Some of my favorite work from Chris Jordan

How does he make intolerable, overwhelming amounts of waste so beautiful? With his photographic art, Chris Jordan sends a strong message about American mass consumption, that we are living unsustainably and until people are held accountable for our actions it will get worse. He visits shipping ports and industrial yards – evidence of our consumption usually hidden from view – then puts together large-scale portraits focusing on the tiniest details. The immensity of the canvas reminds the viewer that our waste may seem insignificant in our hands, but it becomes a bigger problem than we can even imagine. We need full-fledged cooperation in order to change the way we consume and reduce waste.

He offers the following advice: ‘As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.’ Chris Jordan

Packing Peanuts, 2009, 60×80″, Depicts 166,000 packing peanuts, equal to the number of overnight packages shipped by air in the U.S. every hour.

Gyre, 2009, 8×11 feet in three vertical panels. Depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world’s oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.

Plastic Bottles, 2007, 60×120″. Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes.

Cell Phone Chargers, Atlanta 2004

Container Yard #1, Seattle 2003. (Side note: Companies keep piling these shipping containers on top of each other because it’s cheaper than shipping them back the other way. Just take a little journey to the mall or IKEA in Elizabeth, NJ to see evidence!)

A still from my stop motion project

This is my first foray into stop motion and first time using Final Cut so I definitely learned a lot this weekend. I chose a handmade aesthetic with cut paper, drawings and found objects because that represents the simple, grounded and whimsical nature of the forest. I did not use a tripod (mostly because I didn’t realize that would make life a lot easier) but I think the separate images pasted together adds to the feeling of novelty and exploration. I also reworked the mood board, powerpoint presentation and soundscape to connect all of the components to the brand message.

Focusing/Completely reworking the brand

I don’t need to start completely from scratch because I’m using the same topic, and I think my soundscape components are good (they just need to be mixed properly), but I need to rework the focus of my theme. I think I’m trying to focus on too broad a topic and also creating a brand platform for an existing company. The project is to create a brand platform for an invention that I propose to create, so I’m the client. OK, got it. So what is the theme then?

Taking a few points from my last post on the topic, I’m going to focus in on just one or two benefits to this new technology. 1. Using trees as sensors will increase the safety of firefighters, people living near forests, and forest-dwelling animals by preventing the spread of wildfires. 2. Creating demand for larger trees with greater electrical charge will protect old growth forests and therefore improve environmental conditions.

With that clarification, I’m going to remix the sounds and moodboard to evoke the feeling of walking through the forest and excitement that trees can provide a new technology to save lives. Hopefully this will create a demand for the protection of large forested areas.

The stop motion project needs to show the proposed product or service in action. So it would start with a forest fire or even just a spark of flame, then I’d like to show a sensor network of electrical impulses, alerting the main facility and shutting down the fire. How the f@#$! am I going to take photos of that?

The Obama’s hang a Ruscha, and set a new precedent for modern art in the White House

The Obama’s have ‘highly sophisticated’ taste in art, according to New York private art dealer Richard Feigen. Beginning even before the inauguration, they began amassing an impressive collection of modern, avant-garde and intrinsically American pieces, some of which have only been delivered in the past week.

I think this Ruscha works so well for the White House… a million thoughts passing by at lightning speed.

The President and First Lady have actively been developing the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, which focuses on cultural diplomacy, preservation, and provides awards for talented creative youth in America. After seeing the list of artists the Obama’s plan to decorate their living space with, I have a feeling that they will take the arts in America in a very new direction.

Most striking to me in this story is a piece of pottery sitting on bookshelf in the Oval Office. The artist, 69-year old Native American Jeri Redcorn, has been creating pottery using the same techniques her Caddo ancestors have been using for 500 years. She started jumping up and down and screaming when she heard that her pottery was in the White House. She considers it “a bridge, and a reaching out to other cultures… To have this artwork in the Oval Office is like a beautiful tribute to the way that my ancestors did things.”

