Visual statistics - the madness of consumerism

In Running the Numbers - An American Self-Portrait, Chris Jordan has put together a brilliant set of images that...

... visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

My favourites are:

426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day:

Detail:

Here's a forest of 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour:

Detail:

There are some disturbing images in this clever collection.

Check out the rest of: Running the Numbers.

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