Click on any image for a slide show of all images.
I have been collecting images of flattened cans for some time. They are often beautiful. They are always unique. They come in a slow and steady stream to the streets of my city, Beacon, NY.
When flattened, they are like snowflakes, no two are alike. There is no human involvement in the snowflakes I have known. The cans, on the other hand, are a product of humanity from beginning to end. We design, manufacture, fill, distribute, market, desire, buy, consume, and toss (some of) them onto the street, where they are crushed by the random car or truck tire. A process intimately tied to the activity of humans, but no less a cosmic process than the formation of snow flakes.
The ability to make hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of can clones filled with beverages that taste the same every time is an accomplishment of our civilization. We do mass sameness well.
Everything changes, some would say enriches, in its own peculiar way. Out of this river of sameness comes a sea of infinite difference.
Map of can discovery locations.
