The city’s brightest light
What is the role of walking in unfolding the spatial narrative of a place?
The most surreal experience of my life, getting closer step by step to the holy land of Football, the tension as I walk towards the stadium gives me chills and every other part of the city seems to have quite down as a form of respect for the passionate Football fans united together in one place.
Upon entering the stadiums proximity, the atmosphere took a major turn, it felt more than just a day of watching professional athletes do their job for fans entertainment, but more so a responsibility for the spectators to push the professional athletes into defeating the opposite team, however everyone around me is very optimistic about what the day has to offer. I walked through the long corridors of the Old Trafford stadium and I'm greeted by massive shiny trophy cabinets and pictures of Manchester United's successful history, before a magical transition from a dim corridor to a blindingly lit up Football pitch.
Whilst I look around to find my seat I can hear all types of conversations from all kinds of different languages, some are talking about the match, and some conversations have nothing to do with Football at all.
As I continue to manoeuvre past people to get to my seating area I can smell the hot food and drinks sold all over the ground, which was well received by the fans.
The game finished and the local team did not live up to their fans expectations, the fans no longer have the buzz they had before the match started, the excitement has diminished and is instead turned into disappointment, every person I come across on my way out of the stadium is either quite or arguing with others about the game, no longer do I hear people having conversations about anything but their teams disappointing performance, as for me, I was simply too astound by the whole experience, the amount of different emotions I went through in one journey and in one walk.
Feeling comfortable and safe is everyone's main priority in every aspect of the everyday life, but comfort zones aren't always obtained within a silent and private place, comfort zones come in many unexpected ways, for every person comfort zones mean something different, usually for me, I feel more comfortable by myself in an isolated space, however, when it comes to public places, being on my own makes me uncomfortable unless I am part of a group or around people who are on the same wavelength as me, this phenomenon is the same for everyone, it means if I am in an isolated space, I am more comfortable being quiet and making minimal noise, on the other hand, if I'm in a public place explporing the space with multiple people, I feel comfortable solely because I have other people’s company, this could be due to the space being too large or too public, however once I have lost the convenience of having company, the sense of security will quickly vanish, due to the fact that I haven’t fully explored a space and understood its narrative, this is especially relevant whilst being in the stadium with a group of fans, it was us uniting together to support a team, I felt safe and in a social comfort zone, so much so that I could confidently shout as loud as I would have liked
simply because there's so many people around me constantly doing the same thing, in fact by doing so I felt like I was more respected because I am showing passion, as a result of this I don't feel like I am out of place and uncomfortable, screaming and shouting in a place where there isn't much noise is something that one will rarely do because no one chooses to go out of their comfort zone just to stand out, rather they prefer to be silent when they are alone and much louder in groups of people.
The idea of being confident in groups is explored by Francis Alÿs through the project “El Gringo” (Alÿs, 2003), on it, Francis shows the viewer how a herd of dogs are protecting their masters house from an intruder, showing the dogs uniting together to protect the masters house from the protagonist, the same principle of consolidation has shed light to a historical regulation of intersubjective expressions, for example my experience in the stadium as all the fans became one voice to march on the athletes, it was simply a natural progression of the day, the volume within the fans increased as the tempo of the match raised.
On the other hand, the Very Important Person (VIP) section of the stadium kept their cool as the story of the game unfolded, for them, this event is more of an opportunity than entertainment, I can't help but think that a celebrity will attend the Football match for the sole purpose of watching men chase a ball around the pitch for two hours, or if they are as passionate as the fans about a specific team, there must be another purpose for them to take time and attend the sporting event, like meeting another celebrity, creating early conversations about future collaborations. “The rich grow richer and the poor get poorer through the egalitarianism of exchange.” (Harvey, 2003, P.939). Unlike normal fans, they simply cannot act rationally around other higher-class business men or women, but they are all still in the same social comfort zone within the same space as an average fan, however instead of normal fans they use the space for bigger purposes like business opportunities.
Comfort zones can be created in different ways by different groups of people in a place, we are all influenced differently by the overall context of a place in which we operate, however, different people from a different social class get influenced differently with the context.
