During a visit to Los Angeles in March 2023, I accidentally walked onto a street dressed as a film set. After walking around for a while and taking pictures, I learned that the film that was about to be shot was the Joker sequel. The city I was walking through was thus, simultaneously, Los Angeles, Gotham and New York City. The time was not only 2023, but also 1983, the year the movie is set in.The people out in the streets were in part extras already in costume and in part passers-by going about their business, and I wasn’t always able to tell who belonged in which category – just as I couldn’t always tell which parts were added to the architecture to make it look like another place or another time. After about an hour, they started closing off the street and ushering people away.