tiny diagnosis

"when i was a child, i spoke like a child, and I had a love of tiny things - like a child.  when i came to be a man i acquired still more tiny things, and placed them in contexts that best enabled them to make the world intelligible."

will self - little people in the city, the street art of slinkachu

at toosmalltocount we have been wondering about the power of scale.  

for swift, reducing the scale of a society places boundaries around that society, or more accurately enables it to be placed under a microscope.  we're not sure reducing scale always comparatively reduces power (although it is hard to imagine a two inch tall dictator), but it does turn an object into a quotation.

a tiny monkey is a distilled essence of monkey.  

our first tiny biennial will be a curated affair.  we are hand-picking artists as we speak.  a penchant for the miniature will help, but more than this we are looking for likely artists who behave as diagnostic tools. artists who are so pessimistic it's optimistic.

tiny history

"he has always pressed it, and he always will.  we always let him and we always will let him.  the moment is structured that way" 

kurt vonnegut, slaughterhouse 5

recently i have been having a recurring flashback-daydream. a perfect self-contained moment that arrives unannounced.  i can't tell you what my proustian trigger is. but i do think i can tell you the significance of the memory.  i think it is perfect.  i think it is the single most perfect moment of my life.  a moment of unqualified joy.  i do not mean to say that i have never been as happy, but there is an easiness to the contentment of the memory that is matchless.

the moment is this:

i am in poundstretcher.  i have just been to the library with my granny and i have an unread copy of edward lear's the jumblies under my arm.  i have just chosen these sweets.  ahead of me is an afternoon in the sun, reading and chewing on cola goodness.  

ordinarily if you asked me where that branch of poundstretcher used to be, the layout of the shop, the cover of that book, i doubt i could tell you.  but the perfection of the memory allows me to access every detail.

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"having a good time, he didn't appreciate it.  why, thought milligan, this very moment might be the happiest in me life.  the very thought of it made him miserable" 

spike milligan, puckoon

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the significance of this for toosmalltocount?   this is a single discardable moment.  human-made history is made of the steady accumulation of discardable moments, of people making movements and saying things, and the effects of those movements and words on other people.  history is the thick encrustation of a million, million, million moments and the million, million, million effects of each of those moments. toosmalltocount cherishes this and it's concordant frightening responsibility.  toosmalltocount is sending out tiny ripples of good history.

"history is just the record of human crime. it’s battles and murders and pogroms, but there’s a secret history and that’s the record of human goodness. the little acts of kindness aren’t recorded anywhere. little deeds of altruism: the lady in the baker’s shop who runs after you saying, ‘here you left a fiver on the counter.’ that sort of thing is never recorded, but that’s what actually keeps the world going.

john lloyd, interview in the idler

the philsophy of tiny

toosmalltocount projects are anti-big. we are not interested in grand gestures, big budgets, big names and we're certainly not interested in the big society.

this july will see the launch of tiny biennial. the only way to find out more is to keep watching.

look out for toosmalltocount on twitter, facebook and in the real world. subscribe to the blog and keep up with tiny developments.