Earlier than all of the definitions, competing manifestos, alliances with all method of leftist politics, excommunications, exiles, fistfights, reconciliations, international warfare, revolutions, resistance, and offshoots, it should not be forgotten that the time period “surrealism” was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917 in a letter to fellow author Paul Dermée. A couple of months later, Apollinaire used surrealism to explain a group manufacturing, his play Les mamelles de Tirésias: Drame Surréaliste; this was three years earlier than surrealism’s emergence as an artwork motion, which in fact Apollinaire influenced deeply. Conceptually mired in ideological battle and fractal factioning since its early days, it’s tough to conclusively set up what surrealism is. Nonetheless, one widespread style trope is that surrealism does appear to come up out of communal interplay with media. For the previous three years, by creating, recreating, curating, and consuming memes from desires, referred to as planks, the 46,700 members of the subreddit, r/thomastheplankengine, have been unintentionally and unconsciously functioning as a group deeply engaged in surrealist follow.
By way of design, r/thomastheplankengine just isn’t totally different from every other subreddit with lively moderators, graphic content material tags, flairs, in-jokes, icons, and normal expectation of kindness. In reality, if solely trying on the kind and never the precise content material of the subreddit, r/thomastheplankengine just isn’t fully distinct from subreddits devoted to the lively creation of surreal memes. That being stated, self-consciously “surrealist” boards are extra in keeping with the favored understanding of surrealism as bizarre artwork. From speaking with numerous members of r/thomastheplankengine, I’ve discovered that they maintain as many views of the connection between planks and surrealism as there are factions inside surrealism––that’s to say, practically innumerable. That stated, there’s a commonality to the posts on r/thomastheplankengine that largely evoke surrealist ideas and strategies: the content material is recognizably absurd, typically humorous, and superficially indistinguishable from the collage look of most memes.
Acceptable memes to put up on r/thomastheplankengine are categorized primarily based on their diploma of separation from the dream. A common plank merely recounts the dream, or points of the dream, within the meme kind, while a true plank is a meme taken immediately from a dream. One member labeled common planks as “surreal” whereas figuring out true planks as “nonsensical.” Although I’ve grown fairly appreciative of standard planks, what drew me to r/thomastheplank engine had been the true planks, which extra align with Breton’s understanding of surrealism because the pseudoscientific examination of the unconscious. I discover them fascinating as a result of, maybe, they’re one of the best representations of objects introduced from the collective unconscious into actuality. As defined by two totally different members, planks typically depend on celebrities, well-liked characters, inventory images, and different hallmarks of mass media; like most memes, they encompass photographs and movies simply discovered on-line.
Whereas the surrealist painter has to retain the picture from the dream of their thoughts, with the understanding that some data might be misplaced, the net surrealist is able to unconsciously producing planks that will stay just about unchanged in the event that they had been produced consciously. In a way, the picture they’re recreating from the dream already exists on-line; they merely must collate it collectively. Collage––in fashionable thought––was generated by the artwork actions that preceded twentieth century surrealism. However it’s planks’ relation to different surrealist strategies, particularly computerized writing and drawing, that captures what Breton calls “psychic automatism.” In a lot the identical approach {that a} surrealist author––equating subjective randomness with the unconscious––would generate a poem, presumably in a sleepy state, consisting of no matter phrases got here to their thoughts, photographs not consciously chosen by the net surrealist find yourself of their actuality. As one member put it, the marvel in a real plank comes from “figuring out it was an unique creation that I didn’t actually create.”
Absurd humor bridges planks with surrealist artwork from the previous. In, as an illustration, Yvan Goll’s surrealism, whereby every part heard on a stroll is likely to be transcribed right into a poem, and André Breton’s surrealism, whereby the occasions of a dream is likely to be recorded instantly upon awakening, the top consequence included an “excessive diploma of fast absurdity,” as Breton describes in his 1924 manifesto. Consciously created memes, too, have been famous for his or her absurdity and comedy. This is because of their immediacy, their reliance on, as Goll put it in his manifesto, printed two weeks earlier than Breton’s, the “rapidity of affiliation between the primary impression and the final expression” to convey which means. Excluding these the place size is the purpose, I can’t think about taking various seconds to know most memes; the format is suited to fast jokes.
Unsurprisingly, heavy customers of media, as lots of those that responded to my questions described themselves as, discover consolation in rendering their desires by way of photos, gifs, and different visible arts; it’s as envisioned by Goll’s manifesto, which proclaimed the twentieth century the century of movie. He writes, “Movie transcribes occasions that materially occur in actuality and raises them to a extra direct, intense, and absolute state: surrealist.”
Maybe the time period irrealism, slightly than surrealism, is healthier utilized to common planks. Although primarily based on Bretonian rules, irrealism mirrors the surrealism of Goll’s manifesto, comparable to when it states, “This transposition of actuality to a superior (creative) airplane constitutes Surrealism.” “Irrealism, which additionally considers the dream state to be of basic significance, differs from surrealism in that it sees itself very a lot as being within the realm of artwork and creative method,” GS Evans, of The Cafe Irreal, writes. He goes on to specify that irrealism moreover differs from (particularly Breton’s) surrealism by framing desires as coming from “a consciousness that’s closed in on itself and utilizing a symbolic language” to speak. By way of this framing, we, presumably, arrive at why common planks are so well-liked on r/thomastheplankengine. The world, based on one member, “is sort of scary and intensely absurd and peculiar. And these surreal memes categorical this absurdity of the human situation. However in a secure and generally nearly comforting approach.”
