In Non Places – Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity Marc Augé investigates what mode of life we encounter in the anonymous “non-places” of modern urban space: hotel rooms, supermarkets, ATM machines, and various spaces of transition and passage --like the conveyor belts that drag passengers slowly from one section of the airport to another.

Augé’s argument is that although we don’t ‘rest’ or ‘reside’ in these spaces but merely pass through these spaces as if interchangeable, we nevertheless enjoy a contractual relation with the world and others symbolized by our train or plane ticket, bank card, email address, and hence anonymity and identity are oddly drawn close.

This is different mode of life to that of a place, which is relational, historical and concerned with identity:

Gary Sauer-Thompson, Cape Willoughby, Kangaroo Island, 2007

Here we don't find ourselves semiotically overloaded and unable to make sense of the past and experience the relation of the past to the future. We do not wander aimlessly and seemingly without motivation between anonymous “transit points” and “temporary abodes”.