Sitaram
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What Kind of Idea Are You?What kind of idea of idea are you?
Are you the kind that compromises,
does deals, accomodates itself to society, or are you the cussed,
bloody-minded ramrod-back type of damnfool notion that would rather
break than sway with the breeze? The kind that will almost certainly,
ninety-nine times out of a hundred be smashed to bits, but, the
hundredth time, will change the world.
- Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses
In the work, Replaced text, a text taken from the Satanic Verses by
Salman Rushdie, asks the viewer "what kind of idea are you". It
illustrates that no matter how small the idea is, if you have
conviction and will, in the end that idea can change something. At
the same time it also raises questions: how does one know when to
compromise or not, and is there a wisdom in this?
The book is about bringing oneself to account, about examining one's
own ideals, in the lives of the two main characters. But
unfortunately, that theme seems to have been overlooked, for socio-
political reasons. So here his book did make an impact on the world,
but not, I would think, in the way the author intended.
Ideas are not independent of the world, of history, so it is all well
and good to have conviction and a good idea, but how we present it is
just as important and how we are affected by the forces of society is
also an important factor. Rushdie's book also brilliantly weaves
these sorts of issues throughout the book, so it what has happened is
both unfortunate and ironic.
Another work called Shadow visualizes the theme of how history is
always there.
A dark shape, a shadow or phoenix form rises out of the double pages
of a book on feminist theology by Mary Daly.
The shadow form ambiguously occupies either a positive or a negative
space, but it is definitely in the foreground. I wanted to show that
history is always there but that is not something passive, more like
a metamorphizing shadow that always hovers over us.
I believe that the more we can see this, through being exposed to all
sorts of ideas, then our history is less restrictive. I've used a
gradation of blue to purple color in the background to suggest a
changing sky or background.
Another work, I tend to see the world as one also ambiguously plays
the light-hearted against the deadly serious.
Above are the words:
I tend to see the world as one, despite its differences
The text underneath reads:
The theology of providence begins
with the doctrine of chance.
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