In distinction to historic surrealist teams, r/thomastheplankengine appears largely harmonious. Probably it is because political dialogue is basically not current, exterior of any politics or—extra generally—political figures that seem in planks. One member commented that “I have to say I do not know surrealism might be political. I’m simply right here for the weirdness.” Based on the 1938 anti-Stalinist manifesto, “In the direction of a Free and Revolutionary Artwork,” supposedly written by Leon Trotsky and Breton however printed beneath the names of Breton and Diego Rivera, “We consider that the supreme activity of artwork in our epoch is to participate actively and consciously within the preparation of the revolution.”
What method of revolution envisioned has been communist, anarchist, or supportive of anticolonial resistance however the relationship between surrealism and radical politics appears logical to me. What bridges Bretonian surrealism and the Afro-surrealism of Aimé and Suzanne Cesaire, Leopold Senghor, and Toni Morrison is a few rejection of actuality as presently conceived, whether or not it’s of the senses or colonial and imperial oppression. For members of the Négritude motion, dispelling fraudulent European perceptions of actuality meant drawing from Africans (inside and with out the continent) of the previous. Aimé Cesaire was a politician in Martinique, however it’s the surrealist whose speaker, in “Barbare,” [Barbarian] vivifies the earth, connecting it to the approaching revolt, by calling on the reminiscence of the useless to shatter the present actuality, saying:
des morts qui circulent dans les veines de la terre
et viennent se briser parfois la tête contre les murs de nos oreilles
et les cris de révolte jamais entendus
qui tournent à mesure et à timbres de musique
[of the dead who circulate the veins of the earth
and at times come break their heads against the walls of our ears
and the cries of revolt never heard
which turn in measure and in timbre with music]
Although r/thomastheplankengine is unlikely to make use of surrealism to carry forth the revolution anytime quickly, moments the place the exploration of the self by way of desires results in potential modifications in actuality do happen. Surrealism “works to the benefit of the best of self,’ which marshals towards the insufferable current actuality all these powers of the inside world,” as Breton writes in his 1924 manifesto. When requested about their relationships to media, one member of r/thomastheplankengine responded that, “My digital self is as massive a part of me because the man behind the display screen.” They agreed that dream memes are an expression of the self and additional clarified that “media, social websites, and memes” are elements of their desires as a result of they’re a part of their life.
At coronary heart, lots of the the intentional surrealists of the previous and the unintentional ones of the net current engaged the unconscious due to some disillusionment with actuality. Although surrealists may body it as approaching a more true actuality than that accorded by the senses and distraction of modernity, surrealism might be seen as a type of escapist artwork. A Bretonian surrealist may reject the label of artist, but when any of their surrealist tasks are proven to a person unfamiliar with surrealism, they’ll seemingly think about them artwork. Likewise, in expressly making an attempt to create artwork out of their desires, members of r/thomastheplankengine have introduced forth work indistinguishable from surrealism. Maybe these unintentional surrealists are demonstrating that people are extra inclined to surrealistic ideas and acts than one would think about. Maybe escapism, first skilled by most of us as daydreaming, must be checked out by way of surrealist eyes. My expertise with this surrealistic group has led me to reframe escapism, particularly that carried out by way of the consumption of media on-line, not as avoidance however a surrealist endeavor, exploring what appeals to the points of our thoughts of which we’re not in full acutely aware management. One member, lively on the discord, is understood for lucid dreaming, as that’s one solution to enhance your probabilities of having a real plank. They responded, “be a girl,” when requested what considered one of their objectives was when lucid dreaming, additional including that, “ailing legit simply have 2 hours a day to be a lady if i need.”
Whereas none amongst r/thomastheplankengine would, as Breton did in his manifesto, state that they consider within the “omnipotence of dream,” one member of the subreddit informed me that creating planks helped them rediscover their unconscious. One other, who was acquainted with Breton, stated in correspondence that a few of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung’s theories, these of the previous being significantly essential to surrealism, had been “being form of confirmed true” by r/thomastheplankengine. Contemplating that the existence of the unconscious is in doubt, digital objects indistinguishable from their dream incarnations—although artistically intriguing—won’t maintain a lot, if any, psychoanalytic which means. Accordingly, mapping the phenomenon of dream memes to varied surrealisms won’t be fruitful. Nonetheless, my dialogue with this subreddit, performed by way of the lens of surrealism, and surrealist strategies, has confirmed illuminating. The unconscious won’t exist, however we definitely expertise desires. Because the member with whom I used to be in correspondence expressed, citing the similarity with remembering a dream and a visit, for some, “the experiences we’ve whereas we’re asleep are form of simply as actual as those we’ve whereas we’re awake.” Planks, very true planks, are one digital, however undeniably current, illustration of this expertise of actuality, “even when they’re largely simply enjoyable.”
Whereas true planks is likely to be the last word fashionable manifestation of Breton’s surrealism, most members of r/thomastheplank engine wouldn’t put on the Bretonian label. By way of the aesthetic sensibility of a real plank is secondary to it faithfully recreating the dream meme, one constant selection made by the subreddit members reveals a form of unconscious aesthetics at play. One member famous that they “see loads of posts in Influence font, which might be as a result of by this level it’s ingrained into our heads because the ‘meme font.’” June Singer wrote in Tradition and the Collective Unconscious that the Jungian idea of “the collective unconscious lies past the conceptual limitations of particular person human consciousness, and thus can’t presumably be encompassed by them.” The digital collective unconscious, nevertheless, (or at the very least r/thomastheplankengine’s) has a font. To some extent, it may be visualized consciously.