Interview with Nicholas McGeehan.

Who is building Dubai?

Physically, migrant workers from South Asia, who represent 80% of the work force. Dubai has been dependent on them since oil was found in the 1960’s, up until the 2000’s.

What do the migrant workers generally experience in Dubai?

They experience quite appalling hardships to be quite honest. As soon as they arrive their passports will be confiscated, their visa cost will be added onto their expenses, their contract will be ripped up, and they will get paid half of what they were expected to be paid. They essentially find themselves in a condition of debt bondage. They find themselves completely dependent upon their employers for food, for healthcare; so if that employer chooses not to treat them properly they find themselves in dire straits.

Can you describe some of the problems the migrant workers face?

The biggest problem they face is that if their employer doesn’t treat them properly, if their employer doesn’t pay their wages for months at a time for example, there is nothing they can do about it; they would have to make a complaint to a ministry of labour, which is completely inefficient. Therefore any grievances they have, the system is not set up to deal with them at all. And when the situation gets as bad as their not been paid, they do have food, their accommodation is unsanitary, they are left with no options what so over. They are abandoned by everyone, all of the time.

Do you think the labour situation in Dubai, represents a new form of slavery for the twenty first century?

I absolutely do believe that. Slavery has been misconceived ever since it was abolished. We talk about slavery as something that is based on ownership, but that’s from a model that’s centuries old, when states used to monitor and regulate it. Slavery is about control, and it’s always been about control. Ownership used to be a way of affecting control, it’s no longer because it’s illegal. So when you take the factors together to what happens to the migrant workers in Dubai, the fact that employer-ship is tied to one employer, that there are no trade unions, that striking is banned, and the debt bondage they are in, collectively without a doubt in my mind, represents a form of control that is a form of slavery.

Has progress been made in recent years?

The government in Dubai talks a lot. It pledges a lot, and sets out initiatives, they have their photos taken and so on. Though the facts on the ground would indicate that things have actually got worse. The United Arab Diram is tied to the US Dollar. With the US Dollar falling so low, real wages went down, also inflation started to become a factor in the UAE even though it never has been before. So their real wages were dropping and dropping and dropping, which actually led to an upsurge in worker protests. The government dealt with those like it deals with most things; incompetently or violently. It deported people and jailed people, and all these people were asking for was a fair wage to live on. So the situation has got worse not better, despite the governments claims.

How are tourists visiting Dubai not aware of these circumstances?

I think if you look closely then you see the problems in Dubai. A questioning individual might ask to know more about the problems visible in Dubai, but somebody in Dubai for a week who is experiencing a five star experience doesn’t want to know that there might be problems, people don’t want to feel burdened or guilty on holiday. Tourists don’t want to ask questions that might lead them to answers that would suggest that they should not be there.

Some people aren’t always aware there are these issues concerning the exploitation of migrant workers in Dubai. If they are aware, then they should take a look at themselves. I don’t want to make judgements. I know people who go to Dubai, and they are good, hardworking, honest individuals… But you could draw a parallel with people who had gone on holiday to apartheid South Africa.

The question remains though is how do we raise awareness that there is systematic racial discrimination going on in Dubai and the rest of the UAE.

This is a question about sustainability. During my trip in Dubai constantly people would mention that in 2008 Dubai became a sustainable city. I didn’t see this from an environmental perspective. I didn’t see this from a social or cultural perspective, hence the treatment of migrant workers, and the polarities between rich and poor. Nor did I see this from an economic standpoint. That’s not really a question, but could you comment?

Often what I say to people is if you think of Dubai as a company rather than a state, its a lot easier to explain what goes on there…. And as a company, as a brand, as a project; what ever you want to call it; It got a little fat on its own greed. And like any company that behaves like that, it’s going to go bust if it doesn’t exercise some responsibility in the way it operates. That’s what’s happening in Dubai. Dubai is not sustainable. It’s not sustainable from an economic standpoint, from a social standpoint. Its sustainable politically, but only by means of force. The notion that it’s environmentally sustainable is ludicrous. I mean the amount of desalination that goes on there, that actually results in serious harm to the gulf. I think people in Dubai are the highest users per capita of water in the world. Plus I dread to think about the amount of petrol that is being pumped out of the place. So that’s a preposterous notion. It’s simple not sustainable and it’s not being sustained.