Social structure is a very big part of the city life, in fact, social structures are the balance of a city's narrative, whether it’s between a direct interaction from a higher class to a lower class, or an indirect coming together in one space like walking past each other in the stadiums corridors and walk ways, mesmerised by the narrative of the place as they unfold the history that has made the Old Trafford stadium what it is today, before sitting in their assigned seats, I like to think of it as a dog and its owner, a dog compared to an average human being is much more unintelligent, and they can't solve problems the way humans do, thus doing it their own way, however, both a dog and a human rely on one another under the space they operate within, even though what we see is completely different to what an animal sees, it all balances out when it's looked at from the bigger context, this man made city is created to be lived in by humans, and dogs have simply adapted to live in the man-made city. “If the city is the world which man created, it is the world in which he is condemned to live.” (Harvey, 2003, P.939).
As I wandered around the stadium trying to gain a broader context of the space, I saw a group of fans in the disabled section, I saw people in wheelchairs and some holding white canes, indicating they are legally blind, immediately I started to wonder, how does a blind man understand the narrative of the space, especially before entering the pitch side, when the fans have to walk through different corridors that are filled with trophy cabinets and pictures of the clubs long and successful history, how does he understand the place, how does he unfold the layers within the space, what is his entertainment if he can't see the athletes play the sport, then the answers came to me, unfolding the narrative of a space is much, much more than what we see, a dog sees black and white, yet to him that's how life is, life is beautiful in his way and his perspective just as it is for me being able to see colour, for a blind person, the idea of walking and interacting with the
space, the atmosphere, using his five senses to grasp the narrative of the space and mentally understanding it, is the same as me being able to watch the football match as it is for him experiencing the event his own way, on the reading Relational Aesthetics by Nicolas Bourriaud, he goes on to write about Sophie Calle’s works, one of which consisted of asking blind people how they define beauty. (Bishop, 2006, P.163.)
The whole idea of humans being superior to dogs is similar to the city's social structure and the way government has the first say in terms of the city's algorithm, when I take my dog out for a walk, I'm dictating how his day is going to be like, from stepping outside and picking a route, to the time spent leaving a place for another place and back, I choose where to take him and what public domains is he allowed to access, however, my dog will not realise how controlled his walk is as he is trying to explore the space, he is simply happy to be walking freely, or at least what he interprets it as freedom, same can be said about the fans in the stadium, the working class spend money to attend the footballing event almost every week, because these events have been enjoyed among them for decades, in this case the government being the human and the dog being us, the government decides that commercialising Football, which is a sport, can be very profitable, so by building a place that gathers Football fans or anyone willing to pay for tickets in one place, entertaining them for a few hours, whilst making huge profit from all the individual ticket holders, whether they only pay for tickets or if they then go on to buy food or shop at the Football clubs store, this is all something that has been planned and controlled by the people above, yet the fans think this is up to them, in fact, many of them have been nurtured into religiously supporting a Football club, thus having to attend every game like it is second nature, even though at some point it must have been confusing for them as to why they have to pay to watch men chase a ball around when they can do the same spatial practice themselves within a place that they created. There is a sense of inequality and unfairness when you think the higher class are in many cases invited to attend these events for free, because of the fact that their presence is a good look for the club, especially as the cameras turn onto them and people being able to see them through TV screens, but a middle-class man who has been supporting his club for years doesn't get the praise he deserves. These are the ideas I collected whilst reading Edward Soja’s Seeking, “We hear more and more about the need for environmental justice, justice for workers, for youth, for all who feel the negative effects of social and spatial discrimination based on race, class and many other axes of unacceptable inequality.” (Soja, 2010, P.8).
Conclusion:
Ultimately it is about who has the right to the city, “Force decides” Says Marx. (Harvey, 2003, P.939), it is the government that has the final say in creating every place, but it is up to the people in the city that use the space to create the narrative. The role of walking in my case is realising the differences that exist in a space from higher class to lower class, from people with disabilities to people with no disabilities, how everyone within the space takes something different out of the place, as well as the actual use of space in the stadium, how walking through the corridors showcase the history of the club and the importance of the place within the city, and by walking among fans I got a sense of unity from strangers who have the same preference as me. The role of walking is translating the meaning of a place and understanding its narrative through spatial practice.