Documentary images of industry have been commonplace since the inception of the photographic medium in the early 19th century. The dawn of photography as a medium neatly coincided with the peak of the industrial revolution in Europe. The industrial revolution led to vast swathes of the population across Europe migrating from traditional rural idylls to new urban environments, where there was the lure of newfound wealth and happiness. This migration can be still be seen happening today with many developing countries pushing towards a more industrialised developed society. Whereas photography’s traditional role within this realm has been to document the literal activities of people in the work place and the societal impacts of new industry and technology, its’ role has been mutating and evolving over the past fifty years to a point of irrevocable change. As societal needs have changed throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, so has photography’s role also evolved within this realm. As photography has evolved in conjunction with societal needs, so has industry made pivotal changes in a post industrialised society. With the explosion in container shipping in the 1970’s came the onset of globalization. Trade and commerce have become ever more omnipotent in society leading to a world that is ever more homogenized within a global construct. This has made countries less self sufficient and more reliant upon global markets. In a world that is necessitated by market forces and trade, populations continue to migrate to urbanised dwellings. Traditional industries, once the backbone of Western Europe, now find themselves displaced to where these market forces dictate, superseded by the growth in global tourism. Once again, this exacerbates the need for constant yearning, that ever elusive drive for happiness. The constant search for wealth and happiness, the desire to be always looking elsewhere, is a symptom of globalization that leads to an increasingly homogenized world. As cultural barriers are stripped away to fuel the global market place, so are cultural and individual identities. Now, more than ever the individual becomes insignificant within society, and the desire for material wealth becomes the driving force for the notions of perceived success and prosperity. The images laid before us, rather than literally attempting to represent individual suffering, allude to the notions of disassociation and isolation in a modern world that is indifferent to the sufferance or complex nuances of the human psyche. The Port of Rotterdam has grown in tandem with the rise of capitalism and globalization. As times and needs have evolved over the centuries, it has very much been a zeitgeist of each passing period, from its’ roots in the rural past, through complete devastation in war, to massive and unending expansion in a globalized economy. The images here neither attempt to condone or condemn the Port of Rotterdam, nor dictate any political stance on matters. The objective here is to focus on the infrastructure of the port whilst exploring the notions of artifice in the modern world. The idea of artifice within the port is something that has manifested itself quite literally in the manner of its construction. Everything from the land that is reclaimed from the sea, the waterways, the dykes and dams and even the trees and grass are all artificially constructed. The Port of Rotterdam is an extreme example of how humankind affects the ‘natural’ landscape, however, the implications of artifice within the modern world reach far beyond. As we stand in the 21st century, the Port of Rotterdam exists not only as a heterotopia, but also as a simulacrum of modern day society. The images here seek to meditate upon the notion of the ‘infrastructure of artifice’ not just on a literal documentary level but also through the use of metaphor and meaning.