Making the 45 minute journey to Swansea after a day’s work at
the gallery to check out what these artists were up, I already felt a bit like
a tourist. I arrived at our meeting place, the Travelodge on Princess Way,
without realising that we’d be guided into the building. The slightly awkward
preamble of taking the lift and entering a guest room, with all its familiar tack and utility helped
us to relinquish control, to willingly suspend our disbelief, prepared to be
tourists, passengers on a journey. Once given headphones we were strapped into
the rollercoaster car together and could feel the ratcheting mechanism pulling
us into an adventure as we took the stairs to street level.
Walking into the last of the sun to the sound of some laid
back music definitely felt cool. A warm breeze in our faces, feet casually
padding to the beat. It sounded like the leitmotif
for some mafia bosses, perfect as we passed the Mama Mia! restaurant on
the corner. We may not have looked all that cool to the spaghetti slurping
customers as we trooped past in matching pink headphones, but the auditory
distraction somehow made us feel unashamed, license to gawp. I was genuinely taken in by the
sound effects when a low whirring made me swing my head round to see that we
were passing some industrial fans, the restaurant’s air con. Through an ‘un-salubrious’
passage where the waiter on his cigarette break and a sleeping drunk could have
been planted, we emerged onto Wind Street. Being shepherded across the
road in our dreamlike state to Castle Square with its Big outdoor TV (30ft high
and wide). We were
presented with the iconic ‘beep’ music from
BBC News and a disturbing news report followed by gunfire, then the group broke
into a run, cutting across some confused looking shoppers to find shelter at the back
of McDonald’s, adding a raised heart-rate to the sensory cocktail.
We were taken on a tour of the
back-ways and service alleys of the city centre. As we passed the delivery bays
at the back of a department store the beep of a lorry reversing rang out like a
ghost noise, resounding after the event. The square columns of an un-named bar
were falling apart, revealing the boxed wood facade, like a stage set. A clue perhaps that things were not quite as
they seemed? Swansea makes a good backdrop for
an apocalyptic movie or video game. The piped sounds and film quotations began
to put a dark spin on what would ordinarily seem like a harmless high street. The
combination of chain stores after closing time and the odd empty shop, all a
little crumbly round the edges formed a good canvas on which to project a story of capitalist breakdown or some unknown disaster. It
was the time of day when the shopping streets were empty, save for the swarming
seabirds. A ringing phone needed
answering. Ominous snippets of dialogue from The last of
us cast a Hitchcockian shadow on the squabbling gulls. Phone boxes acted as handy
props and markers on our journey as Jason answered the ringing phones to hear
conversations from films like Speed, drawing our attention to the presence of
this almost redundant street furniture. Much of
the city scenery could have been stage flats, a living set compete with litter
and vomit, a lone cyclist wheeling round in aimless circles under a giant
television screen, a group of young people
also wearing headphones silently filing past
us like a strange mirror image of ourselves. The tight stairways of multi-storey car parks are the kind of public spaces I’d usually avoid, especially at
night. This walk was both empowering
- stalking round these dingy places in a group, on a mission - and a reminder
of just how oppressive some of the built environment can be (extremely low
ceilings and urine scented passageways) .
The walk went on for some time,
long enough to drift in and out of self-consciousness. I felt I was walking
with one eye watching myself, observing my own thoughts as I
experienced different spaces and sounds. There
was some internal battle for me as my desire to be swept along and escape my
‘everyday’ fought with the fact that I couldn’t fully suspend my disbelief in
the sound world and narrative. Rather
like playing Paintball, we can get carried away with the thrill, the drama, but
we know that if we’re shot in the chest it is still only paint bullets. I observed that
my body wanted to play along with the changing dynamics. Running,
drifting and filing through dark passageways all created drama and excitement, but
I wondered if the use of words (from films and
games) broke the spell a little? Sound and music have a visceral effect, often
bypassing the mind, whereas words seem to activate a noisy thought dialogue and
also fix things to specifics. But the artists had chosen to show us the city
centre through this particular filter, drawing on references in our popular
consciousness - my job was to go along for the ride. But the artists had also negotiated
for serendipity. They could never have full control of everything the
participants experienced. Some magical
moments couldn’t have been planned, like rounding a corner and emerging from a
dingy low ceilinged car park, past Jeremy Deller’s painted wall (“More poetry
is needed”), to see a full, low hanging moon, pale and papery above the
uniform horizon of the Swansea rooftops, lending this moment greater
significance. High up on the roof of
another multi-storey , we looked down over Swansea’s maritime quarter, like the
scene at the end of a film or on completion of a game the sound of helicopter
blades buzzed below, we were the survivors, and the moon a full stop on our journey. 