I thought Dubai was less of a city in the traditional sense, and more of a collection of stranded assets, gated communities and isolated architectural events that refer more to globalized economic forces as opposed to localized interests. Do you think a civilization has been created in Dubai? Can a civilization be created there?

I don’t think they’ve created a civilization, and I don’t think they’re on their way to creating one. The whole place is based on racial discrimination, whether the government will admit that or not. So if the civilization they’re trying to create is a social one then they’ve failed. If they’re trying to create a civilization of business, again it harks back to the idea of Dubai not really being a state, but been more of a company run for private gain. If they’re trying to create this global brand, this global city based around tourism… then I’m not sure how you can do that properly without having the proper social foundations in place.

I would like you to touch upon the topic of tourism and the tourist a little bit more. I personally felt Dubai existed for the tourist, that it was built for tourists, which I feel is unprecedented in human history. I mean tourists in the literal sense, and tourists on a different level; a city of refugees, floating populations, business travellers, people on temporary contracts and visa’s etcetera. Do you think this represents the future?

I think you’re quite right to say that the city was conceived and designed for tourists. Does that represent a model for future cities? I don’t believe so. The majority of people don’t go back to places that pop up over night. I think once people start to see the reality of Dubai, and the cruelty involved in building it and maintaining it; tourists will generally walk away from it. It doesn’t really have anything to offer but shopping and hotels, and there are places that do that better, and there are places that will continue to do that cheaper than Dubai

Do you think Dubai is the future? Do you think it represents the future of urbanism?

I really hope Dubai is not the future. I think Dubai represents the worst excesses of capitalism, with none of the checks and balances we associate with a democracy. If Dubai is the future then we are all in for bad times ahead.

I don’t know what exactly they are trying to achieve. When the Sheik talks about how Dubai is the future; who does he intend to live in this future, who’s going to work there, and what are they going to do? Right now it’s a mess; it’s a miss management on an appalling scale. I’m not sure exactly what the Sheiks vision is for Dubai. The question is; can a desert state built for the tourist be the future of urbanism? I’m guessing not. He may achieve it one day, but it’s not a future I would like to be in.

Interview with Mohammad Masad.

Can you describe the social mix In Dubai.

The people who live in Dubai represent one of the most complex and diverse mixes of people anywhere. There are approximately 200 different nationalities that live in Dubai. The people come from all over the world. This mix of population can really be broken down into two different communities; the first one is the Emiratis who are the original indigenous population of Dubai, and the second major group is the expat community. The largest group amongst the expatriate community is from South Asia, especially India.

What factors have brought global attention to Dubai?

Dubai has grown to become a global city. The reasons for people coming here can be traced within the global context of free trade, cheaper air travel in recent years, the free-ing up of visa restrictions; basically globalization. There are always opportunities here, plus there are no taxes, which makes it a very attractive place to come to. This is not just specific to Dubai though; internationally in recent years we have witnessed the mass movements of people from rural areas into cities in search of new opportunities, people moving across borders from country to country who are not grounded in any locality. If you look at the residents of the city, that the majority of the people that live here are not permanent citizens, it is a transient population. People come here to experience the modern marvels that have been created in Dubai; whether it be an indoor ski slope, or group of man made islands, or a rotating hotel. In addition to this you can buy almost anything you want.

Another reason as to why people are interested in Dubai, has to do with the crisis of the ‘Dubai Ports World’ that happened about 3 years ago. A major Dubai company acquired the rights to control 6 US ports, and that created a political storm in the United States, and Congress was generally opposed to it, and so Dubai has become a recognizable name in the US and around the world, as a major emerging city.

Can you expand on the importance of shopping in Dubai?

For people who live in Dubai, perhaps the centre of activity is the shopping mall. There are now 45 malls here, shopping has become a major activity, the city is like a giant shopping mall in itself. This has two sides to it. The shopping mall is where tourists spend a lot of time, and for people who live in the city, the shopping mall has become the public place of congregation. It is the most experienced public space in the city. The reason for this is the lack of actual investment in real public places outside of the private shopping mall. If you live in Dubai, there are hardly any other public spaces to go and meet people.

In this sense Dubai is not radically different to other cities around the world, where shopping malls have become primary public spaces. To understand the significance of the shopping mall in Dubai, we have to keep in mind the changing image of the public space globally. Many cities invested in creating artificial environments for people that are safe, consistent, clean and generally pleasant to be in. Like many citizens in cities across the world, people in Dubai have become primarily consumers, there has certainly been a shift in recent years from being a citizen of a country to becoming a consumer of the world.

