one hundredth of the effect that Guernica has had, then I will consider myself a successful artist.

With that said, I did make my "Valve Caps" piece very close to the size of Guernica (the same width but not as tall), and using a similar tonal scale based on shades of charcoal and gray. It is intended as a quiet and obscure reference that few people will probably ever get. The estimated number of people who died in the bombing of Guernica is between 250 and 1600, far less than the number of Americans who die in single-vehicle SUV rollovers every year in the US. Is any of that portrayed directly in my Valve Caps piece? No. Is it something that my Valve Caps piece might cause a reflective person to wonder about? Maybe if I'm lucky.

The Seurat piece is a play on pointillism and the concept of pixels (where the "points" are brought up to date as being aluminum cans), as well as referencing a painting about people taking their leisure back when taking your leisure didn't involve quite as much consumption as it does now. If you think about people taking their leisure in a park today, it involves parking lots filled with SUV's, people with cameras, iPods, coolers filled with beers and pop, etc. So I was interested to reference a painting from a time when people were portrayed taking their leisure without so much "stuff." Is it deep and profound and moving? I don't now; for me it is cool and ironic and kind of funny.

Some people will get all this stuff by looking at the piece and reflecting on it; others might get it from reading commentary by a curator or critic; others might get it in some other way (like having it spoon-fed by me), and plenty of others will never get it at all. Self-reflection is not something that can be forced; that part of the process is the sole choice of the viewer. All I can do is put my own best effort out there, and then it's up to the viewer.

I will say that I am delighted by all this controversy. It is hard to hold it, especially the mean comments, which hurt (just put yourself in my shoes for a sec), but it is also great to receive so much honest and un-mediated feedback. My work is intended to provoke, and clearly that is happening, so in a strange and uncomfortable way this is all very affirming.

julian

25-Jan-2007, 16:22

The estimated number of people who died in the bombing of Guernica is between 250 and 1600, there has been some new research published this week where someone has actually gone round the registers of deaths and thenumber is between 100 and 125. I'll dig out the reference...

chris jordan

25-Jan-2007, 18:23

Kirk, the reason I did the big 'splanation for Julian is that he's a Brit living in Spain, so he might not know a few of the things we Americans know about the meaning of the word "Denali." Hence I can understand why he missed the point of that piece. But maybe he still thinks the whole project needs a theoretical rethink despite my 'splanation...

Martin Miller

25-Jan-2007, 21:33

Chris, the fact of your making this post suggests that you have some anxieties about your new work. This is probably true for us all but must be especially acute when your very living depends on your making good choices for building on your previous success. My comments are offered in the spirit of helping you sort through your conflicted feelings and thinking. My own take is that four of your new works, Prision Uniforms, Office Paper, Shipping Containers, and Tire Caps are worthy successors to your previous work. I think that Prision Uniforms is an absolutely stunning work both in its micro and macro effect! However, it lacks the conceptual link to your previous mass-consumption theme, and this may be a serious shortcoming in the contemporary art-photography world where consistent concerns play an important role in defining an artist's signature style. It is my favorite of all the new images, but it seems like it belongs to another portfolio yet to be fleshed out. The other three works are consistent with your previous concerns. All four images have a mosaic, minimalist quality that is also consistent with your previous style. With the added dimension of statistical meaningfulness in the agregation of basic units, I believe that these new images represent an appropriate growth in the depth of your artistic vision.

I'm afraid that I cannot say the same for the other images. Again, these are just my impressions, and they will be helpful only to the extent that they resonate with your existing concerns. To me, the photomosaics are a bit campy and, rather than being difficult to read, they are a bit too obvious. They overburden the viewer with the message. The subtle seductiveness is gone with these images where it is still present with the four I first identified. Another thought that strikes me is that the Denali and Seurat images seem calculated to capitalize on the current vogue of referencing historical art, e.g., Wall and Sherman. This may not have been your intention but others may also see it that way as well. I'm sure that it must be difficult to hear all these criticisms before the ink (not to mention your sweat) is hardly even dry, but I hope some of it will help you clarify your thoughts.

