Documenting The City at night, such as this image of Nagoya, Japan preparing to celebrate its simulacrum of a Western-style Christmas, reminds me of Kracauer's observations:

"In the Luna Park, of an evening, a fountain is sometimes displayed illuminated by Bengal lights. Cones of red, yellow and green light, continually recreated, flee into the darkness. When the splendour is gone, it turns out to have come from the wretched, cartilaginous structure of a few little pipes. The fountain resembles the life of many employees. From its wretchedness it escapes into distraction, lets itself be illuminated with Bengal lights and, unmindful of its origin, dissolves into the nocturnal void."

(Siegfried Kracauer, The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany, 1929/30)