What does this say about human activity around the world? That people are living in gated compounds and environments and when they want to interact with other people they get in their car and drive to a mall or theme-park, without ever really interacting with nature?

The city has always been a place that represents civilization, and its importance has relied on the premise of interaction with other people. The interesting thing about Dubai is that this interaction is extremely limited. So the question remains; is Dubai really a city? I’ll give you an example; I’ve lived in this compound for 7 years, there is no social life here, there is no real community, I don’t know my neighbours, they don’t know me. People live here to do there job, they don’t live here to be part of a community. It’s transient; people live here for a few years and then move on.

The interaction with nature here is equally as problematic, as you look around there is less and less nature that you can authentically experience. The front beach areas in Dubai have become private beach areas, managed and run by hotel resorts. Unless you are a guest at one of the luxury hotels you cannot get onto the beaches. There is not much public beach that is left.

The fact that your missing these two essential things as a resident of Dubai; both interaction with other people, and interaction with nature it says something about a new kind of city, a new kind of urban life, in which much of our life is encapsulated within enclosed environments whether its your apartment or villa, car or shopping mall, office, or restaurant. There is very little authentic urban experience left.

Interview with George Katodrydis.

Could you describe Dubai as an urban format.

Dubai is a fascinating city, and a lot of people would not guess so in the sense that it is a planned city. The first master plan of Dubai happened in 1959, and it has been planned since then in a really visionary way. The only problem is that these plans have not been finished to their end, so a lot of the city feels half finished. At the beginning of the 21st century, Dubai is a strange city, because it’s a fragmented. The fragments and pieces of the city are really well organized, but there is no coherence as a whole. In that sense it presents a problematic city of the 21st century, built out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere, that will be difficult to sustain in the future.

Do you see Dubai’s urban format as unique, or do you think it represents a new urban format that is taking shape in cities around the world?

Dubai is a generic city, in the sense that well rehearsed urban theories and urban plans are being executed. It is very similar to other cities that have been emerging in the last 10 years. So in that sense it lacks historical uniqueness. I think what makes it fascinating is the speed and type of decision making that its leaders have applied here. The city is certainly changing on a yearly basis.

How important has the tourist been in shaping Dubai?

To look at the geographic location of Dubai, it really is a fantastic place, and it’s always been a place of transit, whether with traders, business travellers, desert nomads or tourists, people arrive here on route to somewhere else, but lately Dubai has been a final destination for many individuals. Projections say that by 2010, 15 million tourists will visit Dubai, which is an incredible amount of visitors. Its interesting to note the geographical location of Dubai, in-between the two emirates of Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Dubai’s coast is about 45 kilometres in length in-between the two other Emirates, which is not very long. But with Dubai’s new prosthetic extensions been built out into the water such as ‘The World’, and the ‘Palm Islands’, that coastline of 45 kilometres has now expanded to 2000 kilometres. This interface of land and water, will become an enormous line of resorts, and hotels and hotel villas.

Dubai really does have this ephemerality. Nobody actually knows the living population of Dubai. On the other hand nobody can really predict that lifespan, and sustainability of such developments, on again something ephemeral which is tourist, whether they are here for 1 day or 1 month, they are considered temporary in Dubai. In a fascinating way the contemporary tourist trade here, fits very well with the history of Dubai. It is a nomadic city, and has always been a nomadic city.

How significant is the process of theming in the construction of Dubai’s built landscape?

Because the city is so new, and if you study the recent history of the city, you will come across archive photographs from the 50’s and 60’s when Dubai was just a small fishing village. It was not until the late 80’s, long after the discovery of oil, that the city expanded into becoming more modernized and westernized. For the contemporary traveller the city is a very interesting place to arrive, because one expects to find an identity, one expects to find the Arab city. When you arrive in Dubai at the beginning of the 21st Century, there is really very little history to see. What the city has managed to do in an amazing way, more than the theming of Las Vegas, is to re-enact its lost identity, by introducing anything that has been relevant in the Arab world in terms of history, whether this is the traditional village, souk or street bazaar, or a kind of re-enactment of Orientalist paintings. This can be an interesting way to inject a lost nomadic identity in the city ready made for touristic consumption. Dubai offers what a European or American expects to see in an Arab city. It is selling back to the west its own invented fictional imagings of Arabia depicted in Orientalist paintings. It is selling very well. For a Western tourist this Arabian identity constructed in developments throughout the city, is a really critical point of engaging with a locality.

