Chris Jordan: Turning Powerful Stats into Art

https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_jordan_turning_powerful_stats_into_art?

這個是作業(yè)，你別忘了看（怒

My work is about the behaviors that we all engage in unconsciously,?on a collective level.?And what I mean by that, it's the behaviors?that we're in denial about,?and the ones that operate below the surface of our daily awareness.?And as individuals, we all do these things, all the time, everyday.?It's like when you're mean to your wife?because you're mad at somebody else.?Or when you drink a little too much at a party, just out of anxiety.?Or when you overeat because your feelings are hurt, or whatever.?And when we do these kind of things,?when 300 million people do unconscious behaviors,?then it can add up to a catastrophic consequence?that nobody wants, and no one intended.?And that's what I look at with my photographic work.

我的工作是關(guān)于我們所有人在集體層面上無意識地參與的行為。我的意思是，這是我們否認的行為，以及那些在我們?nèi)粘Ｒ庾R的表面之下的行為。作為個人，我們都在做這些事情，一直在做，每天都在做。這就像你對你的妻子很刻薄，因為你對別人很生氣。或者當(dāng)你在聚會上喝得有點多，只是出于焦慮?；蛘弋?dāng)你暴飲暴食，因為你的感情受到傷害，或者其他。當(dāng)我們做這些事情時，當(dāng)3億人做無意識的行為時，那么它可以累積成一個災(zāi)難性的后果，沒有人想要，也沒有人打算。這就是我的攝影作品所關(guān)注的。

This is an image I just recently completed, that is --?when you?stand back at a distance,?it looks like some kind of neo-Gothic, cartoon image?of a factory spewing out pollution.?And as you get a little bit closer,?it starts looking like lots of pipes, like maybe a chemical plant,?or a refinery, or maybe a hellish freeway interchange.?And as you get all the way up close,?you realize that it's actually made of lots and lots of plastic cups.?And in fact, this is one million plastic cups,?which is the number of plastic cups that are used on airline flights?in the United States every six hours.?We use four million cups a day on airline flights,?and virtually none of them are reused or recycled.?They just don't do that in that industry.

這是我最近剛完成的一幅圖像，當(dāng)你站在遠處時，它看起來就像某種新哥特式的卡通形象，一個工廠在噴出污染。當(dāng)你走近一點，它開始看起來像很多管道，可能是一個化工廠，或者一個煉油廠，或者是一個地獄般的高速公路交匯處。而當(dāng)你一路走近，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)它實際上是由很多很多的塑料杯組成的。而事實上，這是一百萬個塑料杯，這是美國航空公司航班上每六小時使用的塑料杯的數(shù)量。我們每天在航空公司的航班上使用400萬個杯子，而幾乎沒有一個杯子被重復(fù)使用或回收。他們在這個行業(yè)中就是不這么做。

Now, that number is dwarfed by the number of paper cups we use every day, and that is 40 million cups a day for hot beverages, most of which is coffee. I couldn't fit 40 million cups on a canvas, but I was able to put 410,000. That's what 410,000 cups looks like. That's 15 minutes of our cup consumption. And if you could actually stack up that many cups in real life, that's the size it would be. And there's an hour's worth of our cups. And there's a day's worth of our cups. You can still see the little people way down there. That's as high as a 42-story building, and I put the Statue of Liberty in there as a scale reference.

現(xiàn)在，這個數(shù)字與我們每天使用的紙杯數(shù)量相比相形見絀，每天有4000萬個紙杯用于熱飲，其中大部分是咖啡。我無法在畫布上放進4000萬個杯子，但我能夠放進41萬個。這就是41萬個杯子的樣子。那是我們15分鐘的杯子消費。如果你能在現(xiàn)實生活中真的堆起這么多杯子，那就是它的尺寸。我們的杯子有一小時的價值。而我們的杯子有一天的價值。你仍然可以看到下面的小人。那有42層樓那么高，我把自由女神像放在那里作為一個比例參考。