 

Courtesy of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Jeri Redcorn’s pot is named “Taysha,” the Caddo word for fried. The Caddo also used it for people they hadn’t met, she said. They referred to the Spanish by that name, and the Spanish, hearing the sound as an “x,” made the word “Texas,” she said. (side note: this is not the specific pot in the White House)

Also on loan to the White House are a trio of patent models from the National Museum of American History. Now adorning the shelves of the Oval Office are Samuel Morse’s 1849 telegraph register, a gear-cutting machine and a paddlewheel for a steamboat. These items represent the core American values of hard work and ingenuity, and create an atmosphere of respect for the past while at the same time looking towards the future. Past inventions give people living now clues to problems of today, and foreign diplomats and other visitors to the White House probably appreciate these items as a glimpse into American history.

It’s the hottest new destination: Garbage Island!!

Watch the first five minutes of this video. David de Rothschild spoke at Pratt recently about a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean about the size of Texas. I had no idea that the garbage he was talking about was actually micro plastics that have been broken down over time from the items we consume! The world really is run on plastics, from the medical industry to water bottles, to food containers, then people throw these items in the trash and don’t think about what the item’s final destination will be.

In the samples they found that plastics outnumbered organic sealife 60 to 1. Also, there are no red or orange color plastic bits because fish and birds are attracted to that color to eat! This seems like a really difficult situation to clean up, because they trawled for hours to pick up their samples. The plastic crumbs are dense but widespread over an enormous area… humans have turned the ocean into a toxic waste dump and we have no idea how to clean it up.

Plans for a new neighborhood in NYC

I came across a new plan to develop the no-mans-land south of Tribeca on the real estate blog Curbed. Check out the new Greenwich South! I love the idea of designing an entire neighborhood, developing a new community, and breathing new life into an area. The plans represent a reimagining of the area, opening up the world trade center site to allow Greenwich street to run through, thus connecting the West Village and Tribeca neighborhoods to this new community. These are not finalized plans, so it’s pretty funny that they designed the New Yorker cover already! I would love to see this happen if the plans aim towards creating a new location contributing to nyc culture. However, if the development plan calls for big box outlet stores and chains it wouldn’t bring me down there, that’s for sure.

A successful recent addition to the nyc landscape is the High Line. The High Line is a beautifully designed park floating above the western side of lower Manhattan. The streamlined form and consistency make it aesthetically pleasing and the views and location make it a huge tourist attraction. The design integrated it’s original use as a train track into the current purpose, and the whole look is very organic. Benches and lounge chairs rise on angles from the long wooden tracks running through the entire park. It’s incredible that the High Line was going to be torn down, and now it’s a gorgeous gem bringing more people into the Meatpacking District, and revitalizing an area that was quickly becoming known as only a slick nightlife destination. Here are some pics from my summer stroll on the High Line:

This topic also reminds me of something I learned recently – that Central Park was actually DESIGNED! I had no idea, I thought that the area of the park was just sectoned off and that’s what the topography of Manhattan looked like originally. Well, nooo! It was designed back in the mid-1800’s when people were weary of industrialism and realized that they needed more of a connection to nature. When the grid system was created to organize the streets, this huge parcel of land was reserved for landscaping by the writer Frederick Law Olmsted and the architect Calvert Vaux. They created the natural-looking ponds and lakes, hills and paths as an peaceful escape from urban life. When they dug up enormous rocks they piled them up and created the many rolling hills dotting the landscape. Well done! I would have never known… Hopefully future landscape designers and urban planners can use Central Park and the High Line as examples of maintaining the elements of the past and natural landscape to create organic design.

High Priority: The Land of Typographic Bounty

For those of you in need of an infusion of typographic inspiration, take a look at this slideshow of ‘High Priority’ artwork from New York Magazine. Hey guys, why don’t you do this anymore? For a few years, design director Luke Hayman and art director Chris Dixon selected a designer to do a typographic illustration of the top 5 things to do in New York City that week. Every week was a new superstar designer, and they had an open competition for artwork submissions.

Now in the listings section of the magazine there are featured cultural events, but in each individual section. In the art section, an exhibition is featured; in the theater section, a new play, etc… that’s fine… if you want to be BORING!!! Giving a new amazing designer the freedom to create artwork each week adds to the creative energy of the culture section. Especially since many of the designers are in New York! Bring High Priority back!!

There are too many to choose from, but here are a few of my faves:
For the challenge the artwork had to be black, white and red ONLY. Stephen Doyle was the only exception to this rule.

