An Ethnography of Urban Exploration : Unpacking Heterotopic Social Space [1st ed.] 9783030562502, 9783030562519

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 3-17
Some Reflections on the Existing Literature (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 19-51
Constructing a Critical Lens (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 53-74
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
Seeking Spaces of Compensation in Modernity’s Dark Side (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 77-108
Finding a Way in the Garden of Forked Paths: The Ontological Hybrids Extraordinaire (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 109-126
Front Matter ....Pages 127-127
The Cognitive Spacing of WildBoyz: On Thinking Skholērly (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 129-151
Aesthetic Social Spacing: Altogether Now with the Khôrasters (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 153-169
Being with and Being for: Moral Social Spacing in Action (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 171-191
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
Practised Life Strategies of WildBoyz (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 195-255
Front Matter ....Pages 5-5
No End in Sight (Kevin P. Bingham)....Pages 259-273
Back Matter ....Pages 275-280

Citation preview

LEISURE STUDIES IN A GLOBAL ERA

An Ethnography of Urban Exploration Unpacking Heterotopic Social Space Kevin P. Bingham

Leisure Studies in a Global Era

Series Editors Karl Spracklen Leeds Beckett University Leeds, UK Karen Fox University of Alberta Edmonton, AB, Canada

In this book series, we defend leisure as a meaningful, theoretical, framing concept; and critical studies of leisure as a worthwhile intellectual and pedagogical activity. This is what makes this book series distinctive: we want to enhance the discipline of leisure studies and open it up to a richer range of ideas; and, conversely, we want sociology, cultural geographies and other social sciences and humanities to open up to engaging with critical and rigorous arguments from leisure studies. Getting beyond concerns about the grand project of leisure, we will use the series to demonstrate that leisure theory is central to understanding wider debates about identity, postmodernity and globalisation in contemporary societies across the world. The series combines the search for local, qualitatively rich accounts of everyday leisure with the international reach of debates in politics, leisure and social and cultural theory. In doing this, we will show that critical studies of leisure can and should continue to play a central role in understanding society. The scope will be global, striving to be truly international and truly diverse in the range of authors and topics. Editorial Board John Connell, Professor of Geography, University of Sydney, USA Yoshitaka Mori, Associate Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan Smitha Radhakrishnan, Assistant Professor, Wellesley College, USA Diane M. Samdahl, Professor of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Georgia, USA Chiung-Tzu Lucetta Tsai, Associate Professor, National Taipei University, Taiwan Walter van Beek, Professor of Anthropology and Religion, Tilburg University, The Netherlands Sharon D. Welch, Professor of Religion and Society, Meadville Theological School, Chicago, USA Leslie Witz, Professor of History, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14823

Kevin P. Bingham

An Ethnography of Urban Exploration Unpacking Heterotopic Social Space

Kevin P. Bingham Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield, UK

Leisure Studies in a Global Era ISBN 978-3-030-56250-2 ISBN 978-3-030-56251-9 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © Visions of America, LLC/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

In memory of Keith Bingham, the problem-solver. Exemplo ducemus.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to a great teacher and mentor, Professor Tony Blackshaw. It was nothing less than an honour to have been a student under your supervision. Without your guidance and support over the years, this book would not have been possible. A special thank you goes to my wife, Jenny Bingham. This project has been a long one and yet you have constantly stuck by me and provided support from beginning to finish. I would also like to thank my good friend, Ford Mayhem. Through thick and thin you have always been there, every step of the way. May the good times continue for many years to come. Finally, I would like to acknowledge ‘the Boyz’. Obviously, without you all this study would not have been possible. Thank you, each of you, for allowing me to write about your lives and for investing so much into this project.

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Contents

Part I

Setting the Scene

1

In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary Why a Book on Urban Exploration as Heterotopia? A Definition of Heterotopic Social Space Conceptualising the Non-conceptual Outline of the Book References

3 4 6 10 12 15

2

Some Reflections on the Existing Literature Introduction Aestheticising Decay Evading the Spectacle Gender Trouble Tightly Fractured ‘Communities’ Consumers in Disguise The Performativity of Urban Exploration

19 19 20 23 27 30 34 40

ix

x

3

Contents

Heterotopia Redux Summary References

44 46 47

Constructing a Critical Lens Introduction Metaphysical Orientations The Research Design On Being an Insider Introducing WildBoyz Raising Ethical Issues and Making Moral Choices Summary References

53 53 55 57 60 62 68 71 72

Part II 4

5

Exploring the Interregnum

Seeking Spaces of Compensation in Modernity’s Dark Side Introduction The Utopian Dream Rethinking the Nightmare of Disenchantment Unpacking the Twenty-First-Century Interregnum Finding Enchantment in Disenchantment: Taking the Spillway Heterotopic Social Space An Interim Summary References Finding a Way in the Garden of Forked Paths: The Ontological Hybrids Extraordinaire Introduction Obligation and Responsibility: Skhol¯ers Unite The ‘Art of Living’ Performatively: The Realm of the Khôraster

77 77 81 89 91 94 98 104 106 109 109 111 115

Contents

‘Of Other Spaces’: The Non-absolutes Summary References Part III 6

7

8

xi

120 124 125

Unpacking Heterotopic Social Space

The Cognitive Spacing of WildBoyz: On Thinking Skhol¯erly Introduction Skiing in the Interregnum Cognitive Spacing in Heterotopia: The WildBoyz Way Traitors and Ominous Strangers: Overcoming the Arcane ‘Other’ ‘The Fr3e Roamer Cunts’ Heterotopic Space and Its Politics of ‘Otherness’ References

129 129 132 135 140 141 143 150

Aesthetic Social Spacing: Altogether Now with the Khôrasters Introduction Admission to the Attractions of the Underground The Playful Ingeniousness of Urban Exploration Chaos: On Exploiting the ‘Telecity’ The Ephemeral Ecstasy of Aesthetic Space References

153 153 154 157 161 165 168

Being with and Being for: Moral Social Spacing in Action Introduction A Night on the Town On Free Floating Responsibility Re-examining the Moral Party Another Interim Summary References

171 171 173 178 183 188 190

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Contents

Part IV 9

Heterotopic Ways of Being

Practised Life Strategies of WildBoyz Introduction Schizophrenia: A Polymorphic Life Strategy Seeking the Craic: A Nostalgic Life Strategy The Differend and the Sublime: A Parasitical Life Strategy Living in a ‘Viewer Society’: The Life Strategy for Media Whores References

Part V

195 195 198 207 222 238 252

Restorative Dreams and Potential Futures

10 No End in Sight Some New Research Directions Re-Imagining Urban Exploration The Ongoing Myth References

259 261 263 267 272

Index

275

List of Figures

Fig. 9.1 Fig. 9.2 Fig. 9.3 Fig. 9.4 Fig. 9.5 Fig. 10.1

Gazing at the North Sea Producer Trying to capture the moment Mayhem posing in his WildBoyz t-shirt, near Bridge House Hotel Box posing inside a drain, having adjusted the light to make himself appear mysterious and furtive MKD revealing his ‘deviant’ flair inside an abandoned farmhouse Newton Aycliffe Clock Tower

