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All I Possess

allipossess.com

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Photographing your keys [0] is a bad idea [1].

[0] https://allipossess.com/products/key-ring

[0] https://allipossess.com/products/lock

[0] https://allipossess.com/products/bend-key

[0] https://allipossess.com/products/old-key

[0] https://allipossess.com/products/broken-key

[1] https://hackaday.com/2009/09/22/photographic-key-duplication...

[1] https://keysduplicated.com/

If somebody copies his keys and takes his stuff, he has less stuff to have to document, meaning a lot less work. It's secretly brilliant!

Before taking a look at this I would encourage anyone to look into Michael Landy's Break Down[0][1][2], where the artist first cataloged and then destroyed everything he owned (except for a pair of overalls) including his vintage saab and all of his correspondence.

That work at least has the weight of a real gesture. The linked work seems (generously) fairly banal by comparison.

[0] https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/break-down/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_Down_(Landy_artwork)

[2] http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160713-michael-landy-the-...

Why would he have to destroy it all? Couldn't he give it away to someone who might need it or at least be able to use it? Just seems like a bit of a dick move all in the name of "art"

I was happy to see cleaning supplies, tools, and cooking gadgets. Every time someone posts one of those 'I only own 12 things' posts, that's the first thing I think about/look for.

Oh, you just spilled a drink? Better call a cleaning lady because you don't even own paper towels.

Time to a cook a meal? Nope, can't. Better just eat out instead.

Something is broken? No duct tape, can't go over my 12 item limit, throw out the broken thing and buy a new one.

It all seems so impractical while also oozing of privilege. Must be nice to not have to repair anything or ever cook for yourself.

> It all seems so impractical while also oozing of privilege. Must be nice to not have to repair anything or ever cook for yourself.

Actually eating at cafeteria is what least wealthy people, e.g. students, do. Buying food cooked in batch and sharing instruments is cheaper than maintaining your own kitchen and possessions.

I don't think that's true at all. University cafeteria's are very expensive in my experience (at least in the U.S.).

The price there just reflects how much students are ready to pay. Cooking is actually cheaper when done en masse. Just look at how poor countries and army handles it.

How do poor countries handle it?

With multitudinous small unregulated street vendors, mostly.

Great way to squirt liquid from one or both ends of your digestive system.

I spent two months in Thailand living off street vendor food and never had any issues. Then again after a misunderstanding I spent three days drinking the tap water (which even the locals won't drink) before getting sick, so maybe I'm just robust.

I'm interested in the four identical toques in different colors. Minimalism certainly doesn't seem to be the goal - why are there four? Is it a collection of designs that have earned their love? Are they really nice toques? Can we infer something about the owner's gender (probably bald, probably male)? Or their location (far north?)

How committed to hipsterism is this guy? The "Raw denim jeans" - 4 pairs in varying stages of fadedness, but all of them definitely raw denim. Is it the "Little Prince" theory of how your possessions own you as much as you own them ? Is it a statement that your essence is a gestalt of all the things you own? There's a collection of wrenches and allen keys, as well as pots of fountain pen ink. "Hipster" isn't a precise enough term. How hard are you guys relating to this individual, purely through the stuff he's got? You can see that he lives in an apartment in a cool city, thinks of himself as practical as well as aesthete, probably thinks he's a rugged individualist too, but he's put a lot of effort into fitting in with a very specific demographic.

I don't know. I guess I spent enough time thinking about it that's served it's purpose as art.

> why are there four?

To coordinate with different outfits? I mean I don't care, I only have the one unadorned black one, but I can see where someone else might. (I also live in Baltimore, which is not so very far north. Anywhere temperate, a toque can be a handy thing to have - although we more often call them knit caps, down here. Nor am I bald; you don't need a shiny head to need something keeping it warm.)

I don't grasp the intent, either. Perhaps there isn't one. Not long ago I might've written it off as pure wank, but just lately I've been thinking about how to compose my own photographs with artistic value, whatever that means - which makes it a little hard to indulge in the same kind of offhand dismissal I'd rather not have aimed at me.

Yeah, I wouldn't dismiss it either. It might just be an experiment in mindfulness - not getting rid of stuff, but just thinking about each thing and seeing how it influences your life.

White things on white background, supported by shopify... sublime.

There was a much more extreme work along the same lines by Michael Landy where he destroyed all his possessions Over a two week period.

Art... or the most meticulous documentation of possessions for renters insurance coverage?

Clearly nothing prevents it from being both. That may be how it began.

Seeing this I realize I own a lot more than I thought. I also realize there are several things I would not put publicly on the web.

I don't get art I guess.

The execution of this is super weak.

