Items on display for Real, The Physical Network in London which encourages people to post things rather than simply copy and paste

A campaign has been launched to recapture the glory days of sending items by post rather than by email, with a real-life social network being set up featuring things that can’t be copied and pasted.

Working with Royal Mail, the campaign called Real, The Physical Network aims to reclaim the word ‘post’ in the digital world because “we’ve noticed that ‘posting’ something these days seems to mean nothing more than clicking submit or hitting enter”.

Real wants to help reverse that trend by bringing to life “the huge satisfaction of dealing with all things physical, holdable, huggable and touchable in the Real world”.

A gallery space has been set up in the Royal Opera Arcade in central London, where Londoners, influential bloggers and people who work in interesting professions are each being given one of 100 physical plots to display random everyday items which they post in.

Contributors receive a pack with pre-paid envelopes, tags to add stories or memories to their items and a guide on how to make the most of the network.

Items submitted so far range from works of art to cardboard moose.

It is hoped the display will “inspire the world in turn to remember that no matter how great the digital world becomes, there’s something special about things you can’t copy and paste”.

Real is on show in the gallery until July 27.

Find out more at www.welcometoreal.com, follow @WeLoveReal on Twitter or email hello@welcometoreal.org