Speaking of justice, there's another phenomenon going on in our culture that I find deeply troubling, and that is that America, right now, has the largest percentage of its population in prison of any country on Earth. One out of four people, one out of four humans in prison are Americans, imprisoned in our country. And I wanted to show the number. The number is 2.3 million Americans were incarcerated in 2005. And that's gone up since then, but we don't have the numbers yet. So, I wanted to show 2.3 million prison uniforms, and in the actual print of this piece, each uniform is the size of a nickel on its edge. They're tiny. They're barely visible as a piece of material, and to show 2.3 million of them required a canvas that was larger than any printer in the world would print. And so I had to divide it up into multiple panels that are 10 feet tall by 25 feet wide. This is that piece installed in a gallery in New York -- those are my parents looking at the piece. (Laughter) Every time I look at this piece, I always wonder if my mom's whispering to my dad, "He finally folded his laundry." (Laughter)

談到正義，在我們的文化中還有一個現(xiàn)象，我認為令人深感不安，那就是美國，現(xiàn)在，在地球上任何國家中，美國的監(jiān)獄人口比例最大。四個人中有一個，在監(jiān)獄中的四個人中有一個是美國人，在我們國家被監(jiān)禁。我想展示一下這個數(shù)字。這個數(shù)字是2005年有230萬美國人被監(jiān)禁。從那時起，這個數(shù)字上升了，但我們還沒有得到數(shù)字。因此，我想展示230萬件監(jiān)獄制服，在這幅作品的實際印刷中，每件制服的邊緣只有五分錢大小。它們很小。它們作為一塊材料幾乎不可見，為了展示230萬件制服，需要一張比世界上任何打印機都要大的帆布。因此，我不得不把它分成10英尺高、25英尺寬的多個板塊。這是安裝在紐約一家畫廊里的作品--那些是我的父母在看這個作品。(笑聲）每次我看這個作品，我總是想知道我媽媽是否在對我爸爸耳語："他終于疊好了他的衣服。" (笑聲)

I want to show you some pieces now that are about addiction. And this particular one is about cigarette addiction. I wanted to make a piece that shows the actual number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking. More than 400,000 people die in the United States every year from smoking cigarettes. And so, this piece is made up of lots and lots of boxes of cigarettes. And, as you slowly step back, you see that it's a painting by Van Gogh, called "Skull with Cigarette." It's a strange thing to think about, that on 9/11, when that tragedy happened, 3,000 Americans died. And do you remember the response? It reverberated around the world, and will continue to reverberate through time. It will be something that we talk about in 100 years. And yet on that same day, 1,100 Americans died from smoking. And the day after that, another 1,100 Americans died from smoking. And every single day since then, 1,100 Americans have died. And today, 1,100 Americans are dying from cigarette smoking. And we aren't talking about it -- we dismiss it. The tobacco lobby, it's too strong. We just dismiss it out of our consciousness. And knowing what we know about the destructive power of cigarettes, we continue to allow our children, our sons and daughters, to be in the presence of the influences that start them smoking. And this is what the next piece is about.

我現(xiàn)在想給你們看一些關(guān)于成癮的作品。而這個特別的作品是關(guān)于香煙成癮的。我想做一個作品，顯示死于吸煙的美國人的實際數(shù)量。在美國，每年有超過40萬人死于吸煙。因此，這個作品是由很多很多的香煙盒組成的。而且，當(dāng)你慢慢后退時，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)這是梵高的一幅畫，叫做 "帶煙頭骨"。想想看，這是一個奇怪的事情，在9/11事件中，當(dāng)那場悲劇發(fā)生時，有3000名美國人死亡。而你還記得當(dāng)時的反應(yīng)嗎？它在世界范圍內(nèi)產(chǎn)生了反響，并將繼續(xù)在時間上產(chǎn)生反響。這將是我們在100年后談?wù)摰氖虑椤Ｈ欢?，在同一天，?100名美國人死于吸煙。在那之后的一天，又有1100名美國人死于吸煙。從那時起的每一天，都有1100名美國人死亡。而今天，有1100名美國人死于吸煙。而我們并沒有談?wù)撍?-我們拒絕它。煙草游說團，它太強大了。我們只是把它從我們的意識中排除。我們知道香煙的破壞力，但我們繼續(xù)讓我們的孩子，我們的兒子和女兒，在那些讓他們開始吸煙的影響下存在。這就是下一篇文章的內(nèi)容。

This is just lots and lots of cigarettes: 65,000 cigarettes, which is equal to the number of teenagers who will start smoking this month, and every month in the U.S. More than 700,000 children in the United States aged 18 and under begin smoking every year.

