America 06: Spectacle

In many ways, New York feels like a New York-themed theme park. There's a sense of performance here: this is New York, we're New Yorkers and we act like it. A lot of the city is the way it is for no other reason than that's what people expect to see. You might think that would feel shallow or false – I mean, everyone's just putting on a show, it's not real. But the performance doesn't stop being real just because you know it's a performance. In fact, once you see behind the curtain, you realise that you're part of the show too. When you get down to it, every human space is a shared illusion. It's just that this one is self-aware.