House and Leisure – July 2019

IMAGINARY

CITIES

hen a stranger enters

the imaginary South

African city, the first

thing she notices is the differently

coloured, pulsating lights that

mark the Identity Loops. In

this hyper-stratified, constantly

evolving society, neighbourhoods

are described according to the

prevailing identity choice of their

inhabitants, and you can flit from

one identity to another as the mood

takes you. At night, it’s a beautiful

sight, and the massive buildings

that house the millions of city

dwellers throb with colours like

a child’s crude toy keyboard.

There is no map for the imaginary

city, and no guidebook. Our stranger

has to navigate in the moment. The

imaginary city doesn’t even have

a fixed name. Instead, it has a menu

of names from which you choose,

depending on who you are and who

you’re talking to. Restaurants,

music venues, museums and public

sculptures all change and mutate

over time and space, depending on

whim and weft. Like Italo Calvino’s

invisible city, ‘it is a city made

only of exceptions, exclusions,

incongruities, contradictions.’

The imaginary South African

city is real: it exists in both the past

and the future. Perhaps, sadly, the

only place it can never exist is in

the present, where we now live.

But like our stranger, we’re more

interested in the city’s pathways

than its philosophies. And you

can have a lot of fun in this city.

Because so many people live here,

the buildings are inescapably vast,

but always built with large roof

parks. The public transport system

stretches across the sky, between

stations atop buildings. The ground

is reserved for peregrinations and

pop-ups, and the roads are awash

with meandering jelly pods full of

people being gently transported.

Almost all citizens work at home,

but in apartments that physically

oscillate between places of business

and houses at fixed times.

The imaginary South African

city doesn’t have a mayor. Instead,

artificial intelligence functions as

city hall, and people vote on decrees

that they feel strongly about. You

can find a thousand flavours of ice

cream in the shimmering metal

parlours, enjoy a million variations

on desire in the intricately

fashioned cultural centres, and

effortlessly speak the multitude

of languages on the streets.

Our stranger has lived in the

imaginary city her whole life.

The people who inhabit it have

a mantra they utter approvingly

whenever they encounter the

constant changes: ‘You’re always

a stranger to someone’. O

W

VIEW / PERSPECTIVE

IMAGINARY

CITIES IN

LITERATURE

ZOO CITY

BY LAUREN BEUKES

Zoo City is a ghetto in a gritty,

dystopian Johannesburg, where

the animalled live – people guilty

of murder who have an animal

familiar attached to them for life.

THE SCULPTORS OF

MAPUNGUBWE

BY ZAKES MDA

An imaginary telling

of the (real) African kingdom of

Mapungubwe, where the famous

gold-plated rhino originated. Two

brothers vie to create the greatest

sculptures: the one of realistic

animals; the other of fantastical,

unearthly creatures.

EMBASSYTOWN

BY CHINA MIÉVILLE

Existing at the edge

of the known universe

on a distant planet named Arieka,

Embassytown is a futuristic city

whose native inhabitants cannot

speak an untruth, and when they

wish to communicate in allusion,

they have to act out literal similes.

JUN JUL 22

WRITER AND

JOURNALIST CHRIS

ROPER DREAMS UP A

FUTURISTIC CITY OF

CONTRASTS, WHERE

CHANGE IS THE

ONLY CONSTANT

PHOTOGRAPH: SUPPLIED