This evening I went to the "American Classics Go Local!" dinner put on by the 488 Dietetics students encouraging local meals and food conservation. At each table were statistics about how much plastic American's use each day, how much food college students throw out each day, and so on. The only one I can actually remember now is that American's make up 5% of the world population, but consumer 27% of the world's food supplies annually.
Reading the stats did have a shock factor, but it obviously didn't stay with me too long since I can't remember them a 1/2 hour after I read it. In talking about how to better bring public awareness about health and environmental issues, our talk about the effect of images may have a longer effect. Chris Jordan is a photographer whose exhibit, Running the Numbers, uses images in the hope that the "images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books". He portrays cigarettes, plastic cups, Vicodin pills, handguns, cell phones, Barbies, in intricate drawings to make a longer lasting shock factor for his viewers. This website has some of his depictions. It seems like a truly amazing exhibit: http://www.chrisjordan.com/
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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I think that Amy makes an extremely interesting point in noting that the way that we communicate is often times very ineffective, and that while statistics may be surprising for a second, unless there is something more solid to link them to, they are easily forgotten. This is actually something that I have been thinking about a lot recently, because as a senior, about to graduate, I am a bit appalled by the quantity of information that I have crammed into my head for the short term (ie. exams) and then forgotten soon after. The information that has stuck with me the longest, is often the knowledge that was more applicable and linked to the "real word" often through visual stimulus such as photographs and video. For example, one class that I am taking and getting a lot out of this semester is a class in global health and nutrition. While there is definitely a large transmission of biological facts and statistics, the professor ties it all in together by showing video footage which makes it all a lot more memorable. The idea of "a picture is worth a thousand words" really seems to hold true. Based on this and my personal experiences, I think we really need to start taking a new approach to communication, learning and the transmission of information--one that involves more audio and visual stimulation and focuses on the main message as opposed to plain statistics.
In my Visual Comm class we recently talked about news broadcasting and how when people watched a broadcast that had three different stories in it, about 87% could not remember any of the deatils or even what the stories were about. This lack of retention could be becasue television news is fast and information packed which can be too much for a person to handle. Maybe this photographer's can transcend the confusion and ease of forgetting that just plain facts or fast images prodcue with still images that people can centrally elaborate on.
It seems as if we are constantly informed of how wasteful the typical American consumer is, however, it rarely hits home. I watch the black garbage bag in my kitchen fill up and as I throw it into the dumpster, my thoughts of where that garbage goes literally disappears. Out of sight, out of mind. I think that it is great to spread the word about how wasteful we are as a society, yet finding the most effective way of communicating this knowledge is very challenging. At this point, our capitalistic economy is full-throttle in the treadmill of production and consumption. Americans are all about “buy, buy, buy”. This lifestyle of consumption is the main driving force that makes our capitalistic economy successful, or so we think. Reducing waste does not necessarily mean consume more, it means consume smarter and reduce waste. By consuming smarter, I mean we should invest in products that are not just aesthetically appealing but also reflect practices that we deem environmental, morally correct, etc. By reducing the concept of waste, I mean that we need to partake in practices that reflect biomimicry. Biomimicry is the process of recycling and reusing materials in the same manner that naturally occurs in our biosphere or natural environment. Of course, it would be extremely difficult to reach a zero-waste capacity, but there is still so much room too improve. The push for sustainable agriculture is a great move because industrial, mechanized agriculture is not the future. Industrial agriculture might be growing in size but our environment will not be able to sustain this type of agriculture for long. I truly believe in the viability of sustainable agriculture and small farms/co-ops. These types of practices that move towards better use of our resources reflect how our lifestyles can be transformed to be equally luxurious but more environmentally sustainable.
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