I saw an exhibition of artist Chris Jordan in Austin this summer. His work is interesting to say the least. He takes very small images and turns them into very LARGE canvases. You find yourself reading about the work, standing back from a distance and then zooming yourself in close to the canvas. The cool thing here is that by clicking on the images selected, the page does the zooming.
The main reason I thought of this for this post is because I am trying to introduce a new way for the students to approach writing - Image Grammar. You try to develop an artist's palette and then apply the "colors" of the palette with a number of "Brush Strokes". The idea is that by approaching a written composition like a work of art, made up of different elements and with varying techniques, it becomes a thing of great beauty and enjoyment.
Another reason is that these images challenge our perspectives. Tomorrow we will learn about "Zooming In" on our writing to alter the perspective of our readers. Lastly the artists descriptions provide food for thought. Go here to access the site. Enjoy them, pick one to write about and tell us what it makes you think about, in detail!!
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i think that the Toothpicks is cool because it shows how many trees are cut down in U.S equal to one hundred million toothpicks
ReplyDeleteRomina Vaezian Per7/8
OK. Why is it "cool". What does that number of toothpicks = trees mean to you? How does it affect you in the present, in the future? In other words, try to make your comments more developed, more thoughtful, more....
ReplyDeletei think the one in 'Running the Numbers 2" the one with the hammer head and the other shark. it has millions of teeth when u zoom its so cool. the reason why i chose this is ecause i think it represents how sharks are going away because of how we, our race is being too greedy of shark meat. Much more than less is mainly shark fin soup. DID YOU KNOW: that most people will capture a shark cut only the fins and leave the rest of the body diving down not being able to SWIM again.
ReplyDeleteAmanda Hinojosa per.7/8
The 2 pictures that realy strike me are the plastic ocean and the shark teeth portrait. the thing that stands out the most about the plastic ocean is that all of the plastics colected where from the ocean. the thing that bothers me about the shark teeth is the that they only hunt them for the fins, nothing else. it is amazing what people will do with out considering what they are acualy doing.
ReplyDeletebecause it make me see who much trees are cut down in U.S
ReplyDeleteRomina Vaezian 7/8
The Toothpicks tells me that in my or my grandchildren generation there wont be a lot of trees because if there cutting down a lot of trees
ReplyDeleteRomina Vaezian Per7/8
the two pictures that really strike me are the lightbulb picture and the charlie brown picture. the reason the lightbulb picture strikes me is because it shows the 320,000 lightbulbs equal to the amount of kilowatts per hour are wasted every MINUTE. the charlie brown picture strikes me because its made out of the 10,000 unwanted dogs and cats that are euthanized every day. both these pictures,to me, symbolize human carelessnes and human creulty.
ReplyDeleteErik
One of the pictures that are realy inportant to me is the picture of charle brown.Why would u adopt a dog or a cat if your not going take care of it.Another good one is the one with the oil cans.The world should start thinking about how there going to live with out oil and electricity.
ReplyDeletesoo min kim
The picture that strikes me the most is the Van Gogh picture. It depictes the number of Americans who die every 6 months. When i saw this picture it made me think of the hype of smoking how its "cool" and what not. This picture would be perfect for a psa because it tells the numbers which is a real eye opener because it makes you think about whats really important
ReplyDeleteI think the women is really crazy because it says that the women laugh when the officers and detectives were in the eating room... And they said that the evidence could be right under their nose....
ReplyDeleteThe last comment was posted ny Marquis,Williams...
ReplyDeleteThe portrait that represents all the trash bags being used, Like it or not, all of us are guilty of useing them for worthless purpose's. Many superstores are making reuseable bags now that we've gone crazy with the plastic, Quit worth it.
