{"id":8952,"date":"2012-07-27T07:58:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T07:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/works.raqsmediacollective.net\/?p=8952"},"modified":"2025-07-17T13:41:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T13:41:53","slug":"the-robin-hood-of-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/works.raqsmediacollective.net\/index.php\/2012\/07\/27\/the-robin-hood-of-wisdom\/8952","title":{"rendered":"The Robin Hood of Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

The Robin Hood of Wisdom
Shown at: Copenhagen Art Festival, Denmark (2012)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Printed Cards, Guerrilla Actions<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

What does knowledge taste like? The unsalted white of an egg. It asks for the garnish of betrayal. An instruction based work for public libraries which pauses to consider the saline taste of wisdom.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raqs thought of the community of readership, which is a silent community. If you go to a library and borrow a book, you see stamps with names of other people who have borrowed the same book. It is like a fellowship of readership. Raqs is asking you to do is just the opposite of stealing books from a library. It in fact contributes a strange miscegenation of knowledge, a hybridisation of lets say a detective novel and philosophy, the cross-fertilisation of recipe books with books on religion, insertion of pornographic tracts into manuals for mechanics and all sorts of cross-fertilisations that lead to surprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

GO to your nearest public library
What does knowledge taste like ? The
unsalted white of an egg.
It asks for the garnish of betrayal.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREPARE yourself. Before setting off.
Select a passage from a book that is dear
to you.
Write, or print it. With elegance, air and
affection on a quality piece of paper.
The question remains: how to share
that fullness of hunger that foreboding
that foresight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SELECT a book, at random, from the
library\u2019s shelves. (Make sure that it is
about something completely unrelated
to the contents of the passage you have
selected) You may have chosen to write
or print a passage from a story in the
Arabian Nights (Mardrus & Mathers),
and the book in your hand could be A
Treatise on Heat (Saha & Srivastava). Or
vice versa.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

INSERT the paper bearing your selected
passage, between the pages of this book.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

REPLACE the book in its place on the
shelf, carefully.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

REPEAT the procedure as often as
possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

INFECT knowledge with wisdom.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
Robin Hood of Wisom (pamphlet)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n