Thursday 14 October 2010
Monday 11 October 2010
The impossible city
The loss of inspiration is a sad demise that many artists must face at some point in their life. There is however, for the lucky few, a quick fix solution - the luxury of a traveling holiday.
There is no better way of expanding the landscape of the mind than traveling to far flung countries, experiencing different cultures and new vistas. It injects new ideas, stimulates the mind and body and often provides that objective insightful view into one's life and (bad) habits back home.
This was certainly the case when I traveled to the Middle East last week and saw for the first time a Muslim culture thriving amidst desert, sea and oil wealth.
One of the first things to hit me as I stepped out of the airport into the night air was a wave of heat and humidity. For someone with a Mediterranean temperament, who hates cold wet weather, dark days, and views the pending winter with doom and gloom, this initial sensation was like being wrapped in a warm comforting blanket.
The second thing to hit me was the amount of giant four wheel drives, luxury cars, blacked out windows, and twin to quadruple exhausts there were. The roads here, in a desert land, are more akin the Kings road in London with it's showy cars and demonstrations of wealth on wheels. As we drove from the airport I contemplated a petrol station, with long lines of 4-by-4s, ready to plug into pumps direct to underlying oil reserves. Like pernicious veins sucking and draining these ancient reserves of fossilized and liquefied organisms, to fuel the beating heart of modern day excess and self indulgence.
I had the pleasure of staying in the Hilton, before traveling to Dubai for the weekend. Abu Dhabi is predominantly a business city, with an interesting skyline and a few very ambitious development sites. There are a few tourist destinations, though these mainly involve shopping, and certainly very little to see culturally other than the grand mosque and a museum or two. Arab culture has evolved from a nomadic past when the Bedouin traveled and traded, the only true settlement evolving around ports and fishing creeks. History was recorded in writing and not in ancient architecture. The oldest buildings were washed away by the sands, though a few mud forts and tombs still exists preserved by the desert. The city of Dubai and Abu Dhabi were two such fishing creeks, only recently expanded and developed in the last 50 years as a direct result of new oil wealth and trade.
So as a typical tourist I headed for the only place I knew for sure a lone western woman would not attract too much attention - the shopping mall. With over 200 shops and restaurants as well as a huge cinema and indoor skiing arena, it is safe to say I was a little overwhelmed. I soon realized just how much the Arabs like to shop and spend money. If it's not on designer clothes and jewelry it's on designer cars and high rises. For a deeply religious people this is quite a contradiction to Koranic preaching and spirituality. During my whole trip this was a trait I grappled with the most, how could they marry such superficiality with extreme conservativeness and devoutness?! Their women walk the streets like faceless black ghosts, alcohol is banned except in some hotels, the call to prayer a bitter-sweet, eerie echo through the modern glass buildings at dawn and dusk. And yet their need to actively demonstrate their wealth to themselves and world, seems to be all consuming. A psychologist observing such a trait in an individual would say it was an expression of insecurity.. However can such simplistic psycology this be scaled up and applied to a nation? Probably not and so I wish I understood..
My trip to Dubai was merely a confirmation of these initial musings. It is a crazy city. One can only marvel and laugh. Dubai is the impossible city, build on sand, where everything is the biggest, the tallest, the first, the only etc etc. It boasts the tallest man made structure in the world, the largest indoor skiing arena including a complete village of chalets, a collection of islands in the shape of the world, and of course, the Dubai shopping mall, no doubt another world record there, but by then I wasn't checking.
Dubai is the Mecca for architects. There is no red tape here, and planning law is in the hands of one man, the Shaikh Mohamed. If he says yes then any scheme, no matter how insane is possible. Here design is unleashed o it's full potential, and taken to extremes - such as the rotating towers, or the Dubai towers. The high-rise has replaced the minaret, impossible fingers of power and beauty reaching for the heavens.
One has to marvel at such human feats, these naked apes are really quite ingenious! But at what cost do we keep pushing the boundaries of possibility. Dubai is a city running just to keep still, as the desert and sea is permanently trying to reclaim this land. The temperatures in this country soar easily into the 50's in summer, even I who loved the heat found it hard to operate outside the artificial AC environment. The streets are deserted and ghostly during daylight hours. All the buildings and high rises are merely giant refrigerators in which people live, only stepping out to walk to their air conditioned cars. Giant fountains and the many leafy parks are filled and irrigated with desalinated water - one of the most expensive and least ecological processes. Any drinking water is imported and bottled.
Even the beaches are coated in white sand imported from Algeria, because the sand in the desert is too red! Half the population of these places are poor migrants from India and Pakistan - cheap labour and the only people desperate or poor enough to live in squalid conditions, (hidden from the public eye) to build, in torrid heat, pioneering structures and playgrounds for the extremely wealthy.
I would however be a hypocrite if I used this blog to criticizes a people and their way of life. I am merely an observer and recording my experience of this desert culture. I too like to indulge in luxury, pampering and superficial things, turning a blind eye to their ecological implications.
I did experience some of the most wonderful few days I've had the pleasure of indulging in for a long long time. Hotel breakfasts and crisp white sheets. Cocktails by the swimming pool, lulled by relaxing music drifting out of speakers attached to palm trees, caressed by silky hot air. Sucking on sweet pulpy juices squeezed from fresh fruit, dates, dipping into warm seas. The intoxicating smell of spicy shishas oozing out of cafes, the magical call to prayer, exotic women of incredible beauty and grace, wrapped up and mysterious with merely a flash a dark eye or a peek of an expensive shoe. A wonderful, luxurious thought-provoking trip, which I would love to repeat.
