The World in a Water Drop

Originally I was going to write something about nanotechnology - some interesting things going on in that area lately.  But I've also come across other fascinating information regarding miniature and microscopic worlds.  What got me started on this train of thought is this:

This is not a real community, but one artificially constructed by the man below.

Yes, that is singer Rod Stewart with the model train set up he built.

What is behind the drive to build these miniature worlds?  Some modelers apparently strive for a detailed recreation of a real place and time, while others seem to enjoy developing unique worlds for their small trains to inhabit.  The idea of building these worlds extend far beyond train sets and is linked to childhood.  Psychologists use a technique called sandplay with younger clients to assess their emotional states.  The technique is simple; children get to play on a large table or tray set up with sand, often water, and miniature houses, buildings, people, and other everyday items.  What kind of world the children create give psychologists clues to how these children view their world.

There's no small element of control involved in building these scenes.  Our friend Rod above has built a finely-detailed world of his own - looks to be New York City circa 1940s - that he alone controls.  To put it another way, the trains run on Rod's timetable, and only his.

Writers have long known the power of building their own realities and playing God with their creations.  George R.R. Martin seems to take devilish glee in reminding fans that no characters in his Game of Thrones novels are safe as long as he controls their fates.  Plenty of authors have also taken joy in working in miniature - from folk tales full of "little people", Mary Norton's The Borrowers, Smurfs, gnomes, and the like, to Johnathan Swift's land of the Lilliputians from Gulliver's Travels:

This idea of control and the power to alter reality to one's own liking is part of what drives some artists to specialize in constructing miniature worlds - not real-life models - to their own liking.  It can work as therapy for adults as well - as this story from PBS NewsHour clearly demonstrates:

For artists constructing these worlds, some are fantastical, others realistic.  Some represent the world as it should be, others are worlds that should never be.  Many are whimsical, thoughtful, political, or insightful, but all are beautiful in their own ways and push the idea of what existence is and what it could be:

From Wired magazine: Adrien Broom, Centered. Image: the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Mat Collishaw, “The Garden of Unearthly Delights” (2009) (Courtesy of Merderme)

From Mymodernmet.com: "Architect and photographer William Kass has created a lovely series called Minimize, where he takes miniature toy figures and places them in the regular world. His sweet compositions include men fishing for sushi to a ballerina dancing in a fanciful fountain of a shower head. True to form, each of his photos are more whimsical than the last."

Again from Mymodernmet.com: "Perhaps there is no greater artist out there who can create such believable worlds than Matthew Albanese. For the last five years, Albanese has been meticulously making these highly detailed models for his series called Strange Worlds. “When I was young I was always very, very obsessed with movie miniatures and movie magic and things of small scale,” he told Flickr. One of the most mesmerizing shots is of a lightning storm over a lake. Albanese used a piece of plexiglas, painted black, and etched bolts of lightning on it so that light could dramatically flash through.

Again from Wired: Thomas Doyle, Coming From Where We're Going. "From a distance his works looks like a miniature depiction of the American Dream, but upon further inspection, the disorder in his worlds is evident" . Image: the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Lastly, from Mymodernmet: "Un Petit Monde is the name of the series Kurt Moses has created where he arranges tiny people in a larger-than-life world. Moses does not use tilt-shit photography or Photoshop, rather, he sets up his everyday scenes in the real world using natural light. The photographer, hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, loves telling stories through his works, which he wants others to help him actively create. 'My goal is simple,' he says, 'initiate a storyline and capture an evocative photo that allows the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the scenes they are observing.'”