When I started this project I had this idea that giving things up would be easy. I've done it before (all be it out of my control). But the actual physical part of removing stuff is difficult. Yes I could just put everything in the bin, or burn it in a big fire or something. Both of those options however go against some of my rational for doing it in the first place, that being anti consumerism and environmentalism. The result being so far that I've been living with minimal possessions if you dont count the fact that almost everything else is in my living-room.

So what to actually do with it. So far I've given a few things away and sold some on ebay (the listings and further listings can be found via this link). But theres still a lot of stuff left over.

Well this morning I spotted a flyer lying on the floor in the doorway to my building. 

What a brilliant idea. So I'll be taking all of my books, dvd's and other bits an bobs down there on Saturday. I'll take a camera an report back on the cool sounding event.  

This one of the reasons I think simplifying my life could be beneficial. The paradox of choice is, in a nutshell, as the amount of choices available to you increase your chances of doing anything at all go down. Barry Schwartz coined the term and can explain the concept far better than I. Heres a small exert of one of his lectures.

Barry himself does not advocate simplified living, despite his research appearing to suggest it. 

For those who are interested and have the time, heres a full lecture on the subject. It was given to google employees in 2006. Truly fascinating stuff.

Short test clip.

Since I decided to give up the majority of my stuff I've already had a lot more time and energy to be creative. Which is why I thought I'd take the opportunity to photograph everything I have now, before its gone. Its been interesting so far. In some ways theres a self portrait emerging from the piles of things. I am not sure what i am going to do with all the pictures once they're done but one idea was to make a stop motion movie of them all. I made a little test animation this evening an thought I'd upload it to youtube to see what sort of feedback I get (knowing youtube it'll be a mixed bag).

If your interested in how the test was made I use Ubuntu Linux as my os. So all of the programs involved were free. I used Gimp for the photo editing and gimp amp to put together the stopmotion element. OpenShot was used for the rest of the video editing.

Since I've started to sort through everything I own I thought it would be a good opportunity to document it. So I've added a rule to the experiment that nothing can be removed from my possession without being documented first. I'll photograph it and add it to a data base. The amount of consumables I have will obviously change day to day, so these will be taken as a snapshot on a given day. All the photos and the database will be made publicly viewable.

I'll do the same thing at the end of the year with what I have left after the cull. 

With the popularity of sites like twitter and facebook growing everyday, people are sharing more and more about themselves. Well I shall share everything I own. This may be interesting as I think many people are judged and also define themselves by the things they own. I wonder if a viewer could get any idea of the person I am by seeing these photographs?

Once I've finished photographing everything I'll use the images to create some thing. Right now I am thinking a short stop motion video. The idea being you could view every single thing I own in under 5 min.

So far I've photographed over 200 items. Barely made a dent.

January 5th 2012. Its me. In the background is progress so far of organizing everything I currently own.

This years experiment will be in minimal/focused living. I am going to be trying to reduce the amount of possessions I have to the minimum. The intention being that this time next year I will only own things I can justify to myself and hopefully those that are reading this right now. This isn’t supposed to be a masochistic exercise. I could of course live with nothing more than the cloths I am wearing right now but that’s not my intention. I want to remove things that are wasting my time or hindering my life in any way.

The definitions and rules for this experiment are still evolving in my mind so I will post more on this in the future. For now I am busying my self by gathering and documenting everything I currently own. I have lived most of my life with minimal possessions but its still way more than I need. Going through everything is going to be time consuming but it feels like the right thing to do. Part of me just wants to have a big bonfire an watch it all go up in smoke. But my morals tell me that this stuff needs to go to someone who wants/needs it. So each item will have to be assessed. Some stuff will go to ebay, some to charity an some to friends. Inevitably some things will have to be thrown away. Wherever possible those things will be recycled.

I'll be documenting as much of the experiment on this blog in as much detail as I can. Comments are open for everyone and un-moderated. If you think what I am doing is retarded/wrong I want to hear about it, equally encouragement is always welcome.