By the way, I think that one can get a pretty good idea of how they will look in person from the way you presented the successive image magnifications on your website.

All the best, Martin

Martin Miller

25-Jan-2007, 21:38

One other thing - I would love to hear the story of your photographing those prision uniforms. :-)

julian

26-Jan-2007, 01:38

. But maybe he still thinks the whole project needs a theoretical rethink despite my 'splanation...

Got back too late last night to answer you Chris, I'll try now over the first coffee of the day! I hope you feel honoured because I think I'm writing and thinking about this more than I did in ALL of my posts last year!

I hope also you realise I'm not attacking you, but giving you a serious and considered response to a serious body of work you've put together. You are a serious, talented, dedicated artist who deserves having your work taken seriously, hence the length of my posts. I'm taking this series very seriously!

You are also trying to make a political point. You are trying to question something you see as a 'bad thing'. So I think it is fair to question how you are doing this. I also think, that, as you know me, I can dig a little deeper without causing undue offence. I'd much rather do this over a glass of something, as I think the internet is a bad vehicle for this kind of discussion. I'm quite convinced that this series is pivotal for you, that next series will benefit enormously from what you have undergone with this work. But by placing yourself in this series in a sector of the conceptual art camp, you are inviting people to look at and critique your theory here. So in that vein...

I used to use the guernica a lot when I was teaching as it is an example of a kind of art that is about a particular event, from a particular political standpoint, but the method it uses to get it's point across is totally different from that of the kind of conceptual art that you are now producing. As an opposite it is useful to make a comparison. I also know how much that piece moves you. I admit I have a problem with some types of conceptual art as I'm an old fashioned modernist in many ways.

My disquiet boils down to two main areas, 1. the role of the viewer and 2. the ability of the artwork to stand on it's own without reliance on text.

When someone sees your pics for the first time, how can they engage with it? I imagine they will think about the craftsmanship, the beauty or otherwise, awed at the scale, but how can they engage with, or create some sort of personal meaning, from the work itself? When you explain your work you have very specific references and meanings in mind. To understand these meanings I need a text. I need you to explain the significance of Mt McK (please don't tell me you are trying to do work only for a US audience!), I need you to tell me about US car makes, I need you to explain the realtionship between the mosaics. Once I have that I say 'Oh, now I get it' I stay a moment longer to see if I can make anything else out of it, decide I can't, and I move on. The work doesn't stand on its own. No matter how educated in aesthetics I am, now matter how much art I view, or how much effort or time I put into looking at the work, I can't get anything more out of it.

The same with the tyre caps. You need to explain to me their significance, I need a text. Without the text all I can get is a superficial response to their beauty.

My role as viewer is to read the text and evaluate whether you are succesful in transfering the text to the image. I am limited in my response and forced into a subservient role to the artist. The artist is Wise Leader and I agree and feel suitably chastened. Now the artist is treating the viewer in exactly the same way as those who you are criticisng. The artist instead of challenging the modus operandi of what it is trying to challenge, is using it's tactic in the artwork.

This is a closed loop. The viewer is inside a totalitarian system which it can't escape. Ok, I'm stretching this a bit, but I'm sure you get the point!

Now compare this with the Guernica (hah!). I don't need to know the title, I don't need to know the event. I am free to make my own meanings. All the clues to understanding are in the image. I can agree, or not with the artist. But I am being treated as an equal. I'm not being lectured, the artist is not Wise Leader, I'm being invited to go on a journey with the artist.

I once gave the guernica to a bunch of 11 year olds to describe as they saw fit. They came up with the most amazing list of meanings and stories. If I gave them your pics (or perhaps it is fairer to say, 'if I gave them works from this kind of conceptual theoretical base') would they be able to do the same?

I know my criticisms are more to do with some types of conceptual art in general rather than your pics in particular, but when you take on the responsability for using art as a vehicle for politics, you are doing something very serious and your methods and how you are treating the viewer deserve serious scrutiny. I also realise that I am also bringing my own aesthetic and political agenda to this discussion, but hey, I'm a viewer too.

Anyway, enough from me on this. I've beat you over the head way too much. But thanks for posting the pics. I haven't thought about this stuff in a looooong time, so it was nice to revisit.

