Real Imaginaries: The Somatic Revolution 

Imagination is seldom taken seriously. It is associated with fantasies and mental trips, but some people already gave us a very different vision. Cornelius Castoriadis in his work “The Imaginary Institution of Society” (1975) reminded us that are precisely these “hidden imaginaries” – that’s how we name them – hardly rationally analyzable, the ones behind our real constructions.  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

By constructions we understand our institutions, policies, social relations, energy organizations, ecosystems… and these “hidden imaginaries” are also the ones making us see as impossible the alternative constructions that we could envision. These alternatives are possible only changing our “base imaginaries”, the ultimate meanings of our motives of which we seldom become aware – base imaginaries are often “hidden imaginaries.”  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The “real imaginary” that this terrible quarantine laboratory offers us now (March 2020- …), is the touch in our skin of what we have been told along many years about climate change, body’s vulnerabilities or un-sustainability of categories of values about bodies that matter and bodies that doesn’t matter. And when I say bodies I include here also the animal and vegetal world, also the mineral and the planetary. Now we look out our windows and the scenery seems unreal… but this is real and it is for everyone without exception.  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

If we go to the edge of flesh, to the borders of our actions where hidden imageries reside, perhaps we can reassemble them, make them evolve or at least let the existence of some new ones be possible. The bodies have always spoken; but there are times when the clamour is deafening, as it happens during these months. The pandemic is nothing more than a natural dynamic emerging from the loss of biodiversity, the extraction of resources at all costs and the supposed superiority over other organisms that humans have. In these times the hope for me is the SOMATIC REVOLUTION, the development of PANARCHIC BODIES. I do not say woman or man because I say BODIES and I say PANARCHIC because they will be the only ones in which power will be able to emerge equally from each one of them.  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We are incarnate beings, and our matter should remember that we have a common origin with the planet and living beings. But it’s not like that. Established imagery misrepresents that reality. And we act accordingly. In such a way that most of our considerations about nature, economy, production and consumption of food or animals and the control we exercise over them seem harmless and innocent. The way we treat other bodies and ours seems innocent to us … if not innocent, at least it seems justified to us. Now that the control of bodies is imposed in an intense way, perhaps we can understand at its root what all this means.  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What this means is the evidence of our lack of understanding of the vital dynamics that actually govern the cosmos, our planet, the life heartbeat… all this that even if we know by science or intuition, we have not incorporated into our imaginaries because we prefer to invent others that make our decisions more comfortable and our ideas… we prefer to think small and thus justify ourselves … we have lost these “real imaginaries” and it is time to recover them. Let’s go to the root of what we are:  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What is a body?  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What does it have to do with the inorganic matter of the planet?  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What does it have to do with other living things?  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What dynamics and affections arise between each other?  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What can a body do? – We owe this question to Spinoza and Deleuze …  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Which are the real imaginaries- embodied- that we can build to transform our actions, our policies, our institutions, our architecture, our cities … and to accompany the continuous transformation of our bodies accordingly…?  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We have been installed for too long in the fantastic imagination of the world that we have built looking at our navel … it is time to begin to understand that the real imagination is the most powerful tool for change. The laboratory of the real is definitely underway, the SOMATIC REVOLUTION is underway and YOU are part of it.  >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> María Auxiliadora Gálvez. April, 2020