The study of the surreal has mostly concerned Salvador Dali’s paintings and Franz Kafka’s writings. But our world today seems to be heading into a very surreal one.
Every day seems so otherworldly. So surreal.
Recently I have found myself constantly uttering the words: this is surreal. Over and over. You’ve heard your friends and family say it: just surreal.
Because it IS surreal, “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream,” – as told by any standard definition.
It first happened when I stood in line at the grocery store—not at the checkout point, but in front of the grocery store, neatly arranged six feet from my fellow shoppers.
The pandemic taught me at that moment that we’re stuck in a new kind of everlasting present.
You must have thought at one point during the past two years– what is our world coming to?
A reality like no other. We all have to live in it. Our world is supposed to be made from natural things, tangible things that we can see and touch.
All very useful of course but at the same time, our repeated routined lifestyles have gotten stiff and boring.
With all the rules and regulations from the pandemic poured on top of that, it’s no wonder our world needs surrealism and is heading for it in 2022. Especially now as we move into a very dream-like worldly metaverse.
Surrealism is an art movement started by French writer Andre Breton in the 1920s. He was interested in things like dreams, fantasies and thoughts in our minds that we don’t even know we’re having.
Artists such as Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and Dorothea Manning explored these ideas by creating surrealist art.
Today there are two main types of surrealism – one that comes through our dreams whereby we combine two objects you wouldn’t expect to see together, and the other stems from automatism.
This is where we create art without even thinking. So if you doodle whilst working or waiting around, you are a surrealist.
The past few years have given rise to substantial digital potential. It’s not the Matrix, that’s certain.
We know the Metaverse will be a digital version of our natural world, layered with every surreal possibility ever imagined.
The Metaverse will, in short, be a virtual world where you can do anything with anyone. Create fictional characters and run in surreal fantasy worlds – just like the gaming industry.
I don’t know about you, but even my artistic interests in art have changed. Have you ever seen a work of art that came from another dimension?
As if it was a fragment of your worst forgotten nightmare? Most likely, it is a surrealist work of art. From NFT (non-fungible tokens) artists like Beeple to The Bored Ape Yacht Club creating bedazzled chimps, it’s all surreal.
“Don’t bother about being modern. Unfortunately, it is the one thing that, whatever you do, cannot avoid.” – Salvador Dali.
And he is right! Why? Because we are born to stand out, be heard and be different.
The future’s surreal qualities have taken centre stage when we talk about how absurd or impossible things are or could be.
This surreal world evokes anxiety and some primal fear of the unknown, just like being in a dark, claustrophobic cupboard.
Maybe it comes from the unusual colour palettes that surrealist works share?
The past two years have become genuinely surreal. From the pandemic to the virtual metaverse, NFT’s to the gaming industry.
It is all there. Who would have thought that surrealists saw this virtual world coming?
2022 is jumping onto the train of absurd, bizarre and a mixture of fact and fantasy.
How surreal.
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