It can be a fun to imagine what the physical reality of really, really big numbers would look like. We did it with our 2017 forecast of digital photos. We did it here, too. This site does a really good job of it – real time, and on your screen.
Dutch polymath Erik Kessels just went ahead and did it, for real.
In 2011, as part of the What’s Next exhibition at Foam Gallery in Amsterdam, Kessels downloaded every image posted to Flickr over a 24-hour period – nearly a million photos — printed them all, then ‘installed’ them for the public.
The exhibition 24 hrs in Photos continues to be shown all over the world, with visitors encouraged to wade through the mounds of pictures, pick them up, toss them around, the experience emphasizing how the images we post daily are at once voluminous, public, and disposable.
— Rebecca Najdowski, KQED Arts
(As a counterpoint to these photo dunes, one arts writer pointed out that Kessel’s original installation opened only days before the most expensive photograph ever was sold at auction for 4.3 million dollars).
This is the crossroads at which we find ourselves with photos today – we simultaneously consider them incredibly precious, and entirely trivial.
— Erik Kessels
Which raises an interesting question: what choices do you make? Which photos are important to you (we know which photos are important to us!) – and why? Chime in with comments below.
Here’s more from Erik Kessels, in his owns words, about the democratization of curation and creativity, and his process in creating 24 hrs in Photos, and other projects: