surrogates

Surrogates, as I understand them, are parts that stand in for the whole. The image that immediately comes to mind when I mention this is that of a Siva Linga. The lingam is basically a large phallic statue that represents Siva and is worshipped as Siva. So the lingam comes to be understood as a manifestation of Siva on earth. People understand that the lingam is not Siva himself. It is a part of him that stands for his whole being.

There are times when I want to take away someone's suffering. It often happens with people that I care about like my mom, dad, brothers and close friends. It also happens with people I don't even know. I know I can't take any sort of pain away. I just can't physically make it better. Sometimes, escaping is better than existing in that pain. I want to create a means to escape from this pain for these people.

I plan on creating surrogates for these people that I care about. Originally when I thought of this I imagined that I could create these surrogates and that the person the surrogate alluded to could use that surrogate as a means of escape from pain. Now, I am thinking that I have very little control of what a person does, or does not do with things that I make for them. So, what function can making a surrogate serve? Is a surrogate what I want to make or am I thinking of something else? I don't really want to make escape pods like Andrea Zittle. It's more than just making a means for escape. It's about making a vehicle that at once allows for escape but also reminds you of the person escaping from it. I want the person that is escaping represented and the method or means of this escape to be represented as well. It would be nice if the method, means and person could all coexist in one object. That is to say that the object created not only represents the transcendence of the physical reality of pain, but the pain itself, and the person that the pain belongs to.

I can go back to my Siva Linga example because I think the Siva Linga is just that. It represents Siva by being a part of him and is worshipped and used as a means to escape the problems and issues of life. It is something that transcends physical reality because it at once represents something that is not representable by being an object and also allows for a method that can be used to escape the encumberances of the physical world.