Free-Speaking

In order to progress the Tour Stories project, I decided to try and describe what I could see whilst imagining a walk through the ruined city. I did this by free-drawing and free-speaking, a strategy I first used following my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It wasn't easy, but after a while things progressed; the connection between memory and ruins becoming ever clearer as I found myself struggling to remember what things looked like - but then, perhaps that is the point.

The transcript of what I said can be found below. Of course it is worth bearing in mind that this was written over a 25 minute period and in places won't entirely make sense.

"I'm standing at the Plain. I can see the outline of what was once a roundabout. The tarmac is cracked and through those cracks there’s grass. The trees are still there, still large, dominating the area. The trees on the opposite side of the road leading to what remains of the bridge have also grown. To my left there’s little more than piles of bricks […] of all the houses which once lined the streets; Iffley Road, Cowley Road and St. Clements. The grass is tall. It creeps over the tarmac reclaiming from man what was always hers. I can hear just the wind and the birds. Opposite me are what remains of the building of Magdalen College School, completely covered with ivy in fact that’s all it is, just a wall of ivy. On the streets or what remains of the streets the husks of a couple of dissolved cars, barely recognisable as cars today, rusted scraps of metal chewed up and spat on the ground. I can see what looks like an old bridge, a wooden bridge, flaking white on it, crossing the river which still runs through the city. The course of the river at some point has been diverted by the bridge which has collapsed into it. The bridge - the sides covered with moss. The grass covers what would have been the road leading into the High Street. To my right as I scrabble down the bridge is the Angel and Greyhound meadow, now a beautiful wild meadow bordering the river. On the opposite side of the river I can see the ruins of Magdalen College. Again the ivy has found its way towards them, covered them, not completely. The Tower has partially collapsed. I ford the river and climb up the other side, I can still make out the line of the street. The grass grows long in the gutters, everywhere is grass and earth. The fields stretching to the south are all grassy, high grass. I can hear the birds. As I walk up I can still make out the buildings I knew. The Botanic Gardens is a curious site now completely overgrown. I can still see the glass houses; what remains of them. Not much, no windows of course, the frames, the metal frames are all rusted, and stick from out the ground like broken saplings turned into stone, fossilised. Just like the railings in front which serve to protect nothing; mark some insignificant boundary. The maze which stood behind them has become lost in itself and behind the grass rising from the ground into the old gateway, its figures in their niches barely recognisable as figures at all, just smooth lumps of stone. The buildings next to it have all but collapsed, all I can see are the remains of an exterior wall with its windows and continue to walk up. I turn and look again at Magdalen College tower the once proud gateway to the city. Lying on the ground I notice the bells two of them; it’s as if the whole tower has been peeled like a banana whose exterior walls like a skin have been discarded on the floor, but there is nothing inside this fruit. The wall of the college buildings still stands still with its gargoyles looking down, most of them now smoothed over, some gone but some just about distinguishable; these invented creatures all that remains of reality now. The gateway is still there - in a ruinous state when I remember it, it’s much the same now albeit the top has fallen in. Through that I can see what remains of the quad or the courtyard covered in grass like everywhere else. I walk on. The trees have grown tall here. All the windows - of course the glass is missing, behind them is just daylight. And piles and piles of stone grown over again with grass, earth, flowers. Lots of flowers. I pass Rose Lane and look down and still see the line of the street at the bottom of which was the gateway to the meadow the gateway has fallen; the railings have fallen and the meadow has burst its banks and found its way into the city, that old part of the city left unchanged for centuries always the most genuine part of the town. The library of Magdalen College - of course the roofs have all gone fallen through. I can’t see any books. Looking up Longwall Street I can still see the wall still stranding proudly although covered in lichen worn away in parts. And the buildings behind it some of those still stand, on the opposite side however much has disappeared. In fact I can see the old city wall which was always hidden away behind modern buildings at the end. Walking on up I see the examination schools, I can see the sky through the windows where the roof has gone. Some of its interior walls still stand and though the glass is missing I see the windows; it’s strange how without the glass the windows do not reflect what is on the outside and do not hide what is on the inside and the world suddenly is neither outside nor inside, it’s as if the threshold between the two has been banished, lost. It’s just the open now. Standing here I can see the curve of the High Street and the facades of the buildings, the tower of St. Mary the Virgin still stands albeit without its spire, it looks sore, wounded. I turn and look back and see just grass and meadows I carry on walking up the High Street, Queen’s Lane, the tower of St. Peter’s still standing. The church still recognisable as a church without the roof without the glass, still with its wall. No doubt amongst the tall grasses the gravestones, the dead are still identifiable amongst it all. Queen’s College the front still remains albeit the cupola has gone, just a couple of columns are left sticking up, the statue has fallen into the street. Amongst the grass one comes across fragments, twisted pieces of metal, perhaps what remains of bicycles. The whole street reminds me of a Roman Cemetery, where every façade is just the façade of a tomb with nothing inside. All the buildings are blind, deaf. But still I can still see the streets, Oriel Street, Magpie Lane, King Edward Street. The Covered Market all the roof has gone, supporting timbers have gone, there’s nothing there now but a pile. The façade stands but behind it is just a hill on which grass has grown. Most bizarrely of all, Carfax Tower rising in the middle of a plain."

As I said before, some of it won't make sense and will seem repititious, but the point of execrises such as this is not to create a coherent piece of prose, but rather to find a way in to the subject. In this respect there are some interesting parts which I will look to explore and which relate in part to teh work I've been doing on other projects.

Most interesting for me is how I could see nature reclaiming the city and how, with the broken windows the threshold between interior and exterior had been abolished. All that's left is the 'Open'. Of course, this 'Open' reflects the work I did regarding the Open on my Creatures project which also took into account the work of Walter Benjamin and what he termed Natural History.

Mapping

Having thought about the work above, I decided that it might be best if any tour wasn't continuous, but rather focussed around specific parts of the city, for example, if users were directed to a specific place, such as the junction of a couple of streets or a building, and asked to listen to any recording there. The narration would then explore the view around them. This doesn't mean that people won't be asked to walk anywhere, but it does mean that I will be able to control the pace of the tour a little better.

Below is a Google Map which I will use to explore this idea.