Art as missive against consumerism
Friday, January 4th, 2008
Every day in the United States as many as 426,000 cell phones are retired–either left in a drawer, recycled, or most often, thrown in the trash. Photographer Chris Jordan depicted that daily mass of silver-and-black detritus in his 2007 digitally rendered photo, Cell Phones (at left), which is part of the collection “Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait.”
It seems appropriate that Jordan will be a featured speaker at the Feb. 1 Greener Gadgets conference in New York. Through art, Jordan, a former corporate attorney, tries to help people see the folly of consumerism and excess. And the confab is purportedly set up to encourage the development of environmentally designed electronics.