Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 274

Chris Jordan’s artwork has been characterized as ‘environmental art’, which often specializes in creating artworks from the waste produced by mass consumer culture. For example, in Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption (2003–5), his images of piles of discarded mobile phones and chargers, computer circuit boards, diodes and e-waste illustrate the enormity of the e-waste problem but also display the strange beauty of the consumer waste on show. Take a look at this work and his other projects, especially Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait (2006–), from his website: www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/intolerable/#cellphones2.

Do some background research into the environmental art movement since the 1960s, noting how this genre has changed over time. Jordan’s photographic images are clearly not simple representations of nature but interventions in political debates around sustainability, consumerism and environmental activism. What do these images bring to our understanding of consumer culture and environmental sustainability? Why would the images not have the same power to disturb if they were taken at the production point of the objects rather than their endpoint? How might turning large piles of waste into beautiful art objects have the opposite of the desired effect and instead be assimilated into contemporary capitalist culture?