There is no better way of expanding the landscape of the mind than traveling to far flung countries, experiencing different cultures and new vistas. It injects new ideas, stimulates the mind and body and often provides that objective insightful view into one's life and (bad) habits back home.
 |
| Sunset amidst the red dunes, far far away from oxford.. |
This was certainly the case when I traveled to the Middle East last week and saw for the first time a Muslim culture thriving amidst desert, sea and oil wealth.
One of the first things to hit me as I stepped out of the airport into the night air was a wave of heat and humidity. For someone with a Mediterranean temperament, who hates cold wet weather, dark days, and views the pending winter with doom and gloom, this initial sensation was like being wrapped in a warm comforting blanket.
The second thing to hit me was the amount of giant four wheel drives, luxury cars, blacked out windows, and twin to quadruple exhausts there were. The roads here, in a desert land, are more akin the Kings road in London with it's showy cars and demonstrations of wealth on wheels. As we drove from the airport I contemplated a petrol station, with long lines of 4-by-4s, ready to plug into pumps direct to underlying oil reserves. Like pernicious veins sucking and draining these ancient reserves of fossilized and liquefied organisms, to fuel the beating heart of modern day excess and self indulgence.
I had the pleasure of staying in the Hilton, before traveling to Dubai for the weekend. Abu Dhabi is predominantly a business city, with an interesting skyline and a few very ambitious development sites. There are a few tourist destinations, though these mainly involve shopping, and certainly very little to see culturally other than the grand mosque and a museum or two. Arab culture has evolved from a nomadic past when the Bedouin traveled and traded, the only true settlement evolving around ports and fishing creeks. History was recorded in writing and not in ancient architecture. The oldest buildings were washed away by the sands, though a few mud forts and tombs still exists preserved by the desert. The city of Dubai and Abu Dhabi were two such fishing creeks, only recently expanded and developed in the last 50 years as a direct result of new oil wealth and trade.
So as a typical tourist I headed for the only place I knew for sure a lone western woman would not attract too much attention - the shopping mall. With over 200 shops and restaurants as well as a huge cinema and indoor skiing arena, it is safe to say I was a little overwhelmed. I soon realized just how much the Arabs like to shop and spend money. If it's not on designer clothes and jewelry it's on designer cars and high rises. For a deeply religious people this is quite a contradiction to Koranic preaching and spirituality. During my whole trip this was a trait I grappled with the most, how could they marry such superficiality with extreme conservativeness and devoutness?! Their women walk the streets like faceless black ghosts, alcohol is banned except in some hotels, the call to prayer a bitter-sweet, eerie echo through the modern glass buildings at dawn and dusk. And yet their need to actively demonstrate their wealth to themselves and world, seems to be all consuming. A psychologist observing such a trait in an individual would say it was an expression of insecurity.. However can such simplistic psycology this be scaled up and applied to a nation? Probably not and so I wish I understood..
 |
| Insecurity... |
My trip to Dubai was merely a confirmation of these initial musings. It is a crazy city. One can only marvel and laugh. Dubai is the impossible city, build on sand, where everything is the biggest, the tallest, the first, the only etc etc. It boasts the tallest man made structure in the world, the largest indoor skiing arena including a complete village of chalets, a collection of islands in the shape of the world, and of course, the Dubai shopping mall, no doubt another world record there, but by then I wasn't checking.
 |
| Burge Dubai, tallest building, incredible view from our balcony |
Dubai is the Mecca for architects. There is no red tape here, and planning law is in the hands of one man, the Shaikh Mohamed. If he says yes then any scheme, no matter how insane is possible. Here design is unleashed o it's full potential, and taken to extremes - such as the rotating towers, or the Dubai towers. The high-rise has replaced the minaret, impossible fingers of power and beauty reaching for the heavens.
 |
| Dubai Towers. Dancing flames of glass symbolizing multiculturalism |
 | ||||||
| Rotating towers. construction has begun.. |
One has to marvel at such human feats, these naked apes are really quite ingenious! But at what cost do we keep pushing the boundaries of possibility. Dubai is a city running just to keep still, as the desert and sea is permanently trying to reclaim this land. The temperatures in this country soar easily into the 50's in summer, even I who loved the heat found it hard to operate outside the artificial AC environment. The streets are deserted and ghostly during daylight hours. All the buildings and high rises are merely giant refrigerators in which people live, only stepping out to walk to their air conditioned cars. Giant fountains and the many leafy parks are filled and irrigated with desalinated water - one of the most expensive and least ecological processes. Any drinking water is imported and bottled.
 |
| This has to be one of the wonders of the world, the most beautiful dancing fountain to the rhythm of music and light. |
Even the beaches are coated in white sand imported from Algeria, because the sand in the desert is too red! Half the population of these places are poor migrants from India and Pakistan - cheap labour and the only people desperate or poor enough to live in squalid conditions, (hidden from the public eye) to build, in torrid heat, pioneering structures and playgrounds for the extremely wealthy.
I would however be a hypocrite if I used this blog to criticizes a people and their way of life. I am merely an observer and recording my experience of this desert culture. I too like to indulge in luxury, pampering and superficial things, turning a blind eye to their ecological implications.
I did experience some of the most wonderful few days I've had the pleasure of indulging in for a long long time. Hotel breakfasts and crisp white sheets. Cocktails by the swimming pool, lulled by relaxing music drifting out of speakers attached to palm trees, caressed by silky hot air. Sucking on sweet pulpy juices squeezed from fresh fruit, dates, dipping into warm seas. The intoxicating smell of spicy shishas oozing out of cafes, the magical call to prayer, exotic women of incredible beauty and grace, wrapped up and mysterious with merely a flash a dark eye or a peek of an expensive shoe. A wonderful, luxurious thought-provoking trip, which I would love to repeat.
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