One of the ambitions of the city is to make Dubai the capital of the world by the year 2050. It has to become a very global, a very international city in order to achieve this goal. The borrowing of theming from Venice and California and so on became a very fascinating political decision that is interfacing with an urban master plan solution. Given the global condition in the 21st century, of the tourist and investor who can built across the world without any limitations, somehow Dubai found this unique formula to attract both investors and buyers to consume this global vision that anything is architecturally possible.

Are there problems with Dubai’s built landscape and infrastructure, and if so how can they be resolved?

There are problems, not because of lack of planning, but because of the city’s inability in being able to adapt and change its plans. The city has been making decisions too fast in such a way that the city’s infrastructure has been unable to adjust. As they say ‘you built it and they come’ of course they build it and they do come, but then there are issues of congestion, and increased energy and water demands that become issues.

Where does Dubai currently stand on sustainability?

Development takes place here for investors and not necessarily for the end user. Because of this, the immediate and sensitive issue of sustainability is not addressed, partially because it will add an extra cost to the construction of a project. This means the initial investment for the investor will be higher, even though the running cost from solar power for example, would be lower for the end user. For an investor who is interested in building a property, selling it and making a profit quickly, is generally not interested in environmental sustainability. It is unfortunate that the city has developed without been sustainable but the government is becoming more sensitive towards this issue as people within the city are demanding that changes be made. We will achieve environmental sustainability, seen as in this part of the world we get more sunshine than anywhere else, that we can utilize, and convert into solar energy.

Where do you see Dubai in the future?

It’s a very interesting question. Certainly in the last 10 years, Dubai has placed a lot of emphasis on positioning itself as a global centre, and has had to be very flexible in changing its political decisions. The projection of its future, through a city of fantasy, of architectural renderings, in the middle of nowhere; it will sell itself as a utopian futuristic hybrid of West and East. Dubai uses the internet to communicate its imagery. I call this satellite urbanism; all of these amazing projects currently in development, people can view as drawings and simulations on the internet. Dubai really is a 21st Century Internet city in that sense. Dubai has managed to be one of the most spoken about places in the world.

Kowloon to Guangzhou.

On the 12^th of June, 2008, I took the bullet train from Kowloon to Guangzhou, passing through Hong Kong’s New Territories, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and into the satellite towns of Guangzhou. Despite this list of separate cities, I never really claimed a sense of leaving the city. Occasionally an area of green space or a mountain peak would appear surrounded by a crown of high rise apartment blocks, that could constitute a ‘countryside’ of sorts.

The brutal spectacle of Southern Guangdong Province seemed to be one vast mega city the size of Sussex, connected by highway belts, sky walkways, and wires pinned together and stringed along the buildings and the railway tracks. This cityscape appeared from the window like a cartoon that repeats its backdrop with a running character in the foreground.

A sense of leaving one city and entering the next was provided by the downscaling of buildings from office space, to apartment blocks, to a cluster of factory parks dispersed with landfill, before reaching another collection of factory parks, to apartment blocks to office space and so on.

I spoke to no one on the journey, except for the waitress who was handing out bottles of mineral water and packets of pretzels to anyone who wanted them.

"Symbols of the West, and the Process of Modernity in the Reinvention of the Chinese City."

Writing a dissertation is a lengthy process. I must have started to think about the essay I recently finished about 7 months ago, whilst in China. First came the idea; ok so I’m fascinated by the phenomena of Western themed developments being built within Chinese cities. Second came reels and reels of film, tapes of video footage, and photographs of these places, to solidify how I would go about articulating the aesthetics of these places I had visited. Third came research and reading on everything from the theme park to postmodernism to theories about non-place, in order to give the dissertation some contextual foundation. Fourth came tutorials with my dissertation tutor, David Green, who is a renowned author and theorist. Fifth came writing writing writing, and lots of proof reading. Link to the finished dissertation coming soon....

Dubai is 'Dubailand'.