229 232 247 248 249 271

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Part I Setting the Scene

1 In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary

This book provides a critical investigation, and a reflection on my part, of a precarious world that is likely to appear disturbing and confounding from the outside because it is legitimated by its own logic and dynamics. What I am talking about here is the idea of a heterotopia, and the heterotopia I have in mind is a place where the stench of decay, the feel of dust and the sounds of foetid dripping water provides not only purpose but a sense of home for a group of likeminded individuals. In other words, the world I am referring to is rooted in a form of leisure known as urban exploration. It is with this in mind that the reader is invited along on a journey to witness the unpacking of a very special kind of social space that has found its footing somewhere between the real and the imaginary. Of course, some aspects of it will no doubt seem uncanny or not quite right, but the reader will be encouraged to imagine and appreciate the quixotic qualities of this world. As I will argue, this is a world that is ontologically dependent on the reader’s preparedness to engage with its discourse by turning common-sense ideas upside down. It is also dependent on being willing to listen to what I have to say, if only for a short while, as I re-imagine the ways in which risk, freedom, morality and passion might be interpreted. © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_1

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Why a Book on Urban Exploration as Heterotopia? Urban exploration, which is also commonly referred to as ‘urbex’, is the term used to describe the activity of exploring human-made structures and environments in the twenty-first century. Although the name is relatively contemporaneous, having become popularised in the early 2000s, the activity itself is not a new phenomenon. In fact, examples of human curiosity about human-made places that somehow became lost or unknown stretch as far back as many centuries ago (Dobraszczyk 2017). Nonetheless, in present modernity the practice, or art as it is sometimes referred to, has transformed into a form of leisure that is practised globally. At a basic level, urban exploration is all about abandoned buildings or ruins that are heavily vandalised and/or damaged by natural decay. Anyone with a broader knowledge and understanding of urban exploration, however, knows that it can in fact be broken down into a number of unique sub-categories. The classifications include, but are not limited to, ‘derping’ (exploring ordinary abandoned sites), ‘rooftopping’ (ascending to the top of buildings or other high structures), ‘draining/urban spelunking’ (navigating storm drains and sewers), ‘live sites’ (active or in use buildings) and ‘epics’ (sites that are relatively pristine and/or rarer than the average urbex). It is this all-encompassing interpretation of urban exploration that has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent years. Generally speaking, the way urban exploration has been examined in the current literature is in accordance with several popular themes. I will peel back the layers and unpack these themes in much greater depth in the next chapter, but for now the reader should know they include: the idea that ‘aesthetics of decay’ provides tactile and imaginative encounters with the urban environment (Edensor 2005; DeSilvey 2017); the Situationist idea that urban exploration can be viewed as a form of psychogeographical experimentation (Pinder 2005; Mould 2015); the idea that urban exploration provides the ground under which the conditions of community can be realised (Garrett 2013; Bennett 2011); the

1 In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary

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understanding that urban exploration is a highly masculinised, misogynistic form of leisure that fails to take into account the multiplicity of different bodies that can take part (Mott and Roberts 2014; Garrett and Hawkins 2014); and, the idea that urban exploration is a deviant and rebellious form of resistance that challenges the panoptic surveillance strategies that seem to control freedom and autonomy in the twenty-first century (Garrett 2013; Mould 2015). There is a crucial problem, however, with many of the abovementioned interpretations and this lies with the suggestion that they often fail to fully take into account the ‘liquid’ modern landscape in which urban exploration takes place. As key scholars such as Zygmunt Bauman (2000), Ágnes Heller (1999) and Peter Sloterdijk (2013) have argued, modern life has become much more contingent and ambivalent, and this means our ways of thinking about modernity must adapt so that we can try to understand the fluid possibilities of our world. In other words, too many scholars are recycling ‘zombie concepts’, to borrow Ulrich Beck’s (2002) apt term, which are no longer very relevant for understanding present modernity. That is to say, there is seems to be some disparity between academic perceptions of urban exploration and what actually goes on in reality. In view of this, the central aim of this study has been to respond to the limits of existing studies of urban exploration by examining the pursuit in a different way. To achieve this task, this book suggests an alternative theoretical way of understanding the phenomenon, one that takes into account the people, the ubiquitous influence of consumer capitalism and the wider social, economic and political context in which urban exploration takes place. One of the essential things that is arguably overlooked in extant urban exploration literature is the issue that conjunctural change has caused ideas of belonging, identity and community to become far more precarious, insecure and dislocated (Bordoni 2016). What this means is that these things no longer offer the respite and cordiality they once did. Therefore, taking as its starting point Peter Borsay’s (2006) argument that leisure in the twenty-first century often seems to take place in ‘antistructural’, liminal places, where people form neo-tribal collectives as they try to find temporary relief, this book begins by acknowledging that a different sociology is needed to encapsulate and understand the

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identities and so-called ‘communities’ of urban explorers. The different sociology I am advocating draws on Michel Foucault’s (1984) concept of heterotopia because it can be used to explore the idea that people are able to create spaces of compensation for themselves where they can, for a short time, express certain ‘deviant’ interests and performative identities alongside likeminded others. In brief, then, what this book unpacks is what I have referred to as heterotopic social space. This is my way of exploring urban exploration differently, and it is against this background that three key objectives have been attended to. First, this book explores heterotopic social space generally through a leisure studies framework and specifically through Blackshaw’s (2017) devotional leisure thesis. Secondly, it identifies and explains how a group of urban explorers understand and control their heterotopic social space. And finally, it frames the central interpenetrating and intertwining life strategies that are adopted by urban explorers.

A Definition of Heterotopic Social Space An Ethnography of Urban Exploration offers an interpretation of an inimitable leisure world—that of a group of urban explorers who call themselves WildBoyz. It involves unpacking their space of compensation in a way that enables the reader to sense how WildBoyz actually experience their heterotopic social space by providing access to the ways in which they feel, think and behave. However, the book does more than this because it also recognises the value of my role as an urban explorer turned researcher and my involvement in this world. In other words, this book follows Anthony Giddens’s (1982) idea of the double hermeneutic which means it seeks to collapse the dichotomy between what is really going on in the world, as perceived by ‘lay actors’, and what the social sciences say is happening by understanding and explaining social action with abstract theories and technical terminology. As my definition of heterotopia is disclosed it will hopefully become clear why this position is an essential one, and why the heterotopic social space of WildBoyz could not have been explored as effectively in any other way.