And I guess this is the kind of discussion you aere hoping to achieve with the work anyway!

chris jordan

26-Jan-2007, 09:49

Hi Julian, yep, you're right: the titles of my new pieces, and the couple of sentences of accompanying explanation (as you see them on my website), are integral to the works, and will be included when the pieces are exhibited. I can't figure out any way around that. It doesn't bother me too much though, because many works of art require some degree of prior knowledge on the part of the viewer. I suppose every artist hopes their work will be universally accessible so that 11-year-old children will fully "get" it, but in this case I am willing to let that go in favor of trying to address some complex cultural issues.

But you are right-- if someone in Africa sees my Denali piece, they might have no idea what the word means, so that piece does have the limitation of requiring some prior knowledge of American culture on the part of the viewer.

Now in terms of this series being too didactic, hmmmmmmm. Some people are seeing it that way ("typical liberal propaganda," etc.), and others are seeing that all I'm doing is pointing out the quantities, which are factual only, and leaving the rest up to the viewer. The Denali and Hummer pieces contain some judgments, of course, and I suppose there are also implied judgments in my choice of subject matter that could be called didactic. For example, I'm not doing a piece on the amount of dollars contributed to charities by republicans millionaires (maybe I should-- I wonder what size it would be?). But other than that, I don't see that I'm wagging my finger in the Office Paper image, for example, or the Prison Uniforms one. Hopefully it's up to the viewer to form their own judgments about the size of our prison population, or the number of aluminum cans we use, and so on.

It's a difficult line to walk, though, and one that I think about a lot. On one hand I don't want to finger-wag (and I'm sure not in a position to do so anyway), but on the other hand I don't want to be a detached artist who stands back and observes the world from a distance with no apparent connection or point of view. That is one way that I part ways with Gursky; I do feel a need to advocate a position at least somewhat. Our culture is engaging in some insane unconscious behaviours and I'm not comfortable just observing them with detached irony; I want to do something about it. The challenge is to say what I have to say in a respectful and self-reflective way, honoring the complexity of these issues and giving my fellow man the benefit of the doubt. I try to build those concepts into my pieces, but of course it won't work for everyone.

In any event, thanks for your long and thoughtful reply. Too bad we can't sit in the plaza outside the Reina Sophia and share a pitcher of sangria over this subject, while "Guernica" filters down from its hallowed place next door. This subject deserves a good long Madrid afternoon's discussion.

Cheers,

~cj

adrian tyler

27-Jan-2007, 08:19

talking of spain... here are some interesting photomontages by spain's no 1 joan foncuberta, click through to le last six. a nice reference.

http://www.lensculture.com/fontcuberta.html#

all the best chris

adrian

tim atherton

27-Jan-2007, 08:45

talking of spain... here are some interesting photomontages by spain's no 1 joan foncuberta, click through to le last six. a nice reference.

http://www.cefvigo.com/imaxes/vilari%F1o_02.jpg (http://www.cefvigo.com/imaxes/vilari%F1o_02.jpg)

all the best chris

adrian

hmmm - Fontcuberta:

http://www.lensculture.com/fontcuberta_images/fontcuberta_33.jpg

or lego:

http://www.cefvigo.com/imaxes/vilari%F1o_02.jpg

QT Luong

4-Feb-2007, 01:22

I've been away from the country for more than a month. One book that I read while spending too much time on planes (16 flight segments) was Bill Bryson's "I am a stranger here myself", that contains quite a few witty musings about numbers in America, including some of the very same numbers Chris presents, such as inmate population, so I was particularly interested in a project that tries to make visual art out of those numbers.

In executing this last project, I feel that Chris has moved from being a photographic artist to being a conceptual artist who uses photography, while at the same time maintaining an admirable continuity with the ideas and visual style that informed his previous work (this is most obvious with the containers and valves). The pieces are very clever, and I can only imagine that they must have a tremendous visual impact when seen in person thanks to the combination of enormous scale and minute detail (which can photographically be achieved only by large format photography or digital equivalents such as gigapixel composites), as well as multi-scale granularity.