ReplyDelete(:
The picture that strickes me the most is the sphere made of barrels because it represents the 28000 42-gallon barrels of oil used EVERY 2 MINUTES thats over a million gallons of oil used and to consider that oil is a non renewable source we're just wasting the fuel and we're not thiking that sooner or later we wont have oil anymore instead of coming up with ideas of createing a new way to travel and it wont just be good for the enviroment but i think it would be better for the people so they dont have to spend money on fuel.
ReplyDeleteMarco Echavarria
Your comments give an old man hope for the future. I hope that your generation will not just talk about how bad the problems are, but what we can do about it. And then actually DO something about them! I think it was :)'s comment (CG right?) that said we are all to blame...that is the controlling statement or theme of Chris Jordan's work - It is not the big bad corporations or the evil governments, it is simply the choices we make. I could use reusable bags for my groceries, but I make up excuses like I forget, or I am too busy so I just go on and do what is easy - even though I know my choice will end up polluting the oceans and injuring the very wildlife I like to eat! I could ride my bike to work, or at least carpool with my wife to work, but I drive my gas guzzler instead because I need to get to work early or I have somewhere to be right after work...My point is that as a culture, a society, and as individuals we have stopped believing that our choices make a difference - Chris Jordan is trying to remind us that we DO make a difference. There were 3 that really got to me - hit me where I live...the prison uniforms, the plastic bottles, and tuna. I love sushi and order it whenever I can. That choice is part of the reason we are overfishing tuna. I drink about a gazillion little Lipton Iced Tea bottles a day when I could by the gallon size and use a reusable container. Yes I recycle, but that costs a lot of energy to be used for the truck to come and pick up our recycling and the energy and other chemicals needed to process and reform all that plastic. Lastly, the prison uniforms remind me of all the wasted lives ruined by bad choices and how our society's BIG solution is to lock them up at a HUGE cost to house & feed them...maybe we should spend that kind of cash on preventing the conditions that lead folks to poor choices...just a thought....Way to go guys, You're Awesome!
ReplyDeletewell i think the light bulb pic was kool but importanat because people including me waste too much energy people live things on like th ephone chargers pluggeed in to the wall even though the phone is not connected it still consumes ennergy i have an ihome and i always live it pluged in and it consumes enegy even though im in school its redicules how when we turn something on we dont think how millions of people could be doing that arround the worl it amazing .......people turn off your lights at home and disconect any thing you dont need at the moment ......save energy .....
ReplyDeleteAlmost All his art shows problems we may or may not have been aware of. Like the prison uniform one, I didnt know that was such an issue. Its a hard one to solve, too. Its of course good to address the problem, and blame someone else for it, but nobody really has a good solution for it. Somebpdy will always be dissatified.
ReplyDeleteI think the plastic in the ocean tellls me that we dont really care about the world and the other species around us.We jsut dumb all theh trash in ther water like its a trashcan.We need to stop on the plastic and start on tings we can reuse.We need to realize that we are not just hurting the other species but us to, bea=cause when the animals eat the plastic they die witch is less for us.One day, it might not be soon,but one day our sea species popullation will be in dangered because of our carelessness.
ReplyDeleteI love writing,chris jordan is thoughtful for putting pictures into messages upclose :D
ReplyDelete-~nelson correa~-
we got that many problems well i didnt know tha we all need to help n stop this from gonig on
ReplyDeletemr.jones i like tha money one but i dis like that we spend all that money and the arm still not comelng back with nothin all that money we should hav everthang we whent to go down ther for but i still like tha money
ReplyDeleteI think these pictures were cool espically the benjaman franklin portrait.Espacially when u zoom in you see hundred dollar bills with benjaman franklins portrait on this i think thats just about as much money we spend in iraq everyday.
ReplyDeletei am outrageed about what we do to are planet i think we need to be a little more concederint to were we live i want to study more about the earth and help are planet grow healthy
ReplyDeleteThe Picturee that i like the most or Shocked me is the Hundred dollar bills its really crazy that we spend that much money every hour to iraq or to the military places.
ReplyDelete