1 In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary

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Keeping that last point in mind, my definition of heterotopia is built on the concept outlined in Foucault’s paper Of Other Spaces and therefore denotes a ‘place of otherness’. Analogous to Foucault (1984), this book suggests that heterotopia is best defined if it is juxtaposed with the idea of utopia (that word used to describe paradisiacal places or spaces that have been wholly imagined). In contrast, then, heterotopia might be referred to as a ‘fallen paradise’ that is ‘decentred’, ‘found in no place in particular’ and ‘associated with deviance’ (Blackshaw 2010: 137). Heterotopias, in other words, are the opposite of anything utopian. They are real compensatory places or spaces ‘without geographical markers’ and they can be found in all cultures and societies (Foucault 1984: 5). In this regard, my definition of heterotopia begins with the notion that it is a type of ‘imaginary community’ that lies outside all other rational places in a culture or society while also being located in culture and society. The second crucial feature of my definition is that heterotopias are collective (and therefore social) spaces where likeminded individuals come together to engage in forms of leisure, especially those that are perhaps less acceptable or forbidden in the everyday world. In this sense, urban exploration is a prime example. However, what my definition also takes into consideration is the fact that while heterotopias are invariably social, they also cater to the needs of individuals because people are able to find their own personal sense of meaning in heterotopia. As Foucault (1984) points out, heterotopias challenge the hegemony of a single space as they can juxtapose several spaces that are perhaps incompatible and contradictory in one single real space. The third important component of my definition of heterotopia, as the reader might already have guessed, is that they tend to be ‘deviant’ (Foucault 1984). However, in reality their inspiration springs from the performativity of the individuals involved rather than anything more serious. What this suggests is that heterotopias are spaces of intense consumption that involve performances which are so incredibly powerful and compelling individuals end up being totally consumed by the event (Blackshaw 2017). Heterotopias, therefore, are interpreted in this book as arenas of Dionysian performativity that emanate difference and, on the face of it, allow for the exhibition of behaviours that seem more dangerous, grotesque and wild.

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The fourth point to consider is that heterotopias are viewed throughout this book as being episodic . They are experienced as slices of time which means they belong to the ‘time of possibilities’ rather than the ‘time of necessity’ (Bauman 2007: 33). That is to say, heterotopias begin to function when people arrive at a break in traditional time, but it is inevitable that everyone will later return to the linear trajectory of their lives once a heterotopia has run its course (Foucault 1984). The fifth feature of my definition involves the suggestion that heterotopias exclude certain ‘Others’ by restricting who can enter and who cannot (Foucault 1984). The point of excluding ‘Others’ is to isolate and protect heterotopic social spaces against threatening external influences that do not belong. In turn, this helps to preserve the intrinsic magic of the collective and ensure its enchantment survives every time it is brought to life. What this means is that people must have certain ‘credentials’ and be authorised to join heterotopic social spaces. Nevertheless, it is not enough to possess the necessary knowledge, skills and understanding; people must believe in the heterotopia sincerely and authentically to be a genuine part of it (Blackshaw 2017). It is these key principles then that not only form my definition of heterotopia, they also provide the foundation for the rest of the book. However, even with this thumbnail sketch of my definition in place, I was conscious that defining heterotopia thoroughly and unambiguously still required something else. In other words, I had a feeling that something important was conspicuously missing. In view of this, and the fact urban exploration is unequivocally a form of leisure, I decided to explore the additional idea that it is a form of ‘devotional leisure’ (Blackshaw 2017). In this way, this book supports the suggestion that the heterotopias urban explorers create for themselves are still of this world, but that they are situated in khôra (ibid.). As Jacques Derrida (1995) argues, khôra can be loosely translated to mean ‘anything goes’ and a place for all things that are ‘hardly real’ and ‘always on the move’ (Blackshaw 2017: 140). What this means vis-à-vis my definition of heterotopia is that finding it is to discover what it means to feel emancipated and free of constraints normally encountered in day-to-day life. In other words, heterotopia signifies a temporary stopping place for individuals to perform and parade identities that do not have a place in

1 In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary

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the everyday world. In short, it is about theatricality, performativity and finding alternative ontological understandings of the world. However, and this last observation notwithstanding, there is more to say about urban exploration being a form of ‘devotional leisure’ because this kind of leisure has another side to it. What I mean is that heterotopias created by people such as urban explorers also provide the temporary comfort of a home. As Blackshaw (2017) suggests, this is space shared and invented by likeminded others that provides those warm, cosy feelings of meaning and purpose that seem to be disappearing in present-day societies. Yet, what is being referred to here is not a ‘community’ in the traditional sense, it is purely a sense of belonging and safety that has been made real by the careful craftmanship contributions that have gone into creating it. What this indicates is that there is a precarious kind of order to heterotopias that feels community-like and as though it should be safeguarded, but in the same breath it also defies rationality and reason because it is always short-lived. What all of this tells us is that heterotopic social space is all about the art of living , and how people make their own identities and homes in the world (Blackshaw 2017). To summarise it now, the definition I have given to heterotopia is that it is a temporary home for individuals who have great interest in the way and flair in which they live their leisure lives. That is to say, heterotopia involves ‘devotional leisure’ and so it not only encapsulates what it means to feel truly alive, it is also about the coming together of drifting performers who are united in common spirit (ibid.). In this regard, to ensure it is inimitable and dissimilar from established traditions, heterotopia represents a completely different type of cognitive, aesthetic and moral space where alternative life strategies (ways of living) are employed. It is this prolonged definition of heterotopia, then, that has allowed me to establish a starting point from which we can go on to understand urban exploration and its ‘communities’ in much greater depth than they have previously been examined.

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Conceptualising the Non-conceptual Before I go on to give a chapter-by-chapter rundown of the book’s key arguments and content, I have included a short section that addresses how the idea of heterotopia might be viewed as a problematic concept by some critics. By attending to these issues, it is hoped critics will be more open to what I have to say. The first issue with the concept of heterotopia is that it could be perceived as being an ambivalent term. As Deaene and de Cauter (2008) point out, there were only ever two literary references to heterotopia in Foucault’s work (see Order of Things and Of Other Spaces) which means it might be argued that the original idea lacks definition and is not adequately contextualised.1 However, this does not mean many attempts have not been made to clarify and improve the concept over the years. In fact, it has been applied to many different settings and disciplinary fields, especially ones centred around abnormal forms of leisure that even Foucault himself could not possibly have foreseen (for example: Stone 2013; Persson and Richards 2008; McNamee 2000). Yet, when it comes to its application vis-à-vis urban exploration and its usefulness for understanding the phenomenon, there is a conspicuous lack of research. What this means is that there is a gap in knowledge waiting to be tackled, and some scope to further develop Foucault’s original concept. Another problem with Foucault’s original concept is highlighted in a chapter by Genocchio. Here it is argued that identifying certain spaces as heterotopias is a self-refuting task because the concept depends upon the careful preservation of its incommensurable and undefinable character (Genocchio 1995). For Genocchio, this is how the concept gains its persuasive power. He goes on to suggest that attempts to locate and draw attention to heterotopias are to make the space just like any other. That is to say, any space that is located and defined becomes no different to every other space that has been located and defined and this makes the concept seem meaningless to some degree. As Genocchio points out,

1 It

is of course important to note that this is the point of heterotopia. Heterotopic spaces are situated outside the realm of rational discourse.

1 In Between the Everyday and the Imaginary

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in the end we are left facing the question, ‘what cannot be designated a heterotopia[?]’ (1995: 39). In response to Genocchio’s critique, however, what is being argued in this book is that the only way of truly knowing and understanding the intricate workings of a heterotopia is to be part of it. This does not mean that this book and other publications like it are meaningless. On the contrary, readers are only ever presented with a snapshot of a world that is under investigation which means their insight is always partial, incomplete and liable to change over time. Social spaces are after all never stable, they are constantly forced to adapt and evolve in line with modernity (Bauman 2000). What this means is that no heterotopia can ever be completely and accurately represented. All scholars can do is bestow the concept with a well-founded definition that bears its foundations in the here and now. Another essential point that is overlooked by Genocchio (1995) is that heterotopic social spaces are performative and often invented with the idea of being noticed in mind (Blackshaw 2017). This is a theme that will be explored in more depth later in the book, but for now it is important to emphasise the point that trying to bring heterotopia to public attention does not automatically make that space like every other. Incommensurability is not about trying to remain secretive and hidden from the public gaze, in present modernity it is about flaunting how something is incommensurable that matters. Whether this means anything can become heterotopic does not matter, heterotopia is heterotopia all the same. Another problem concerning the application of Foucault’s (1984) concept of heterotopia can be found in the way it has been misrepresented. For instance, in their paper that links the concept of heterotopia to urban exploration, Kindynis and Garrett (2015) make the argument that heterotopia is located inside a tangible and geographical place. They use the abandoned Maze Prison in Northern Ireland as an example. Yet, as Foucault (1984) himself pointed out when he moved the concept away from the heterotopic character of language, heterotopia is about certain kinds of social spaces whose shared meaning unsettles the rationality and conventionality of sites located in the everyday world. In other words, what is often misunderstood is that heterotopia is specifically a social phenomenon; it is all about essential others, sets of relations and

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how their performativity binds them together. As Hetherington (1997) reminds us, there is far more to any heterotopia than the romantic notion of space that seems dark and unusual. Heterotopias owe their existence to human beings and they cannot help but be built around relationships and techniques of control (ibid.). One last issue with the concept of heterotopia, as Palladino and Miller (2016) have pointed out, is that they are sometimes understood as being in opposition to, or as lying somewhere beyond, the space of the everyday world. That is to say, there are some scholars who have interpreted Foucault’s (1984) ‘ship of fools’ metaphor to be the vessel that takes people on a liminal journey into newfound waters, where the threshold between reason and madness (that other word for difference and strangeness) is transcended. The obvious problem with this argument, however, is that ideas of madness have been invented according to everyday logic and so they cannot help but be part of the very same world. It is with this in mind that Palladino and Miller suggest that heterotopias ‘remain intimately involved with the rest of the world, even as they suspend its regulations and affects’ and help people to find new ways of finding meaning and belonging (2016: 4).

Outline of the Book Now that I have attended to some of the key issues that may have been raised apropos this book’s theoretical direction, and explained how I have perceived and used the concept of heterotopia, it is time for me to provide an outline of the chapters that follow. To begin the task of achieving my overarching aim, which to remind the reader was to respond to the limits of existing studies of urban exploration and frame this core concern with a rigorous application and consideration of Foucault’s (1984) heterotopia, Chapter 2 unpacks some of the key literature that has examined the phenomenon. As the reader will see, I have argued that the relatively small body of research that exists is limited because it has not been explored using a leisure studies framework and because it tends to be dominated by the same recurring themes. What I also argue is that a number of the theoretical concepts

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which have been applied are becoming outdated as modernity continues to evolve and change. The central argument I develop in this chapter is that a more suitable and improved way of investigating urban exploration and its ‘communities’ is required, one that considers the wider social, cultural and political context in which the activity takes place. With this in mind, it is by drawing on the arguments developed in the first part of the chapter that the latter section of the chapter begins the task of reigning back in on the concept of heterotopia. It does this by critiquing how it has already been used to examine urban exploration. In other words, the discussion develops into a preliminary insight of the world the reader is about to enter and it offers a better sense of direction as to how the problem of unpacking the complex world of a group of urban explorers has been approached. However, before my discussion about heterotopic social space has been allowed to unfold I have decided to direct the reader to a chapter outlining the methodological dimensions of this study, so it is made clear how my research was conducted. Hence, Chapter 3 provides the ontological and epistemological foundations of the book. Thereafter, the chapter goes on to discuss the ethnographic research design which makes use of the combined methods of hermeneutic sociology and sociological hermeneutics (Bauman 1992). The latter part of the chapter is used to offer my thoughts about insider research and ethics, but it also serves as an important introduction to the urban explorers I investigated. In Chapter 4 I start to attend to the first of my objectives by providing a detailed interpretation of present modernity. This is to set the scene for the rest of the book as this is the world in which my ‘research participants’ find themselves. The discussion begins by looking at the idea of utopianism which was at the heart of the modern project, before it goes on to argue that utopian goals are more unachievable than ever now we have entered a period of interregnum that seems to instil a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. Of course, this may seem as though I have taken a very dismal approach to exploring urban exploration, but, as the reader will see, I go on to develop this argument and this enables me to suggest that there are heterotopic spaces of compensation that people can turn to. As I have argued, this is an alternative vision of ‘community’ and it

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satisfies cravings for meaning and belonging while also offering something that is intense and spectacular. With this in mind, I continue by introducing the reader to the basic rules and features of the particular heterotopia I have chosen to analyse. Chapter 5 carries on by laying out the leisure studies framework that is at the heart of this book’s theoretical stance. As I have argued, urban exploration is a form of leisure that fits into the classification of ‘devotional leisure’ because there is a sense of duality involved. That is to say, urban exploration appears to entertain two essential desires as set out by Blackshaw (2017) in his innovative book, Re-imagining Leisure Studies. These include the desire to find belonging and the feeling of ‘collective destiny’, and the desire to seek ‘personal fulfilment’ by becoming performative and observable. After unpacking the two sides of ‘devotional leisure’ it will become clear how they work hand-in-hand to support the invention, magic and temporary survival of heterotopic social space. What I suggest is that the urban explorers I investigated have effectively managed to become true ‘artists of life’ as they have transformed themselves into khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire. To begin unpacking the heterotopia of WildBoyz and also attend to my second key objective, Chapters 6–8 explain how heterotopic social space is controlled. Having drawn on Bauman’s ‘complex interaction of three interwoven, yet distinct processes – those of cognitive, moral and aesthetic spacings’ (1993: 145), these three chapters reveal the effort that goes into not only inventing a space of compensation, but also the labour invested in keeping it alive long enough to feel the full force of its enchantment. With the intention that it builds on the discussion formed around controlling social space, Chapter 9 addresses my third key objective by framing some of the essential strategies WildBoyz adopt for living while they are engaged in their heterotopic social space. As I have argued, the interpenetrating and intertwining ‘life strategies’ reveal how individuals must act and behave, but also the tactics they must employ to keep their heterotopia feeling both comfortable and exciting. In other words, the reader will gain a comprehensive understanding of what goes on in a compensatory world where everyday rational life strategies do not work. To ensure each of the strategies has a sound theoretical basis, I have

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been careful to develop them in conjunction with important theories and concepts that are relevant to our period of interregnum. The ideas I draw on can be located across the writings of five eminent sociologists: Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Tony Blackshaw, Jean-François Lyotard and Zygmunt Bauman. In sticking with the method of sociological hermeneutics, the ideas of these scholars have been used to ensure my discussion of heterotopic social space remains faithful to an accurate interpretation of contemporary society and present modernity. Chapter 10 draws this book to a close. It does this by focusing on what has been accomplished in the study and by offering some conclusions. As the reader will see, this chapter summarises the research process I adopted, and it puts forward some suggestions for future research. It also revisits my key theoretical contributions to knowledge. The latter part of the chapter provides an overview of my interpretation of heterotopic social space and presents some important final remarks. Lastly, the book closes with a short episode that brings the story back to where it started: the very place where the heterotopia I have explored was originally conceived.

References Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (2007). Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, U. (2002). ‘Zombie Categories’: Interview with Ulrich Beck. In U. Beck & E. Beck-Gernsheim (Eds.), Individualisation. London: Sage. Bennett, L. (2011). Bunkerology—A Case Study in the Theory and Practice of Urban Exploration. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29, 421–434. Blackshaw, T. (2010). Key Concepts in Community Studies. London: Sage. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Bordoni, C. (2016). State of Fear in a Liquid World . London: Routledge. Borsay, P. (2006). A History of Leisure. Basingstoke: Hampshire.

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Deaene, M., & L. de Cauter. (2008). Heterotopia in a Postcivil Society. In M. Dehaene & L. de Cauter (Eds.), Heterotopia and the City (pp. 3–10). London: Routledge. Derrida, J. (1995). Khôra. In T. Dutoit (Ed.), On the Name. Stanford: Stanford University Press. DeSilvey, C. (2017). Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Dobraszczyk, P. (2017). The Dead City: Urban Ruins and the Spectacle of Decay. London: I. B. Tauris. Edensor, T. (2005). The Ghosts of Industrial Ruins: Ordering and Disordering Memory in Excessive Space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23, 829–849. Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1): 22–27. Garrett, B. (2013). Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City. London: Verso. Garrett, B., & Hawkins, H. (2014). And Now for Something Completely Different… Thinking Through Explorer Subject-Bodies: A Response to Mott and Roberts. Antipode [online]. Available at: http://radicalantipode. files.wordpress.com/2013/11/garrett-and-hawkins-response.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2020. Genocchio, B. (1995). Discourse, Discontinuity, Difference: The Question of ‘Other Spaces’. In S. Watson & K. Gibson (Eds.), Postmodern Cities and Spaces (pp. 35–46). Oxford: Blackwell. Giddens, A. (1982). Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory. Berkeley: University of California Press. Heller, A. (1999). A Theory of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Hetherington, K. (1997). The Badlands of Modernity: Heterotopia and Social Ordering. London: Routledge. Kindynis, T., & Garrett, B. (2015). Entering the Maze: Space, Time and Exclusion in an Abandoned Northern Ireland Prison. Crime Media Culture, 11(1), 5–20. McNamee, S. (2000). Foucault’s Heterotopia and Children’s Everyday Lives. Childhood, 7 (4), 479–492. Mott, C., & Roberts, S. (2014). Not Everyone Has (the) Balls: Urban Exploration and the Persistence of Masculinist Geography. Antipode, 46 (1), 229–245. Mould, O. (2015). Urban Subversion and the Creative City. Oxon: Routledge. Palladino, M., & Miller, J. (2016). Introduction. In J. Miller (Ed.), The Globalization of Space: Foucault and Heterotopia. Oxon: Routledge.

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Persson, A., & Richards, W. (2008). From Closet to Heterotopia: A Conceptual Exploration of Disclosure and Passing Among Heterosexuals Living with HIV. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 10 (1), 73–86. Pinder, D. (2005). Arts of Urban Exploration. Cultural Geographies, 12, 383– 411. Sloterdijk, P. (2013). You Must Change Your Life (W. Hoban, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity. Stone, P. (2013). Dark Tourism, Heterotopias and Post-apocalyptic Places: The Case of Chernobyl. In L. White & E. Frew (Eds.), Dark Tourism and Place Identity: Managing and Interpreting Dark Places (pp. 79–93). London: Routledge.

2 Some Reflections on the Existing Literature

Introduction In recent years interest in urban exploration has increased exponentially and there is now an ever-growing collection of practitioners and academics who have published books, articles, websites and photographic illustrations of their work. While it is undeniable that the websites and photographs are an integral part of urban exploration, due to restrictions on space the central aim of this chapter sets out to critically discuss only the growing body of literature that examines the phenomenon. To achieve the task of making a valuable contribution to the existing literature I begin by highlighting where gaps in knowledge emerge. The discussion that follows has evolved from the understanding that our contemporaneous social and cultural condition, which has been described by Zygmunt Bauman (2000) as ‘liquid’ modernity, or by Carlo Bordoni (2016) as a period of interregnum, is in a continual state of transformation. In brief, this way of thinking accepts that the world we find ourselves in is starkly different to the former producer society of ‘solid’ modernity because ‘liquid’ modernity is resolutely consumerist (Bauman 2000). What this chapter of the book sets out to reveal is © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_2

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that because some of the extant concepts, ideas and the like take on new meanings in present modernity there is scope to add to the literature, and plenty of room for further critical investigation. As Chris Rojek, an eminent scholar in the field of leisure studies, has argued in his book Decentring Leisure, to advance the study of forms of leisure such as urban exploration interpretations of and about it must endeavour to remain open to different ways of viewing the world. In this sense, this book responds to Rojek’s (1995) warning against research becoming dominated by any sort of governing epistemic. It is the intention that the ideas offered in this chapter will start to set out my own thesis, so that the reader may begin to anticipate the direction I have chosen to take—an interpretation of urban exploration, and indeed leisure more generally, that embraces its pluralism. As it will be proclaimed, in the twenty-first century a great diversity of individuals exist, each with their own way of understanding leisure, so it is important conceptual and empirical interpretations keep up. Failing to do this means that as scholars we will always be limited in our understanding of modernity and the forms of leisure that have been invented or developed. In other words, what is being argued is that there is room for a more sociologically developed investigation of urban exploration that is recognised for its nuisance value, to move beyond one-dimensional interpretations of the phenomenon and the same old theories and methods that seem to overshadow existing research in this area. As a result, it will be possible to provide an understanding that is more aware of urban exploration’s social spaces and ‘communities’ and how they fit into a complex ontological world. In a nutshell, then, this means the intricate workings of social spaces, as they emerge in such an interesting and diverse world of urban exploration, can be explored with greater effect. With this in mind, the chapter begins by looking at the popular idea of ‘Aesthetics of Decay’ or as it is known colloquially (among ‘urbexers’), ‘Ruin Porn’.