Although as pieces of visual art, I have the same reservation as expressed by Julian about the need for the pieces to use an external commentary without which a lot of their meaning would be lost, I note that this is a common shortcoming of modern art, where most of the pieces are conceptual in nature, and in general require some commentary to fully illuminate them, giving an ever-increasing importance to critical discourse. Many do also make reference to former work, and in this sense become part of the critical discourse themselves. This trend is not specific to visual arts, but also present in litterature, as examined out several decades ago for instance by Gerard Genette.

GPS

4-Feb-2007, 03:21

...

The pieces are very clever, and I can only imagine that they must have a tremendous visual impact when seen in person thanks to the combination of enormous scale and minute detail ...

...

Sure! How about all the hamburgers (let's say the King burgers!) eaten in one day in the US making a fractal mosaic of a crying African undernourished child?
Very clever and with tremendous visual impact! In this case not even the comment is necessary, everyone can imagine how many hamburgers are daily eaten by our obese kids... Heavens!!

chris jordan

6-Feb-2007, 11:41

Darin Boville

6-Feb-2007, 18:37

I just posted a new one on my website, depicting 1.14 million paper supermarket bags (the quantity used in the US every hour). This is not a mosaic like a couple of the previous ones; this one I assembled manually in Photoshop from hundreds of photos I made in my studio of a small quantity of supermarket bags.

www.chrisjordan.com

Chris,

I think you've done it, found a way past the earlier problems. Eerily beautiful work and the bag statistic aspect just adds to its appeal. Congratulations! More of this!

This is the first work of yours that I would really like to own--I wish I was a stock trader/lawyer/doctor and could afford it...

Very exciting to see this new work, which I see as a breakthrough. Very cool.

--Darin

Martin Miller

6-Feb-2007, 21:10

Chris,

This new piece is your best. It removes all of my previous reservations. The subtle seductiveness is back, the focus is returned to the art with message in its proper proportion, the layers of meaning and reference are all there without being too obvious. Give your mosaic software to charity and sip some more of what got you to this one.

Martin

julian

7-Feb-2007, 01:56

Chris, you might like to check this out for (http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/architecture-and-climate-change.html) some more numbers!

Richard Edic

18-Feb-2007, 09:05

I've followed this forum for a while and have always been impressed by the high level of content and intelligence of ideas. I've followed this thread with great interest (and to near exhaustion), and am inspired to comment. First- kudos to you, Chris, for opening a discussion like this and leaving yourself at the mercy of sometimes painful criticism. It must be hard enough to endure the judgements of professional critics; to invite the sometims harsh comments of peers (and wannabe peers) takes guts. I was looking at the new work on your website before seeing this thread and my initial impression was of a grand "work in progress". With the super market bag image, things seem to have gone to a new original level. The message is there, but there is also a serene beauty to this work that trancends the message. I think this work represents a welcome frontier where we are able to work as artists and imagemakers who use photography as a tool to reach a greater end. If nobody can figure out what to call it, all the better...

Richard Edic

Brian C. Miller

24-Feb-2007, 16:54

Although as pieces of visual art, I have the same reservation as expressed by Julian about the need for the pieces to use an external commentary without which a lot of their meaning would be lost, I note that this is a common shortcoming of modern art, where most of the pieces are conceptual in nature, and in general require some commentary to fully illuminate them, giving an ever-increasing importance to critical discourse.

That's been a problem with many different types of photography for some time. For instance, what is gleaned from Adams' Trailer Camp Children (http://www.hctc.commnet.edu/artmuseum/anseladams/details/trailerpark.html) without accompanying text? By just looking at the photograph, a person may deduce that they are from a poor family, but that's about it. Both the text and the image must exist for the full impact.

Around 1995, there was a shooting in Miami, of an old man by the police. The police were serving a warrant, and broke the door down on the apartment. The old man had been watching TV, and held a remote in his hand. The police opened fire, thinking he held a gun. The photograph in the newspaper showed his weeping granddaughter next to a bullet-ridden wall. The image was extremely visually arresting, but it still took the accompanying text to bring home the full impact.