Bevis Fenner & Noriko Suzuki-Bosco for TANTEO 2015 - What happens when you see a place through someone else’s eyes?

   

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.

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’?