I was in Dubai last week, on a short 7 day trip to shoot a documentary on the city’s development. Usually before I visit a place, and especially when I’m visiting a place to shoot or photograph for a documentary, I’ll do my research, and by this I mean read up on everything that has been written theory wise about a specific place. Making a documentary on suburban sprawl in Kansas City was fine, you could fill a library with the writings of critical and social theorists who have written about the American metropolis, aka Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere and Soja’s Postmodern Geographies. Visiting China during summer 2008 to record the phenomena of ‘Western’ themed gated communities, theme parks and shopping malls was also fine, as there has recently been a whole host of texts published on China’s current urban revolution, such as Campanella’s The Concrete Dragon and Oakes’ Tourism and Modernity in China. Though developing a prior theoretical foundation on Dubai was a difficult case. This is possibly due to the fact that Dubai is very much a work in progress, and constructing a definite theory on such a city in flux is difficult at this time.

But maybe this state of flux is an appropriate place to start. Dubai is certainly transient, a city of tourists, business travelers, nomads, migrant workers, and refugees? Only the original Emirati’s are card-carrying citizens, they account for around 10% of the population. The other 90% is a floating population, individuals in Dubai on a temporary visa. Is this the future, one must ask? A demolition of citizenship, and therefore the responsibility that citizenship once subsumed, for you immediate surroundings, for each other, for the planet? According to Sheik Zayed, the ruler of Dubai, yes, this is the future.

Dubai is the physical manifestation of a mental disorder. A way of approaching urbanism that is so far removed from the natural order of things, from the pedestrian, from community, from interdependency, from culture as opposed to synthesized pastiche, that a collection of ornaments have been arranged, masked as a ‘city’. A city of Orwellian containers, air-conditioned malls that look out onto fake alpine-scapes and plastic botanical gardens, ‘gourmet mansardic’ junk food eateries, stranded hotel complexes, concentration camps for migrant workers, brutal shopping plazas, isolated construction events, and disturbing spectacles of ferocious consumption.

Dubai is everything I am supposed to dislike; shopping malls, no genuine public realm, an overemphasis on commerce and consumption etc. Though somehow I enjoyed Dubai. Self reflective and reflexive. An oasis on the edge of a vast desert. A microcosm of world history, a city for the Internet age, connections replaced by signs and motion. In fact Dubai contains multiples of microcosms; miniature worlds of global culture and recreation, cities within cities, theme parks within theme parks.

Dubailand, a project currently under development by Tatweer, is one such example. Been literally carved out of the desert still within the city limits of Dubai, this theme park of theme parks begs the question if this will become a microcosm of Dubai, or of the world? Standing in the entrance parking lot of Dubailand shooting the vast construction wastelands in the distance, trying to image what this place would look like in 10 years time was near impossible. The scale models in the visitors center certainly helped, even to contemplate the sheer size of this development that stretched the imagination to accommodate the prospect of living in a ‘theme park city’ in a French themed palace, driving to work passing a dinosaur park, a giant spacecraft restaurant attached to a scale replica of a volcano, and spending my weekend leisure time in an ‘authentic’ Swiss mountain resort purpose built on a ski mountain, underneath a mammoth glass dome, for example. This sounded a lot like lifestyle manufacturing, which has come to the praise of many who find the idea of living in a theme park attractive, but also to the criticism of many who foresee the social, cultural and environmental implications of such a development. For me, this project was both attractive and repulsive, how wonderful it would be to live in a bazaar collection of movie sets Truman Show style, and yet such a project made it apparent just how lost we are. Dubailand was the physical manifestation of a post-modern kind of grief, and the desire to capture or aesthetically replicate something that we lost a long time ago. It represented a dying planet been replaced by a false one.

Film Analysis of 'Lost In Translation'.

Sophia Coppola’s Lost In Translation presents a love story between two Americans staying in Tokyo, Bob Harris played by Bill Murray, and Charlotte played by Scarlett Johansson. Their relationship is fueled by their feelings of displacement and alienation during their stay in Japan, and provides an exploration of complex human emotions, such as boredom and loneliness. Lost In Translation confidently splices humor and sadness, playing with our stereotypes and expectations.

The central relationship is explored from the contrasting perspectives of a woman in her early twenties and a middle-aged man, each afflicted by different yet parallel doubts about the course of their life respectively is taking or has taken. Charlotte is a bored yet restless character, whose curiosity fuels the meandering scenes in which she wanders the streets and temples of Tokyo. She personalizes her hotel room by hanging origami decorations from the ceiling in an attempt to make this foreign place she is ‘lost’ within into a ‘home’. Bob is a humorous and tired movie star in Tokyo to shoot a whiskey commercial.