Louise Fili

Barbara deWilde

Martin Venezky

Stephen Doyle

Chip Kidd

A New Direction for America?

Yulia Brodskaya’s work brought up an overall design trend towards all things handmade, and this topic reminds me of a talk that Kurt Andersen recently gave at Pratt, promoting his new book Reset. He assures us ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it, but it’s not the end of the world.’ Check out this great interview with Kurt Andersen on The Colbert Report.

What we need is not a return to a slower, simpler time, but to strike a balance between the all-too-American value of bigger is better, and the possibility that people could ONLY want what we actually need… in the design world this could mean great things! Beyond the aesthetic of handmade visuals and art, the back-to-basics value could extend into the materials being used and the method of production. Things don’t always have to be shiny-and-new. Hmm… this makes me want to visit the flea market to pick up some dusty old inspiration.

For those of you interested in dusty old stuff too, here’s a list of the largest flea markets in nyc:
Antiques Garage (25th between 6th and 7th ave)
Grand Bazaar (25th between 5th and 6th)
Also there’s another one around 40th and 8th ave
Brooklyn Flea is great (one in Fort Greene and another at the Brooklyn Bridge)
Housing Works Thrift Stores are a great resource for books, clothing and furniture

Yulia Brodskaya double-take

I have artistaday.com installed on the iGoogle homepage, so that the first thing I see each day is the artist the site chooses to feature. Probably once or twice a month I love the art so much that it captures my fleeting internet-surfing attention and makes me click. Yulia Brodskaya is an artist discovery that I am so excited to find because of her passion for typography, paper and making things with her hands. Her work is 3-dimensional, eye-catching and incredibly precise.

All images published with consent of Yulia Brodskaya

Gosh I love this one – recycled card (created with recycled cardboard)

Her clients include Starbucks, GQ, Wired, Nokia, and my favorite is this one for New Scientist:

To me the most impressive aspect of Yulia’s work is that she graduated with a masters in Visual Communications in 2006 (University of Hertfordshire, England) and has been deeply involved with paper-cut illustrations long before they became the new craze. For designers working in the past decade (or three), it seems like it would have been an uphill battle to get handmade work accepted by clients. Since we may have just concluded this era of everything-shiny-and-new, we should be seeing many more illustrators and designers picking back up the pencil and creating things that remind us of our simple human roots and wholesome values. See all Yulia Brodskaya’s work here.

A Few Million Steps Beyond Recycling

I have definitely been on the environmental theme with my posts lately, and there are a couple more people doing great things that I need to mention. It’s one thing to recycle – painstakingly separating magazines, hangers, and milk cartons, putting them in the correct receptacles or shelves, then saying ‘there, I’ve done my good deed for the day!’ The next (million) steps is to actually collect those remnants of consumption and create useful products, artwork, or just enormous attention-grabbing experiments.

In the latter I’m talking about David de Rothschild, a charming English trans-continental explorer and avid environmentalist that I saw at a symposium yesterday at Pratt. His current project is to create a vessel designed to sail the Pacific made entirely out of reclaimed post-consumer plastic water bottles. It’s really being built, because he showed us pictures of the 60-foot catamaran in progress. The expedition is meant to get lots of attention for inspiring sustainable solutions, as well as highlighting the damage being done to the oceans by humans. He mentioned a garbage dump in the ocean about the size of Texas, that just sort-of floats around…

This concept is also being lived by Tiffany Threadgould, a graduate of Pratt and self-proclaimed ‘rebrander of garbage’. Her story and new business was featured in The New York Times as advancing a larger garbage-loving agenda and teaching people how to rethink the way they consume. Instead of buying the $1 plastic bottle and throwing it away, she is urging people to think of the myriad uses for what otherwise would be taking up space in a landfill somewhere. Some of the products on Threadgould’s site, RePlayGround, provide a simple framework for creating your own recycled material products.

Threadgould’s DIY wine cork trivet (hot plate). This one is personally really interesting to me since I’ve basically saved every wine cork from every bottle of wine I’ve ever consumed. I knew I would eventually have a use for them!

If anyone has any great artwork or other products they’ve seen made from recycled or salvaged materials, please send them along. I would love to see (and post) more innovative uses for what most people would consider trash!