Being in Tokyo felt like as good an opportunity as any other to get lost, and to stay that way for a while. Losing oneself is obviously something that people actively seek to do through various means, whether they know it or not. In the context of Open City it involves perceiving the environment in a different way, as unfamiliar, as an open text, as a site for research into process and purpose.
Getting lost can be a challenge if one has a well-honed sense of direction, whereas for others it is easier to achieve. I find it difficult and use strategies such as throwing dice and following people to disorientate myself. Even so, I have an instinctive sense of where I have come from and find many clues as to my position, from the sound of trains (you have to get to the place where you are to lose yourself somehow), to structural information such as tourist landmarks and transport networks.
Initially I tried to get lost in the suburb of Takao, nestled in the foothills to the west of Tokyo, but despite walking for hours I knew where I was throughout. Instead I caught the train to Tokyo station and emerged from the northern side, an area of which I had little prior knowledge, apart from talk of a hi-tech electrical shoppers paradise at Akihabara. As before, I had what I believed to be an unerring sense of direction from where I had left the station. After a 90 minute walk through canyons of office blocks, vainly attempting to shake off my navigator, I threw the dice (odd for left, even for right and on the next throw the number of turnings you pass) and then followed several people. I found myself by a bridge that I thought I recognised but that was south of Tokyo station. There were also people sleeping rough beneath it whereas the one I had seen before had none. At this point I felt partially lost, or at least confused, and carried on down a narrow street that became the Ameya Yokocho Bazar, or the American market.