The subplots that follow Bob and Charlotte individually into the city, reinforce their need to forge a relationship with each other, to communicate their problems, their fears, and insecurities. We follow Charlotte around the crowded neon-lit streets and malls of Tokyo, to her occasional departures into the calm of gardens and temples, and her restlessness within her hotel room where she reflects on her marriage and how her life lacks direction. We also view brief snippets of her marriage to her husband Jon, whom seems to want to spend as little time as possible with her. We follow Bob to his endorsement commitments for Suntory Whiskey, and to the hotel bar, gym and golf course, where he contemplates his faded career and stagnant marriage. We are also provided a number of scenes in which Bob talks with his wife over the phone, which reveal a deep underlying dissatisfaction with his marriage, and add a melodramatic texture to the film.

After crossing paths repeatedly in the artificial environment of their luxury hotel, Charlotte and Bob finally talk in the hotel bar one evening, which leads to their joint explorations of the city. They pass witty conversation, with their feelings seemingly reaching each other on a five second delay.

The Karaoke scene is a pivotal point in the movie, in which Bob and Charlotte hint that they feel a connection. They use the songs they choose to define who they are for the other and what they want. It is the point at which Bob realizes that Charlotte is his dream of an uncomplicated future, and Coppola lovingly shoots a wisp of a smile across Bob’s face as he watches Charlotte perform Brass In Pocket in a frosted pink wig.

Coppola’s direction is acutely assured in it’s awareness of loneliness, in capturing the solidarity of the two leading characters in their explorations of a foreign landscape, and their undefined relationship that forms out of a mutual feeling of isolation and longing to connect with other people.

Coppola has seemingly used and exaggerated typical Japanese stereotypes present in American culture, to create an alien situation Bob and Charlotte find themselves navigating, presenting the two focal characters as outcasts, allowing both of them to ‘find’ each other and forge a relationship that would probably never have happened in their home surroundings. Although the stereotypes of Japanese people concerning size, manners and language, could be viewed as racist, these stereotypes are clearly placed in the film in order to provide a more believable alienation in order for the relationship to be forged, and to add a comical edge to the movie. Bob and Charlotte's shared bemusement with the oddities of Japan, clearly help fuel their rapidly evolving friendship. The major difference Coppola decides to focus on is the language barrier. Language, or the ways in which we communicate, and the techniques of communication used within Lost In Translation, are clearly primary concerns for Coppola. At times the film communicates through what is not said. Sometimes instead of the use of words, close attention is payed to ambient noise and sound, like the noise of air conditioners and fluorescent lights becoming part of the milieu, a melodic electronic score, body language, and spliced editing of both solitary figures, and crowded streets and arcades. The language barrier provides a literal interpretation of the title ‘Lost In Translation’, but also allows for an interpretation of being lost on a more expansive scale, of being unable to communicate to others, whether they speak your language or not, of being alienated to technology, and to the cityscapes billions of us inhabit throughout the world.

Lost In Translation connects the dots between three standards of yearning and taboo explored individually in other movies, such as; Brief Encounter, Before Sunrise, and In The Mood For Love. Films about characters trapped, and in transition, in a moment of evanescence that fades before the participant’s eyes. Lost In Translation is in this sense a tragedy for Bob Harris, and to a lesser extent for Charlotte, in that they are both in seemingly stagnant marriages, and find a more perfect relationship with each other, yet the age gap between the two of them and their transient circumstances disallow them to eventually be together, either as friends or lovers.

Coppola’s choice of setting in Tokyo, one of the worlds largest ‘international’ cities, is interesting concerning the relationship that develops between Bob and Charlotte. People living in contemporary urban areas navigate a semi public/semi private space, as does the tourist. The transient non-places of travel, as explored in Marc Auge’s text Non-Places: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Super-modernity; allow opportunities unprecedented in human history to meet and interact with ‘strangers’ from around the world. Lost In Translation is as much a love story as it is an exploration of tourism and our relationship to the post-modern cityscape.

Coppola’s intentional emphasis on how the two focal characters relate to technology in Lost In Translation is possibly used to highlight how the inundation of electronic stimuli can cripple people’s ability to forge real and meaningful relationships. Bob and Charlotte are both ‘looking to be found’ (as the movie poster states), to relate to another person. Charlotte and Bob leave the confines of their automated and sterile hotel rooms in search of this, looking for something real, even if at first they are not sure what they are looking for, they eventually find each other.