There's nothing about the site that really conveys the magnitude of items besides page __ of 12, and you can't even browse by category as if it were an online shopping site, or see original purchase price. He's not utilising the chosen medium of an online shopping cart, so why even use Shopify in this case? It's a minimalistic image gallery with captions.

Sometimes the message is bland or the artist does a bad job of communicating their intentions. And this is one of those situations where I wouldn't fault the viewer as much as the artist for "not getting it."

I don't understand this style of, minimalism? Isn't the point to remove the power your possessions have over you? Not obsess over minifying the amount of possessions you own?

I think you're jumping to the conclusion that that's the point. Certainly many see removing the power possessions have over us as a positive, but art around this subject could be exploring it from different angles, and I don't see that stated anywhere in this installation. It could well be a celebration of consumerism[1], or just an exploration of obsession over possession.

[1] Worth noting, the installation is sponsored by shopify

That's a fair read of the piece, I think I'm trying to subconsciously shoehorn my dislike of minimalism into my interpretation.

Curious: Whence comes the dislike?

I'm a countercultural asshole =\

So you're antiminimalist because Jonathan Ive is pro-? That seems an odd criterion. What would you do if he changed his style?

Bold move showing all his keys like that.

I am all for removing clutter from one's life.. i lived out of a backpack for more than seven years.. but honestly what I see is a lack of intellectual curiosity

I have more capacitors I salvaged from street trash than 'all this person posses'

I see a unfortunate homogeneity of subject matter

There is a wide breadth of cultures and forms of knowledge and expression in the world

I hope to involve as much of it in my life as possible

Does involving that stuff in your life require owning it? You could have a capacitor junk box at your local hacker space, for example.

fair, but if I have a storage unit do I 'possess' those things? If asked would you tell people you 'have in your life' thousands of books because you have access to a library in your community

i also think it unnecessary for someone to have access to junked capacitors

it was mentioned in response to the phrasing utilising 'all' which to me implied a preference for fewer things.. too many things would render the exercise of documenting it 'all' improbable.. and I was trying to express my own opinion of content stead numerosity when living in a comfortable yet clutter free environment

also, i failed to see a bank statement or a pile of cash or stacks of gold bullion, so this all feels editorialised anyway

I was responding primarily to this:

> what I see is a lack of intellectual curiosity

It seems ungenerous to say someone is intellectually uncurious because they don't express that curiosity by possessing stuff.

> also, i failed to see a bank statement or a pile of cash or stacks of gold bullion, so this all feels editorialised anyway

Yes, I didn't see a credit card anywhere. A notable omission, among others.

But to say a collection is 'all I possess' and then expect your audience to come to your work with the knowledge that we all possess intangibles beyond the scope of the things the artist is saying are the only things the artist possesses muddles the piece

Perhaps some abstract objects could have been standins for abstract concepts: this apple represents the love of knowledge I possess; but in their finitude we'd still have the editorialised issue

It is a stated art installation which to me begs to be discussed and so I was discussing what thoughts the installation caused me to have through exposure

My opinions apply to this curated list of items stead some ad hominem of the artist

The items and their aesthetic homogeneity suggests to me a lack of intellectual curiosity but the artist may yet possess more than what is being displayed in this installation

a book, with some strikingly similar ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_According_to_Larry

I was looking for this. I read it over a decade ago in middle school immediately thought "is this Larry?"

Wow, I own even less stuff than this guy. When I started being a digital nomad, I was able to fit all of my worldly possessions in half a suitcase and one laptop bag...

Mostly impressed by the Two Meter Long Sweater

What about the bank account? I can virtually own nothing if I'm a billionaire and buy everything I need during the day. It wouldn't mean I own "nothing", and it would be an environmental nightmare!

It would be much nicer if everything were on one page instead of 12. Scrolling down is easy and relaxing, moving your mouse and clicking on the next link breaks the flow.

It would be nice to see the absolute minimum amount of stuff one would need to survive in the modern world (reasonably). This seems like a loose upper-bound.

It's very unlikely that such a global minimum exists if it is not zero, and it is probably zero if you consider all of the things which are free, and do not consider survival skills "stuff"

A good way to find out is to put all your stuff in storage boxes, and only take it out when you absolutely need it.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see a computer anywhere. I guess he has a friend uploading the images or he uses a public computer?

You're wrong: https://allipossess.com/products/macbook

He does, however, only seem to possess one pair of boxer shorts.

https://allipossess.com/products/boxer-shorts-white

It says '1 of 10', so presumably they're all the same.

White ones, very brave.

Thanks, I'm imagining what my site would look like doing this. With two kids the children books alone would be more than double all this man has.

He seems to have a lot more possessions than me.

Maintenance might be a bit difficult...

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