This introduction orientates the seven articles that comprise the ‘What is Real about Law and Technology Symposium’. This symposium was inspired by Bruno Latour’s and Giorgio Agamben’s 2018 books that seemingly respond to the election of Donald Trump, by reconceptualising the relation between the real and representation. It is suggested that the irresolvability of Being (that humans can only experience the real through culture) should ground a more nuanced location between constructivism and empiricism. How to think about and explore this, in relation to law and technology, is precisely the challenge to which the articles in this symposium respond.