Is there such a thing as reality in the city of dreams? What is more real?

A fabricated icon projected nine feet high on a screen, or a homeless man living in a cardboard box downtown? What happens when our realities collide? Does one cancel out the other?

As filmmaker Elias Merhige says “flesh and blood dies and memories fade” but the shadows on the screen endure. In L.A., dreams and fantasies can seem as urgent and unimpeachable as concrete. Fantasy is the local currency. L.A.’s manufactured dreams are beamed out to the rest of the world. The Buddhists say all life is illusion, and it’s easier to believe in LA than almost anywhere else.

In these pages, a selection of Angelenos present their versions of reality. What is real might be as intangible as the shadow on the wall, as subjective as last week’s fashion or as solid as prison bars.

Patrick Kahn