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The Museum of Vestigial Desire

Ideas

Spirit emanates from the spark that gets triggered from good ideas. Ideas that have both the resolute nature of defining the individual they get triggered from and the simplicity of being conveyed through text and pictures. And we ought to value this spirit. It doesn’t come easy. It withers away as fast as it emanates. Why? Good ideas are often dismissed because they will upset the status quo. If there is a specific mode of life that is reserved for the exchange of ideas, for the trying out of ideas that are considered good and for taking lightly the outcomes of ideas that don’t prove to be good after all. It is the character of good ideas to seem to be good before they are applied and seem to be not so good after they are applied.

But when we are talking of good ideas here, what do we mean? Good ideas in which domain? By good ideas we are talking about paper inventions here. Ideas about new games, movies, theatre and other non-literary forms of art. Ideas that implore upon you to imagine something, imagine another art form from the way words describe them, put simply ideas of another world which is not this. For once leaving the question of proof of concept or prototype alone, and just let ideas be ideas. Letting practical and so-called worldly concerns of sustainability and profitability behind and just focusing on the merit of the idea. This doesn’t mean we focus on tentatively worked out ideas — it just means we focus on thoroughly worked out ideas (some even with prototypes) without the muscle of industry and capital to test them.

Imagination/creativity and industry/capital do not often co-occupy the same head. So what is to be done? We have to give ideas the opportunity to enjoy the what is only enjoyed by the application of capital. It is an ordinary assumption that the quantum of ideas far outnumber the quantum of prototypes. Taking ideas a step further is only going to test their robustness. But taking them two steps forward only demonstrates the availability and applicability of capital. In the world of ideas, the urgency of capital to multiply doesn’t mean anything. Any act to produce a particular idea so that it has multiple copies available is going to need capital. And capital is scarce at more times if not all times. And if capital is invested, it wants to either multiply or at least break even. A reportage of ideas produced at a certain time would be very useful. Time can be chronicled by ideas efficiently.

A compendium of what kind of ideas were produced in which time allows us to understand the it in more detail. It allows us to know the resonance of the idea more clearly. And this knowledge is very valuable. Instead of letting ideas be judged by the marketplace — we create a space for ideas to be engaged with as ideas itself — on their own terms.

Fabric tags: construct

Ideas are of many types.

Some ideas are concepts. Concepts are entities at the scale of a building (architecturally speaking). They contain smaller entities called rooms. Rooms can still be divided further — and even the smaller entities are called rooms. So each concept is a building, a building that contains smaller rooms within it. Such conceptual ideas are independent structures. If you picturize them on a map, they would touch the earth and soar into the sky. This earth to sky range is very special. Based on this logic, in urban areas some more analogies can be made. Apartment buildings are concepts of a kind, but with a different level of magnification. Each flat within an apartment building can also be classified as a concept. Because behind each closed door of an apartment building, a new unit can be delineated. Every time a new unit can be delineated, its a new sub-concept.

Some ideas are not concepts. Ideas which are not concepts have dependencies on other ideas. To go back to our earlier analogy, ideas which are not concepts are neither apartment buildings nor flats. Maybe, a hostel building is more akin to a concept. The individual rooms in a hostel all are linked to each other by the semantics of function and also by the semantics of hierarchy that exists among the students. Some students are elected representatives and some are not. Some students are figureheads and some are not. This is more akin to a patterned fabric. A fabric which can be zoomed in and out of. Through this magnifying activity —fabric holds patterns together when it is zoomed out and holds patterns apart when it is zoomed in. ‘Unity in diversity’ is the catchphrase. The motifs which are the common and the motifs which inshrine the difference.

So we have come upon three entities now.

  1. Ideas which are concepts.
  2. Ideas which are not concepts.
  3. Fabrics which can hold the two together.

Patterned fabric creates abstractions. These abstractions holds all kinds of ideas together. Ideas which are concepts as well as ideas that are not concepts. This holding together and holding apart need to be understood here. When patterns of lines and dots are zoomed into, pure abstractions emerge. These abstractions are spatial with dots and lines floating about. Concepts and non-concepts when magnified startle us as their components are so primary and end up forming new abstract forms as well.

When different nebulous ideas combine together, something flares up by the benefit of the connection. The sparking up because of the combination of these nebulous ideas is particularly wondrous. Things come together which were never imagined together. This act of creation is truly to be pored deep into. What sense does it make? Patterns which appear to be composed only at a particular scale; recombine in the form of abstractions at different scales. These abstractions are precious. What do they mean if anything? Meaning? Nothing at all. Meaning is overrated. When none is apparent, gibberish is the only option.

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