Real-Time Is Too Late: NEOM’s Digital Air and the Pre-emptive Synthetic City

Ghassemi, Mehdi and David Murakami Wood

Mehdi Ghassemi

Mehdi Ghassemi is Director of Research at the ISTC School of Communication (Lille, France). In 2023, he co-founded CEThicS, France’s first research centre dedicated to the ethical, political, and discursive implications of algorithmic surveillance. His research draws on media theory, discourse analysis, and social semiotics to investigate the socio-technical imaginaries of AI and AI-driven surveillance, particularly in France and the Middle East.

Dossiers, no. 2, vol. 11September 7, 2026<September 9, 2026

Real-Time Is Too Late: NEOM’s Digital Air and the Pre-emptive Synthetic City

Mehdi Ghassemi and David Murakami Wood

NEOM promised a city with its own "digital air". Mehdi Ghassemi and David Murakami Wood read the cognitive-city's promotional artefacts to show how atmosphere, consent and the digital twin were settled before any resident arrived, and what persists now the that brand has receded.