Aestheticising Decay The concept of aesthetics of decay, ‘ruin decay’, or ‘ruin porn’ as Joann Greco (2012) refers to it, is one of the ways in which urban exploration

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has been explored to date. Of all the leading themes it is perhaps the most prominent to emerge from the literature that discusses ruination, abandonment and dereliction. Bradley Garrett supports this claim with his suggestion that ‘the initial catalyst for most urban explorers to go into interstitial urban spaces is to observe unimpeded material decay’ (2013b: 5). In particular, it is the cultural geographer Tim Edensor who has written extensively about aestheticisation of ruins and the focus of his work centres specifically on industrial ruination. As Edensor (2005b) argues, it is naïve to assume that the social and cultural significance of industrial places ends with the cessation of their primary function. Instead, the ruins are said to be ideally placed to cast aside the normative assignations of their materiality, and of their objects (ibid.). What Edensor means is that there is plenty of room for experimentation in the form of imagination and tactile encounters in decaying ruins because people can ‘interrogate normative processes of spatial and material ordering’ (Edensor 2005b: 314). While some scholars, such as Steven High (2013), argue that fantasising about aesthetics of decay can obfuscate more important political, historical and social issues, a counterpoint is that the fixation chimes well with what Felix Guattari (1996) refers to as ‘ecosophy’—the intertwining of the (ruined) environment, social relations and individual subjectivity. In other words, taking pleasure in ‘ruin porn’ can help people avoid the tendency to follow dominant worldviews that limit the imagination, and be more accepting of the idea that multiple subjectivities exist in the experience of a ruin, irrespective of ideological dictates and historical events. Another important idea in Edensor’s work is linked with his viewpoint that present modernity is one of sterility, ‘smooth surfaces’ and, above all, a dulling of stimuli through the obstruction of ‘chaotic elements’ (2007: 219). According to Edensor, industrial ruins offer emancipation from manicured landscapes and the sanitation, efficiency and stability of present-day existence as they are unbridled sites that are relatively free of ‘intensive performative and aesthetic regulation’ (Edensor 2005a: 833). Instead, what decaying ruins offer is an opportunity to explore and experience something different; the aesthetic side to them grants access to an environment in which imagination, nostalgia and notions of memory

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can be rekindled. It is argued that as a result such marginalised and hidden places are open to greater ‘sensual attractions’ and a fuller experience (Edensor 2007). In this regard, the idea of ‘aesthetics of decay’ has become a popular theme in several other scholarly interpretations of urban exploration (see: DeSilvey 2017; Rowsdower 2011; Trigg 2006). However, despite the thought-provoking nature of discussions about aesthetics of decay, a critical problem materialises. The problem is that Edensor, and others like him, base their critique on an essential dichotomy and that dichotomy requires us to depict the world as being uniformly tidy, indestructible and clean. Yet, as Paul Dobraszczyk (2010) reminds us, more often than not utopian representations of the world are a distortion of the truth. Although the utopia Edensor (2007) visualises has been supported across much discourse as being the watchword of modernity, as Bauman (2005) argues, it has never really existed and nor is it ever likely to. Instead, modernity is better understood for the transitory nature of existence it fosters, where everything that is part of it is designed to last only temporarily. As Bauman (2000) reminds us, the so-called good life carries a ‘use-by’ date, a prearranged obsolescence. In other words, decay is not simply modernity’s other side, it is in fact an inherent part of it, which means the idea that a neat dichotomous split can be formed suddenly seems much less convincing. Of course, in order to understand the contemporary obsession for urban exploration it is important that we do not overlook the significance of aesthetics because, as it has been noted, it is an integral part of modernity. With this in mind, there are many people who continue to embrace ruin experiences as environments where space and place can be re-inhabited in inventive and interesting ways. This means that even in a world where changeability and obsolescence appear to be key features, aesthetics of decay continue to play an important role in how they capture imaginations and how the urban environment is experienced. As Edensor (2005b), DeSilvey (2017), and Greco (2012) rightly argue, as they slowly rot away objects and structures naturally begin to exude meaning through their incomprehensibility and the mystic that surrounds them. After all, there must be something momentously intrinsic in the tangible surfaces of decay and its aesthetic exclamation that encourages DeSilvey (2017) to write with such expression. There

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must also be something up close and personal in it for Miru Kim (2009) to expose her unclothed body to the defiled surroundings of sewers and ruined factories. It should be remembered, therefore, that the generative potential of aesthetics of decay is still dependent on multiple subjectivities rather than a dominant narrative (Dobraszczyk 2017). Nonetheless, what studies and arguments about aesthetics of decay often fail to consider is the wider societal condition where nothing is fixed in the first place. What this means is that in a ‘liquid’ modern world it becomes not so much about romanticising about sequestered instances where the uncontrolled state of nature can be experienced because most of the cities and towns around us are intrinsically fragile and in states of constant fluctuation (Bauman 2000; Fassi 2010; Dobraszczyk 2017). As de Certeau (1984) argues, while the world may appear to be a projection of clean totalisation, the reality is that inside its grimy depths the urban canvas is inconceivably resistant to anything typifying solidity or stability. Therefore, to adopt an approach that is more assiduous in its line of investigation, it is important to recognise that opportunities for sensual and challenging bodily encounters are all around us, rather than being located only in industrial ruins or other anomalous locations.

Evading the Spectacle Another way urban exploration has been explored in the wider literature is through psychogeography, a practice which, as the term suggests, combines psychological and geographical theory and practices. The term was first coined by Guy Debord, a Marxist theorist and one of the founding members of Situationist International, having drawn inspiration from Charles Baudelaire’s original concept of the flâneur (an ‘urban wanderer’). In 1955 Debord used the term to describe a mode of observation where playful and inventive ways of navigating urban environments could be experimented with. As Debord suggests, psychogeography is ‘the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals’ (1955: 23).

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Several decades later and the idea of psychogeography has grown a great deal in popularity. In particular, many artists, writers and filmmakers such as Iain Sinclair and Patrick Keiller have begun to concentrate on the practice of walking as the go-to activity of psychogeographers, highlighting its importance as a form of movement with aesthetic and critical potential. As Blackshaw (2013) points out, the practice of walking viewed as a psychogeographical experiment takes an activity that may at first seem dull, and where the surrounding urban environment appears lifeless, and transforms it into an artform where imagination and memory are brought to life. In other words, psychogeographers often use the practice of walking in conjunction with the idea that the identity of any urban landscape is not permanently fixed. Instead, urban space is viewed as a palimpsest which changes and transforms as people imagine and feel the city around them in different ways (Debord 2000). Writing with a different interpretation of urban exploration in mind, before the term had become closely affiliated with urban trespass, dereliction and ruin, David Pinder explored the idea that immersion in cities by means of walking can lead to the ‘questioning of the social construction of routines and spatial practices’ (2005: 396). As Pinder (2005) argues, it is in the fabric of the city itself where artists and cultural practitioners can assert new ways of exploring and experiencing the landscape and societal norms. In the same paper, Pinder goes on to explain precisely how artists and cultural practitioners have embraced walking activities—by means of human chess, nomadic cafes and other spatial interventions— to disrupt hierarchy and panoptic strategies of control and he speaks at length of the ways people manage to reenchant city space. By addressing a variety of psychogeographical experimentation strategies, Pinder (2005) reveals how different modes of exploration have a significant role to play, especially in terms of their political importance, in the way cities can be understood more critically. It is not only Pinder who has linked urban exploration to psychogeographical experimentation. In many ways, the arguments made by geographers Bradley Garrett (2013a, b) and Oli Mould (2015) reverberate strongly with the ideas of Guy Debord’s situationist movement and his concept of psychogeography. Of course, it is important to point

