Lilliputians at Work?

How small can you be to engage in productive activity? How visible at the people who execute necessary roles for a good functioning society? This is the one of a series of miniature installations/sculptures featuring ideas of scale and situation. This piece is examining the once universal role of secretary. We do not know (let me know if you do) who massaged Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels manuscript into production at the printer Benjamin Motte in 1726. What we do know is that people who are unknown and now forgotten used their skills to make it happen. We celebrate this work of satire but many people played a part in facilitating this important artefact of our culture into the present day.

The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver’s watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting

Swift does add interesting details about the nature of the places he visits. The size of the people and their views of him because of his relative enormity.

I wanted to see if it was possible to create a print/installation which featured the complete work of Gulliver’s Travels in readable form. As though this was being prepared for print in the days when we had galleys and typesetting. It features the typist sitting at the desk with the last words having been typed.

Other installation subjects in this series include:

• Mantrap
• Scrabble® game – for two players
• Making Love Hearts®
• Cleaning up after the Party
• Crime Scene – Death of a Wasp

Any comments on this project or if you’d like to discuss a site-specific installation please Contact me.

Title: Typing Gulliver’s Travels
Status: Ongoing. Made to order
Size: Open framed  in Oak complete with magnifying glass for those without perfect vision. Approx 462 x 256 x 30 mm
Edition size: 12
Price: £135 (+shipping)
Year: 2012+
Website: Not yet

I have also been using miniature figures for a series of quite different explorations altering based on subject matter and location. These are being presented on other Project pages so see:
Artist Assistants
Figures in the Landscape