Pipe Dreams & Pipe Realities

" When Belgian painter Rene Magritte painted 'The Treason of Images,' he could not have realized how appropriate his message would be in the worlds of communication and technology today. The painting offers an observer a side view of an ordinary pipe. The depiction is easily recognizable as a pipe, though there is no doubt it is a painting, and not a real pipe. Underneath the pipe is the statement, 'This is not a pipe' (in French). The statement seems silly, as the painting is clearly of a pipe -- or rather a representation of a pipe. It is likely that this difference of labeling the pipe as a pipe versus labeling the pipe as a representation of a pipe is what Magritte wanted the viewer to consider. While no rational person would believe Magritte's painted pipe to be an actual, three-dimensional smoking instrument, most people don't explicitly express what is real and what is represented in their lives. Most people don't have to, because they will always be able to distinguish a real pipe from a representation without taking the time to verbalize one as real and one as not.

But what if the real pipe and the representational pipe were not discernible? Imagine having what seemed to be a pipe in front of you, or even in your hands, and not knowing whether it was a real object or an extremely well-crafted representation." -- from Pipe Dreams & Pipe Realities, Jason Leary, frAme, Issue 2, 1999