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out that Mould claims his book does not bear foundations in anything solid enough to call it a theoretical disposition. Using a combined Deleuzian, de Certeauian and Debordian approach he declares he has produced something ‘without a theoretical mandate’ (2015: 7). However, Mould’s claim is arguably a contestable one since he is still convinced that people need to be creative in activities to ‘realise new functions of the city’ and escape the ‘passive consumption of the Creative City’ (2015: 185). In view of this, psychogeography is still crucial in both authors interpretations of subversion because they look towards developing theories and ways of being in the urban environment which envisage the city as being multi-layered. In other words, the practices described in the work of Garrett and Mould are closely aligned with the modern-day idea of the flâneur. To unpack their ideas further, Garrett draws on the work of Nigel Thrift to argue that the average day-to-day city is a ‘security entertainment complex’ that asserts control over the masses by means of an astute mixture of surveillance and entertainment strategies (2013a: 14). In a similar way, Mould (2015) explores the idea that people should look for ways to free themselves ‘from the hegemony of the Creative City’. Using the term ‘Creative City’, Mould is referring to the idea that ‘creativity’ has become a rhetorical cover for the punitive and often callous austerity policies and measures that are imposed by neoliberal governments. Engaging with the work of Garrett and Mould, then, calls for readers to think about how the world had become disenchanted as it has fallen victim to capitalism and commodification under Debord’s theory of the spectacle. Yet, as Garrett (2013a) and Mould (2015) argue, urban explorers are able to creatively reverse the false creativity imposed by present modernity by trespassing and distributing photographs, videos and blog posts of the places and parts of society that have been forgotten or which remain inconspicuously out of sight. In other words, what Garrett and Mould are suggesting is that the nihilistic, inescapable world of the spectacle can effectively be peeled away to reveal new possibilities that are undistorted and unaffected by capitalism. Urban exploration, therefore, is viewed as being an authentic practice of detournement and a pathway leading to emancipation.

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Nevertheless, it can be argued that there is a problem with Garrett and Mould’s theoretical perspective, and indeed with situationist thinking in general. The problem can be linked all the way back to Debord, because, as Blackshaw has pointed out, ‘he misses the point that nothing is uncommodifiable’ in present modernity (2003: 117). As Baudrillard (2005) warns us, in a world that has become hyperreal, where people have lost their ability to distinguish between the real and the signified , escape is impossible. Baudrillard goes on to argue that in present modernity reality is in fact built upon ‘the murder of the real, [and] the loss of any imagination of the real’ (ibid.: 18). In other words, if we follow Baudrillard’s way of thinking we can accept that anything real has been violently suffocated by its own gradual progression and advancement. As Baudrillard (1998) reminds us, despite the determination of any author, artist or urban explorer, no matter what we try to do to stop something becoming consecrated by the forces of consumerism our efforts are doomed to fail. In the end, whatever the market wants the market will take. As an example, it is worth examining Bradley Garrett’s own progressive transference into the media spotlight as he has become part of the world he sought to resist as an urban explorer (see: bradleygarrett.com). Like the rest of us, Garrett has been consumed by consumerism. Not only has the market been keen to share his subversive tales, he himself has opted to capitalise on selling awe-inspiring photographs and sharing stories about thrilling adventures and the ecstasy of deviance in his books. In addition, it can be argued that irrespective of his theoretical use of Debord’s notion of the spectacle, and his suggestion that escape from the technology and temptations on offer can be sought, Garrett and his ‘urbex crew’ often view the urban world directly through the lens of a camera rather than the human eye. Indeed, this is an issue he himself raises in a chapter that explores the use of visual methods for ethnographic research (Garrett 2014). The use of the camera and viewing the urban environment through a lens is problematic because, as Baudrillard (1994) would argue, Garrett has lost touch with the real world that preceded the precession of simulacra. Another criticism that can be found in Garrett’s (2013a) treatment of the spectacle as something that can be subverted is that we witness

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a crucial shift as he changes his labelling of ‘urbex’ from urban exploration to ‘infiltration’ and ‘place hacking’. Arguably, the language he adopts encourages readers to view the city metaphorically as something akin to the internal workings of a computer, especially when he describes instances where he has ‘hacked’ his way into complex utility tunnels and hard-to-reach underground bunkers. In many ways, a reader is likely to be left with the feeling that the underground places Garrett explores, those that lie secreted beneath the more aesthetically pleasing surfaces of our cities, are no different to the complex and intricate internal components of an electronic mainframe—an object that is very much part and parcel of the spectacle. The work of Garrett, then, reveals that he is just as much a part of the society he endeavours to transcend. In his search for essential meaning and authenticity Garrett ends up embodying the roles of a ‘hacker’ and a rising celebrity figure, two identities that are intricately connected to the type of ‘liquid’ modernity we find ourselves part of. What Garrett also brings to light is that the practice of urban exploration is very much a part of a reality that is capitalist, commodified and hyperreal. In this sense, urban exploration becomes more about finding identity, authenticity and leisure among the remains of a society that lost sight of the ‘real’ somewhere in the chaos caused by the play of signs that surround us. As Garrett shows us, urban exploration is more about thriving on modernity’s necessary waste and enjoying the many spoils that result from those twenty-first-century impulses for changeability, ambiguity and unpredictability. Viewed in this way, Garrett (2013a) and his band of ‘place hackers’ are intricately connected to the depthlessness of society, but this is the beauty of urban exploration—it is a fascinating leisure choice born out of the infectious nature of capitalism.

Gender Trouble Another way urban exploration has been examined is through the idea that existing literature reinforces a culture of masculinism (Klausen 2017). Although the topic of gender has been raised by several scholars vis-à-vis urban exploration (Bennett 2013; Prescott 2009; Pinder 2005),

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it is Carrie Mott and Susan Roberts (2014) who have gone on to explore the idea in better depth. As they argue, across the popular urbex literature there is a growing trend to reinforce older colonial ideas about the types of bodies and identities that belong to explorer-subjects; namely bodies that emphasise physical strength, heroism and masculinity. An important paradox Mott and Roberts (2014) highlight is that while there are claims urban exploration accentuates progressive politics and embodiment in the way the practice seeks to challenge hegemonic structures, there also appears to be a firm reluctance to take into account the different kinds of bodies that can take part. Accordingly, the pair make it clear that they aim to steer focus away from highly masculinised ideas of risktaking, virility and identity to create space for broader social analysis and critique. One of the key criticisms highlighted by Mott and Roberts (2014) is the way hyper-masculine language and imagery is frequently used by scholars and urbex practitioners alike. Drawing on the example of feminine pronouns being used derogatorily on various urbex webpages, Mott and Roberts stress their concern for the way some urban explorers refer to the act of trespassing phallically as ‘penetration’. The pair also turn their criticism towards Garrett for his figurative use of the word ‘balls’. As they argue, while the wording may be figurative it is typical of ‘exaggerated forms of masculinised language and behaviour’ that can be observed in many settings across our society (McDowell 2010: 653). As for their concerns about imagery, Mott and Roberts (2014) note that while women do feature in photographic representations of urbex they usually appear as minority figures who are being led and defined by male explorers. Therefore, it is an engagement with difference Mott and Roberts seek, to bring an end to the reality that the urban exploration scene, together with its discourse, has become ‘a fertile breeding ground for eruptions of sophomoric crudity and misogynist imagery’ (ibid.: 239). However, in response to Mott and Robert’s paper Garrett and Hawkins have argued that while urban exploration would certainly ‘benefit from a more explicit engagement with difference’ it is still an emergent subject area (2014: 4). In other words, as the topic has only been considered seriously in a handful of articles, and as Mott and

