waste land indeed

in the spirit of yesterday's post on disgust at humanity's waste of space, here's a piece by Chris Jordan called "Cans Seurat":

this is a visualization of 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds. wow, pretty!

detail

Jordan says:

My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

you can see more of his awesome visual manifestations of statistics here.

the earth is your canvas

wow. the Japanese never cease to amaze with their antics and art. (antartica?)
that's RICE they're coloring with!
from Pink Tentacle:

Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety. This year’s creation — a pair of grassy reproductions of famous woodblock prints from Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji — has begun to appear (above). It will be visible until the rice is harvested in September.

and for you skeptics: it's not Photoshopped

elsewhere...
less impressive, more hilarious:
as a publicity stunt for the upcoming Simpsons movie, this 180 ft Homer was painted next to the 17th century chalked outline of the Pagan fertility god in the hillside of Cerne Abbas, Dorset. Pagans were pissed at the disrespect, and as far as creative ad campaigns go, I'd say indignation is a rather rational reaction when compared to...oh, you know, a terrorism scare. (via boingboing)

dkmon to come!