A simple but brilliant artist’s book
that illustrates what one million looks like
We live in an age of numbers on a scale beyond conception. There are eight billion human beings on the planet, nine million in New York City alone. Twelve million millionaires inhabit the US, with 43 million living in poverty. Grappling with such a scale is daunting and overwhelming.
This is where Million Dots comes in. It’s pages, filled over and over with precise geometrics arrays of black dots, helps us grasp the scale of a number that is both commonplace and unimaginable. But while Million Dots serves as a vital conceptual tool, an intriguing plaything and a welcome gift, it is also a work of art, an embodiment of the view of it’s creator, American artist Ron Weis, that “if you experience something and can’t find a category in which to comfortably place it, it’s probably art.”
Million Dots is an edition of 500, but each book is one of a kind. Somewhere in each volume is a randomly placed red dot uniquely differentiating it from the other 499. On the last page of each volume, there is a unique nonsense word. If you are unable to find the red dot in your book, visit the dot finder and enter your nonsense to find out what page it is on.
Responses
Readers react to Million Dots in different ways. For some it is contemplative, others find it mesmerizing, still others find the search for a single red dot that has been placed randomly, in a different place in each book, obsessive (they can end their pursuit by consulting the dot finder to reveal the page on which it appears).
“It's mind bending how much a million actually is. I don't think I fully understood it until I looked at your book.”
—Liz Canner, Media Artist
“I’m only half way through it, but I love every page so far.”
—Marc J. Ross, Esq., Sichenzia Ross Ference LLP
“I want to take a very long time purposely not to find the 🔴 to enjoy this experience and to prolong it…just awesome”
—Michael Adjiashvili, owner, Hotoveli New York
“The four year old found the red dot!”
—Jane Weis, who runs a day care center in Louisville, KY
“...and each one has a name and a face.”
—Nancy Adjiashvili, owner, Hotoveli, New York.
“I think my favorite part is the middle-third of the book”
—Michael Boriskin. Artistic & Executive Director, Copland House
“1 million dollar bills stacked would be as high as a 36 story building. The next time you’re at the famed Rockefeller Center on West 52nd Street, check out the building at 650 Fifth Avenue. That will give you a pretty good idea of how high a stack of a million dollar bills would be.”
When they say you are one in a million,
that means there are nine people just like you in New York City.
The book of a million dots is a perfect illustration of the metaphysical principle, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”, and has been realized thanks to the conceptual, aesthetic and practical insight of the following individuals to whom I am profoundly grateful:
Uli Aigner, Milo Black, Eva Davidova, Ben Diep, Danny Frank, Skuta Helgason, Abby Kinsley, Joe Kuhns, Marcia Loeb, Kristen Mueller, Elisa Nadel, Joe Perez, Vahid Pourkay, Lucy Morris-Thomas, Ron Reichen, Colin Robinson, Ana S., David James Sibbitt, Betsy Weis, and Juliet Weis.
For more information on Ron Weis visit ronweis.com.