這只是很多很多的香煙：65,000支香煙，這相當(dāng)于這個月以及美國每個月將開始吸煙的青少年人數(shù)，美國每年有70多萬18歲及以下的兒童開始吸煙。

One more strange epidemic in the United States that I want to acquaint you with is this phenomenon of abuse and misuse of prescription drugs. This is an image I've made out of lots and lots of Vicodin. Well, actually, I only had one Vicodin that I scanned lots and lots of times. (Laughter) And so, as you stand back, you see 213,000 Vicodin pills, which is the number of hospital emergency room visits yearly in the United States, attributable to abuse and misuse of prescription painkillers and anti-anxiety medications. One-third of all drug overdoses in the U.S. -- and that includes cocaine, heroin, alcohol, everything -- one-third of drug overdoses are prescription medications. A strange phenomenon.

在美國還有一種奇怪的流行病，我想讓你們認識一下，就是這種濫用和誤用處方藥的現(xiàn)象。這是我用很多很多維柯丁制作的圖片。嗯，實際上，我只有一片維柯丁，我掃描了很多很多次。(笑聲）因此，當(dāng)你站在后面，你看到213,000個維柯丁藥片，這是美國每年醫(yī)院急診室的就診人數(shù)，歸因于濫用和誤用處方止痛藥和抗焦慮藥物。美國所有藥物過量的三分之一 -- 這包括可卡因、海洛因、酒精，一切 -- 三分之一的藥物過量是處方藥。一個奇怪的現(xiàn)象。

This is a piece that I just recently completed about another tragic phenomenon. And that is the phenomenon, this growing obsession we have with breast augmentation surgery. 384,000 women, American women, last year went in for elective breast augmentation surgery. It's rapidly becoming the most popular high school graduation gift, given to young girls who are about to go off to college. So, I made this image out of Barbie dolls, and so, as you stand back you see this kind of floral pattern, and as you get all the way back, you see 32,000 Barbie dolls, which represents the number of breast augmentation surgeries that are performed in the U.S. each month. The vast majority of those are on women under the age of 21. And strangely enough, the only plastic surgery that is more popular than breast augmentation is liposuction, and most of that is being done by men.

這是我最近剛完成的一篇關(guān)于另一個悲慘現(xiàn)象的文章。這就是我們對隆胸手術(shù)日益迷戀的現(xiàn)象。去年有38.4萬名婦女，美國婦女，去做選擇性隆胸手術(shù)。它正迅速成為最受歡迎的高中畢業(yè)禮物，送給即將上大學(xué)的年輕女孩。因此，我用芭比娃娃制作了這個圖像，所以，當(dāng)你站在后面時，你看到這種花卉圖案，當(dāng)你一路走來，你看到32,000個芭比娃娃，這代表了美國每月進行的隆胸手術(shù)的數(shù)量。其中絕大部分是在21歲以下的女性身上。而奇怪的是，唯一比隆胸手術(shù)更受歡迎的整形手術(shù)是吸脂手術(shù)，而且大部分是由男性做的。

Now, I want to emphasize that these are just examples. I'm not holding these out as being the biggest issues. They're just examples. And the reason that I do this, it's because I have this fear that we aren't feeling enough as a culture right now. There's this kind of anesthesia in America at the moment. We've lost our sense of outrage, our anger and our grief about what's going on in our culture right now, what's going on in our country, the atrocities that are being committed in our names around the world. They've gone missing; these feelings have gone missing. Our cultural joy, our national joy is nowhere to be seen. And one of the causes of this, I think, is that as each of us attempts to build this new kind of worldview, this holoptical worldview, this holographic image that we're all trying to create in our mind of the interconnection of things: the environmental footprints 1,000 miles away of the things that we buy; the social consequences 10,000 miles away of the daily decisions that we make as consumers.

