Based
on the understanding that tourism offers a way of shaping people’s
experience of reality through narrative, this one day project questioned
the definition
of authentic experience when a place is seen through someone else’s
eyes. It also brought into question the notion of authorship in tourism
and art. Specifically referring to Foucault's concerns about who
authorises the author within 'the functioning conditions of specific
discursive practices', we attempted to facilitate an imaginative
environment
in which participants were able to mediate between personally authentic
place meanings and those authorised by cultural and institutional
discourse to develop their own versions of the truth (Foucault, 1998).
Indeed, our belief in narratives or histories as absolute truths, limits
our experience of reality. Experiencing a place through someone else’s
eyes not only questions the authenticity of experience but also allows
us to engage with reality as imaginative play. Through processes of
deconstructing / reconstructing 'reality' and authoring / de-authoring
'work', the project attempted to facilitate walking practices that would
enable participants to move beyond representational discourses and
to re-negotiate new 'truths' of place. We also set out to consider
Foucault's question - 'what is an author?' via the nexus of conceptual
and material praxis and through the collaborative, artist-led
process itself.
process itself.
The project began with two groups of participants those from TANTEO and
others who were Bournemouth residents. There were also two sets of guided tour
'scripts' to hand out to participants:
• The first set of 'scripts' were historically 'accurate' documents given to the
residents to guide them through an area of Bournemouth. It was their role to
modify, adapt and personalise the texts by re-writing them as their own
'truths' of Bournemouth. This was done by re-writing the 'scripts' in the form
of written narrative and / or photographic representations or 'texts'
comprised of more open visual and literary forms such drawing, painting,
performance, experimental photography and poetry / poetic prose /
'pwoermds'.
• A second set of 'scripts' had all historical details removed, leaving only
fragmented lexical, syntactical and grammatical information. The new 'scripts'
were be given to core TANTEO participants to carry with them on their walks.
These participants will then use the 'scripts' as structural guides to develop
imaginative narrative responses whilst walking. These new 'truths' will then be
used by participants to generate literary / material / performance responses
of their own.
Participants from TANTEO project
Reflection
Our
aim for this project was to use the prepared text/script to open up
alternative ways of engaging with place and its’ historical
narrative and to question the authenticity and ‘truths’ of such
experience. The texts provided structure and anchor point for the
participants to imaginatively engage with historical truth to
generate subjective freedom and to add a layer of personal narrative.
Note:
Majority of the people taking part in the project were ‘visitors’
hence the feedbacks mainly reflect the use of the second set of
text/script.
Findings:
Both
group of participants decided not to use the prepared text/script
very early on in the project. Many found it ‘boring’, ‘too
arduous’, ‘too formal (to find your way in)’, ‘difficult to
engage with the actual experience because too busy thinking about the
words to fill the gaps with’, ‘tourist texts are only skim read
anyway’, ‘historical information about historical places are not
personal enough to be interesting’, ‘tourist texts take away the
humanness of the experience’ and ‘text guides you to read a place
in a particular way.’
How
can you be guided without being guided into interaction?
Instead,
they consciously attempted to find ways to engage with the places on
the map in ways that did not
make sense.
They:
-
photographed
-
recorded sounds
-
sketched
-
engaged in conversation with staff on the premise
-
asked local residents questions
-
collected objects, etc.
Many
attempted to find the ‘unofficial’ narrative, the alternative
authentic experience that could be gained from directly experiencing
the place.
One
of the participants gave examples of two successful artist-led
walking ‘tour guides’ that she had experienced in Vienna. The
artist created narratives of historical buildings that did not exist
any longer and whilst taking a group of people on a guided tour of
the city would recite the stories at the locations where the
buildings used to be. The absence of the buildings made the
participants look even more closely at what was not there. The
‘encounter’ triggered powerful imagination to see beyond what one
could physically see. On reflection this idea seems a little
prescriptive in perhaps an even more spectacular or touristic way
than our dissolved . Is it possible to provide imaginative triggers
that allow participants to paint their own pictures in their minds or
even to find those alternative images and visually poetic
associations in the geographic environment themselves?
The
idea of ‘post-tourist’ was also discussed. However it was pointed
out that alternative ways of experiencing a place (‘off the beaten
track’, ‘extreme tours’, ‘AirBnB’) quickly became
catagorised experiences. Words such as ‘unique’, ‘authentic’
and ‘different’ that were used to express certain experiences as
being unlike any other experiences were simply set of commercial
languages to sell the idea of authenticity.
On
reflection, we feel that:
-
texts are valid ways to encourage experience but the text/script we
had prepared was too complex, too formal and dry
-
perhaps we could have worked only with historically ‘accurate’
text and asked the participants to modify that
-
a structure or framework to guide the participants in to ways of
engaging with the place is important
-
the structure needs to envision possibilities for how it might
facilitate imagination and creative use by participants
-
the structure needs to pre-empt / forsee, possible ways in which it
might disadvantage, oppress or exclude participants (see
'responsiveness' in Joan Tronto's 'Ethics of Care')
-
whilst it is possible to theorise resistive spatial practices in
advance, these cannot be implimented as closed structures to 'fill
in', only as cues for improvised 'performances'
-
participants need a key or way in to caring about / for spaces, in
order to 'reproduce' them through practice
-
it is not possible to demand people to be imaginative and to 'dwell'
in a place - the imagination requires 'tools'
-
in order to see through others eyes, it is first necessary to
identify with 'the other' - participants and janitor were both 'the
other' at Bournemouth Natural Science Society
-
six different locations to cover in one walking session was too many and
(still) question:
-
how can we successfully create a situation where historical
narratives and personal stories are woven together to form rich
multi-layered experiences that can be termed as being ‘authentic’?
