Abstract

Turned into a mere relic of the modernization process, contemporary cities have stopped providing answers for the people they were meant to serve. Static, often imposing and inscrutable, the city is now a sphinx whose silence costs lives in terms of the psychic response to their complexity and size; most poignantly, to the isolation they engender. 
In light of this, the research is framed to uncover how people extract meaning from the built environment and how, in an act of reciprocity, the latter underpins their identity. The goal is to develop an original analysis of the role of contemporary cities in shaping and supporting western lifestyles through the representation of architecture in cinema. A series of short films will constitute the final research output. Shot in significant metropolitan areas around the world, they will illustrate the theoretical background underpinning the whole endeavour in critical theory, visual culture, cultural studies & psychoanalysis.