– WHAT IS REAL? –

What is real?

This is a question that many think about, and many do not. It is a question we may not ever get an absolute answer for either. Regardless, this is an important question in our pursuit of the imagination, of creation, and of art. Just as a captain takes full account of their map and heading before sailing, let’s also look across our path and chart our possible destination. So let’s dive in, once again, to a frame of thought behind what makes the boundary between what we imagine and what we consider “real”; and let’s test its durability.

Now, we won’t spend too much time in the subject of philosophy, as it is only as useful as it can be lived. But most of us know the famous Rene Descartes quote “I think, therefore I am.” This is a very philosophically loaded statement, however, a very simple way for us to understand it is that he believed the only part of reality we can truly understand and experience is our own consciousness, since it acts as the filter of our experience. This statement, in relation to the subject of art, means that our imagination (as a direct result of our consciousness) has an integral part to play in the “real [tangible] world.” As we will soon see throughout our studies, the imagination is a direct causal force on our environment, both postively and negatively. And before we discuss that specific link, we will briefly get a deeper understanding through Jacque Lacan’s own thoughts on this.

Lacan believed that our experince of life, in its entirety, is made from three concepts; he called these factors the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. The Real, which we won’t spend too much time on, he believed to be incomprehensible, or more specifcally, all the aspects of existence that we cannot possibly understand. The Imaginary and Symbolic are where we will spend our discussion today, however. 

Within his framework, these two aspects are what combine to make our reality as we know it; everything that we know originates (or resides) within the realms of the imaginary and symbolic; the Symbolic governing the organizaton of our languages, laws, cultures, sciences, and even is the foundation for the concept of organization itself – of concepts themselves, in fact.  It is the act of making the mentally unknown known, and in this instance essentially represents the “collective unconscious.” While the Imaginary realm is that of the image (mental and visual), hallucination, ideas, inspiration, and the dream-world. It is the visual complement to the symbolic world, and as such would essentially represent our “personal unconscious.”  According to Lacan these two factors work in unison to create what we currently recognize as civilization, to put it very simply. Now, what does this mean for us and our art?

Though the mental framework we will use here in our studies will differ from the above statements and theories, they are a good place to understand the ground we stand on as we go forward. Our framework specifically will stand on two pillars, The Real and The Unreal. The Real in our case will apply more to our natural, everyday use of the word; we typically use it in conversation to either mean “tangible”- something we can phsically interact with – or universally experienced, if mental/emotional. And outside – or perhaps all around – that shared physical world, there are the things which are a sure part of life, but are mainly personally experienced: thoughts, emotions, personalities, morals, mystical/religious experiences, love, ideas, dreams, and so on. We all as humankind experience most, if not all, of the above throughout our lifetimes. It is the above listed, and all related things, that make up the world of The Unreal. Our focus specifically within this particular realm is in relation to visual arts and drawing. Art is an embodiment of The Unreal; it is the physical manifestation of the intangible, which makes something as personal as one’s imagination into a shared experience. I believe this to be the very essence of the act of creation. Make no mistake, however, The Unreal does not involve the “fake,” as we use the term. The imagination, emotions, dreams, etc, are obviously real experiences, just not physically “real.” It can be helpful to make reference to the scientific metaphor of “Schrodinger’s Cat.” This theory, put simply, makes the point that until something is measured (or experienced in this case), it is in a state of flux between existance and non-existence, life and death, measured and immeasureable. This is the state of our ideas in The Unreal, they exist, but only in our minds, and not yet in tangible reality. It is only once we’ve brought them into reality (by making and sharing the experience) that they are now “real,” and will otherwise remain in that “limbo” existence. 

So where does this leave us? If we revisit our question from the title, now with a slightly better understanding than we had before, what would our answer be to such an inquiry? What indeed is real? This question – in our case, at least – is a trick one. A close consolation as an answer could be that what is real is what is experienced by consciousness, tangible or not. Not exactly correct, but close. The truest answer is that we don’t fully know. The entire experience of life appears to be finding and experiencing answers to such deep questions. This is where we come in. As artists, part of our collective task is to hold up the lamp into this dark, unknown journey, and illuminate the path before us. Since this journey across life is nearly completely filtered through our consciousness, it is essentially a path through the mind, with all of its unconscious aspects being the actual road we travel. Thus, this act of elucidating the depths of our own mind, brightens the path for many others. This is not just the case for visual arts, of course. All acts that positively reify (make “real”) the imagination of the mind, including invention, fulfill this “collective task;” if an act is original, or even innovative, it is truly creative in this specific sense. 

This is why we do, and should, create as much and as often as possible. We are not just in this world to experience it, but to make it. Not just for our own sake, but also for others. What we often define as “impossible” tends to just be the domain of The Unreal, waiting for us to reach out and pull it into the light. It is the beginning of 2025 as I write this, and our task of illuminating and reifying the human imagination is perhaps bigger than it’s ever been: in the face of returning authoritarianism, fascism, and collapsing capitalism, we are called to reinvent our world into one that can truly sustain and empower us across many generations; and although it may seem impossible, it might actually just be Unreal. 

THE ANSWER IS NOT WITHIN YOU, THE ANSWER IS YOU