[Rearranged creative text. For contextual background, see original essay of the same name, Paters04d and online documentation related to the process of textual construction]

Orientation in the field.

.

Fuzz your vision

so that you are focusing on what you can hear

not only now,

but what happened

a moment,

a minute,

an afternoon,

a year, decades before.

.

As individuals and as small groups.

.

Leaning,

moving,

sitting,

pausing,

tracing, and questioning

are more or less

unusual behaviours.

Some of these actions are negotiated with security guards,

the station manager,

travellers,

other on-lookers,

and those doing similar things.

Finding the right communication channels.

Contact microphones

applied to social relations are revealing

when you sit still,

fall asleep,

wander round,

draw with chalk

and paint your face,

or indeed,

when you consult library books.

.

Different levels of engagement.

.

All have different authoritative bodies,

purposes,

contexts,

histories,

and passageways which spread

offering multi-dimensional directions.

Location overlaying location overlaying location

- and that is just indoors.

Focus upon what lies beneath the surface,

not spread around,

lost in the passing crowd

scattered with footsteps, rail timetables, and your movement

onto the next part of your journey.

.

Stop the process in motion.

.

Identify the node of transition

and within a certain time period

(this might have to be negotiated):

what is the deposition?

Close to the ground scratches,

scrapes and heels on the stone floor.

You capture photographs of the situation

and collect debris.

You write notes about the fragments,

before wrapping them up and placing them in plastic zip-lock bags.

These items are part of the flow and agency that is around -

traces of movement,

transaction and consumption.

.

And for a moment, stop yourself in motion.

.

What are you doing?

How do you feel?

What do you remember from another time and place?

Why are you going?

Ask these questions without spinning round.

Listen inside to your feelings

and then you can make a map.

Sit calmly,

feel comfortable with yourself being there,

comfortable with others around you too.

.

You are not the first, you know

.

to take a deep breath at that spot,

recognising an historical event.

Consider the continuity of a sound which has existed

over and over.

Combine it with what you experience now.

Facts in historical journals and storyteller's words

spoken-out-loud

can be compared.

If you are aware of what is there,

events collapse through time.

.

Occasionally special events collapse through cultural space.

.

And for the first time

a new language is spoken in public announcement.

Should you mind who are listening?

No,

it can point at least a few in fresh directions

along their journey,

loosening social boundaries that exist

harder than tape on the floor.

You look for common pathways to co-inhabiting spaces.

You sit down on the floor with the others,

claiming some space that did not have description before

(these descriptions can of course be used to confuse).

.

Precise but ephemeral things.

.

You make a mark that does not exist now.

You attract attention in your action,

observed for a period of time,

and the shadow

and the observer is gone with their own

memory of the occasion.

You place texts in a throw-away place,

a moment

quickly passed through to encourage reflection.

In everyday life

philosophical placards are removed.

Walking, they say, helps you think.

You wish for an enrichment of human emotion,

lasting impressions

and connections.

.

I think about you all the time.

.

.