現(xiàn)在，我想強調(diào)的是，這些只是例子。我不認為這些是最大的問題。它們只是例子而已。我之所以這樣做，是因為我有這樣的擔(dān)心，即我們現(xiàn)在作為一種文化沒有足夠的感覺。目前在美國有一種麻醉的感覺。我們已經(jīng)失去了我們的憤怒感，我們的憤怒和我們的悲傷，對我們的文化現(xiàn)在發(fā)生的事情，對我們國家發(fā)生的事情，對在世界各地以我們的名義犯下的暴行。它們已經(jīng)消失了；這些感覺已經(jīng)消失了。我們的文化快樂，我們的民族快樂無處可尋。我認為，造成這種情況的原因之一是，當(dāng)我們每個人都試圖建立這種新的世界觀，這種整體的世界觀，這種全息圖像，我們都試圖在我們的腦海中創(chuàng)造事物之間的相互聯(lián)系：我們購買的東西在1000英里以外的環(huán)境足跡；我們作為消費者作出的日常決定在10000英里以外的社會后果。

As we try to build this view, and try to educate ourselves about the enormity of our culture, the information that we have to work with is these gigantic numbers: numbers in the millions, in the hundreds of millions, in the billions and now in the trillions. Bush's new budget is in the trillions, and these are numbers that our brain just doesn't have the ability to comprehend. We can't make meaning out of these enormous statistics. And so that's what I'm trying to do with my work, is to take these numbers, these statistics from the raw language of data, and to translate them into a more universal visual language, that can be felt. Because my belief is, if we can feel these issues, if we can feel these things more deeply, then they'll matter to us more than they do now. And if we can find that, then we'll be able to find, within each one of us, what it is that we need to find to face the big question, which is: how do we change? That, to me, is the big question that we face as a people right now: how do we change? How do we change as a culture, and how do we each individually take responsibility for the one piece of the solution that we are in charge of, and that is our own behavior?

當(dāng)我們試圖建立這種觀點，并試圖教育自己了解我們文化的艱巨性時，我們必須處理的信息是這些巨大的數(shù)字：數(shù)以百萬計的數(shù)字，數(shù)以億計的數(shù)字，以及現(xiàn)在的萬億數(shù)字。布什的新預(yù)算是數(shù)萬億，而這些數(shù)字是我們的大腦沒有能力去理解的。我們無法從這些巨大的統(tǒng)計數(shù)據(jù)中獲得意義。因此，這就是我的工作所要做的，就是把這些數(shù)字，這些來自原始數(shù)據(jù)語言的統(tǒng)計數(shù)字，翻譯成一種更普遍的視覺語言，讓人感受到。因為我的信念是，如果我們能感受到這些問題，如果我們能更深刻地感受到這些事情，那么它們對我們來說就比現(xiàn)在更重要。如果我們能找到這一點，那么我們就能在我們每個人的內(nèi)心找到我們需要找到的東西，來面對這個大問題，也就是：我們?nèi)绾胃淖?？對我來說，這就是我們現(xiàn)在作為一個民族所面臨的大問題：我們?nèi)绾胃淖?？我們?nèi)绾巫鳛橐环N文化進行改變，以及我們每個人如何對我們負責(zé)的解決方案中的一個部分負責(zé)，那就是我們自己的行為？

My belief is that you don't have to make yourself bad?to look at these issues.?I'm not pointing the finger at America in a blaming way.?I'm simply saying, this is who we are right now.?And if there are things that we see?that we don't like about our culture,?then we have a choice.?The degree of integrity that each of us can bring to the surface,?to bring to this question, the depth of character that we can summon,?as we show up for the question of how do we change --?it's already defining us as individuals and as a nation,?and it will continue to do that, on into the future.?And it will profoundly affect the well-being, the quality of life?of the billions of people?who are going to inherit the results of our decisions.?I'm not speaking abstractly about this,?I'm speaking -- this is who we are in this room,?right now, in this moment.

我的信念是，你不必讓自己變壞來看待這些問題。我不是以指責(zé)的方式將矛頭指向美國。我只是說，這就是我們現(xiàn)在的樣子。如果我們看到我們的文化中有一些我們不喜歡的東西，那么我們可以選擇。我們每個人都能為這個問題帶來多大程度的正直，我們能喚起多大程度的性格，當(dāng)我們出現(xiàn)在我們?nèi)绾胃淖兊膯栴}上時 -- 它已經(jīng)決定了我們作為個人和國家，并且它將繼續(xù)這樣做，直到未來。它將深刻影響數(shù)十億人的福祉和生活質(zhì)量，他們將繼承我們決定的結(jié)果。我不是在抽象地談?wù)撨@個問題，我是在說 -- 這就是我們在這個房間里的人，現(xiàn)在，在這個時刻。

Thank you and good afternoon.?(Applause)