ENGLISH BELOW
Alles is echt – ook dat wat niet zichtbaar of tastbaar is. Verbeelding is niet slechts een ontsnapping aan de werkelijkheid, het is werkelijkheid. Ideeën ontstaan in de geest en worden via kunst, technologie of taal gedeeld. Jules Verne’s onderzeeër bestond eerst in een boek, Star Trek’s communicator inspireerde de mobiele telefoon. Zelfs als verbeelde dingen niet fysiek worden, leven ze voort in ons collectieve bewustzijn. Iedereen kent elfen, ongeacht of ze bestaan – dat maakt ze reëel in betekenis.
Creativiteit is als een onzichtbare stroom van ideeën, niet meetbaar maar overal aanwezig. Kunstenaars lijken antennes te hebben om die signalen op te vangen en vorm te geven. AI, psychedelica en kwantumfysica dwingen ons onze ideeën over werkelijkheid te herzien. Foto’s en video’s tonen niet meer ‘wat is’, maar hoe mensen hun wereld willen laten zien of voelen.
Werner Herzog sprak over “ecstatische waarheid”: niet de feiten, maar de betekenis doet ertoe. Misschien zien we de wereld niet zoals die is, maar zoals wij zelf zijn. In een donkere ruimte op Burning Man leerde ik: ieder beleeft zijn eigen werkelijkheid. Alles is echt, ook dat wat we ‘verzinnen’. De grens tussen werkelijkheid en verbeelding is flinterdun – of zelfs onbestaand.
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Everything is real. Especially that what we cannot see.
Lewis Carroll once said that Imagination is our only weapon in the war against reality, but I do believe that Imagination is Reality. We imagine things into Existence.
The first submarine did not travel underseas on our planet, but in a novel by Jules Verne. Captain Kirk using his communicator in Star Trek was the inspiration for a team at Motorola to develop the first mobile phone.
But even if things imagined don’t become physical objects, they still are real in my perception. I can talk to millions of people on this planet about elves and they’ll all know what they are and how they look. To me that means they exist. Our physical reality is not the only reality in existence.
Sparks of creativity are everywhere; spores flying through the air ready to pollinate our imagination. They can’t be measured, but very few will argue that creativity doesn’t exist and there’s an endless amount of books being written nowadays to help us locate those sparks. Artists seem to have antennae to pick up those signals and make visible what’s not (yet) visible to most.
In his book ‘the Creative Act’ Rick Rubin writes: How do we pick up a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined? We create an open space that allows it. A space so free of the normal overpacked condition of our minds that it functions as a vacuum. Drawing down the ideas that the universe is making available.
The rapid advent of AI is also changing our perception of Reality. Photos and videos have seized being an accurate representation of our physical reality anymore. They seem rather to have become an expression of how people would love others to perceive their reality, or a way to express what they feel is their Reality.
Werner Herzog coined the idea of “Ecstatic Truth”. He felt that clinging to facts gets in the way of finding and expressing meaning in Life. Don’t let facts get in the way of Truth. And expressing your philosophy of Life and altering a bit what ‘really’ happened might help you to express what really matters in your Life. Aren’t photos and videos posted more than just a depiction of facts, but also a portal inviting you into a bigger story and open to interpretation?
Quantum has become on the magic words in the news. Quantum physics studies particles at a nano level. It’s a whole different world beyond what we can see and understand with our rational mind. The behaviour of these particles can be predicted, but it’s impossible to measure them.
Psychedelics are on the rise. After they had become so illegal in the seventies that even possession for research had become illegal, nowadays psychedelic research is abundant and has realized breakthroughs in treatment of PTSD and depression.
And indigenous shamans are travelling around the globe as modern day rockstars to share their knowledge and make us experience visions and travelling through worlds we can experience, but do not exist in reality. Or do they?
In 2017 I went blindfolded to Burning Man and was locked up inside a big black box for the entire duration of the event. No daylight, but artificial light. Visitors could enter in a guided experience for a few minutes each and share the reality they experienced outside with me, after which I would draw, write, and paint it on the walls. Experiencing Reality through the eyes of others. It was amazing to see how everybody truly saw something else. We don’t see things as they are, but as we are.
Everything is real.
Even those things which aren’t real.