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Roberts have constructed arguments based largely on their examination of a careful and limited selection of blogs and websites, it is too early to accept the reductive description of urban exploration as being a practice that is dominated by a pervasive masculinity (Garrett and Hawkins 2014). For instance, having highlighted that both the physical body and graffiti are two areas for alternative experimentation with urban exploration, Miru Kim (2017) and Theo Kindynis (2019) reveal that there are ways of understanding body-subject/place relations and politics that are very different to the pervasive masculinity perspective envisaged by Mott and Roberts. As Bennett (2011) and Garrett (2013a) point out, urban exploration represents a diverse community, one where performances of masculinity should be viewed as being one type of performance competing against many other identities and relationships that each seek to control, rationalise and organise experiences and places. Another problem with Mott and Robert’s belief that urban exploration practices are highly misogynist can be linked to their suggestion that ‘for many women, dark, derelict urban environs signal the dangers of sexual harassment or assault’ and that ‘urban space… is simply not open or accessible in the same ways to all’ (2014: 236). What they seem to overlook, to recycle part of a quote cited in Mott and Robert’s work, is that ‘there is… no one body… There are only bodies in the plural’ (Longhurst 1995: 98). It can be argued, therefore, that what the pair dismiss is the fact that there are many women who would likely view their suggestion as one that is condescending because it implies that women are naturally more defenceless than their male counterparts, and incapable of coping with the perceived dangers that lurk in dark urban spaces. In many ways, what Mott and Robert s are suggesting is that women are, in the Foucauldian sense, disciplined, ‘docile bodies’. As Foucault (1977) suggests, the docile body is one that is pliable, capable of being manipulated and trained to obey the commands of higher institutions and bodies. Yet, such an attitude is one that is firmly rooted in the armchair mode of thinking rather than the real politics of urban exploration and observations from the inside (Ingold 2014). For instance, if Mott and Roberts were to enter the catacombs of Paris, they would quickly discover that there are women who are passionate about dark urban spaces, women

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who are calm and collected while others around them (men included) fear for their safety, women who drink and get high in dark places, and women who do not mind sleeping among Paris’s dead (see: Macfarlane 2019). In many ways, then, Garrett’s declaration that ‘no person, or physical barrier can stop you from going where you want to go and doing what you want to do’ (2013a: 9) is a better way of viewing choice and freedom in the twenty-first century. As Bauman (2000) reminds us, in ‘liquid’ modernity most of us have greater freedom than ever before and this means many women can and do enjoy the same choices as men, especially when it comes to wandering through urban spaces as a contemporary flâneur-styled figure. While it is undeniable that issues of inequality are still an inherent part of urban exploration for some people, what Mott and Robert s fail to see is that there is more to urbex than climbing bridges, and that more people have the capability and capacity to make their own choices than they are perhaps willing to accept or admit.

Tightly Fractured ‘Communities’ Another important theme that has materialised in the literature that examines urban exploration is the concept of ‘community’ . In other words, there is an emergent trend across the literature to emphasise the idea that urban exploration is less of a lone wanderer pursuit. What seems to matter more is the cooperative spirit and who people choose to explore with. The work of Luke Bennett (2011, 2013) is a useful place to begin unpacking this idea further. Following the idea that urban explorers often favour a particular type of explore, perhaps prompted by a personal fascination for drains, ruined industrial sites or high-rise rooftops, many individuals choose to form likeminded collectives. In Bennett’s (2011) case, he refers to the group he is studying as ‘bunkerologists’. Described as being a collection of likeminded hobbyists, bunkerologists are individuals who are all interested in finding and exploring abandoned military bunkers and Royal Observer Corps Monitoring Posts (ROCs). In many ways, Bennett’s thinking is reminiscent of Robert Stebbins’ (2007) notion of serious leisure, but it

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might be argued that there are closer links to the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu. Although he does not use the same terminology as Bourdieu (1984), what Bennett suggests is that bunkerologists share similar dispositions and forms of capital. Like Bourdieu, then, Bennett essentially draws on the concept of habitus to argue that people are structured by an embodied ‘bunkerologist’ schema which regulates and controls peoples’ practices, attitudes and dispositions insofar as the schema develops into their way of knowing and understanding the world. Another way of thinking about the habitus is to think of it as the culture of a group which is itself based on its own code of intelligibility and a perceived sense of authenticity (Bourdieu 1984). Nonetheless, it can be argued that there is a problem with Bennett’s conceptual understanding. Although Bennett (2011) appears to view the notion of habitus (or something to this effect) as something that is formed progressively and continuously as people commit themselves to its development, the likes of scholars such as Bauman (2000) would argue that very few things last long enough in ‘liquid’ modernity to achieve the degree of longevity required by a habitus. Therefore, when it comes to thinking about habitus in the twenty-first century, and indeed ‘urbex communities’, it is important to reflect on the idea that the only form of certainty is that the world is transient, uncertain and often much less predictable than many of us find comfortable (Bauman 1992). What this means is that in present modernity the concepts of ‘community’ and habitus are never ontologically stable. Of course, it is fair to note that Bennett is not unmindful of the fact that a habitus does not constitute something that is pre-established and completely inflexible, or that a culture will remain stagnant and immobile for the entire duration of people’s lives. As he points out: Bunkerology is a label invented by me for analytical convenience – it is not a term used by urban explorers. Indeed, the subgenre demarcations within urban exploration are weak, with many practitioners operating across a wide spectrum of place types to which they direct their attention. (2011: 421)

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Nevertheless, Bennett still attempts to uncover true behaviours and cultural dispositions that are relatively fixed, interpreting these as something that are performed in the construction of the self. What this means is that he still views ‘urbex communities’ as having some degree of ontological stability, and that they are self-perpetuating and learnt through socialisation (the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained). In other words, Bennett (2011) seems to overlook the essential point that urban explorer’s lives are wholly contingent, contradictory and performative, and he does not give any attention to Judith Butler’s (1990) argument that nothing exists beneath our bodily surfaces. As Bauman argues, in the twenty-first century, which is best characterised for epitomising ‘a space of chaos and chronic indeterminacy’, ‘liquid’ modern individuals are more likely to dress according to the frenetic attire of a habitat (1992: 193). A habitat is, after all, the temporary acquisition of something that feels homely in the way it provides warmth and security, and it enables people to convince themselves that what they have acquired is ‘community-like’, but it is always short-lived and never quite like the real notion of community. A second important observation surrounding the concept of ‘community’ can be found in the work of Garrett. For Garrett (2013b), urban exploration is likened to a condition of sharing, where people have certain interests and attitudes in common. As he describes it, ‘this [urban exploration] is a community first and foremost, built around embodied encounters with places and people’ (ibid.: 3). In other words, Garrett views urban exploration as being the basis for a community centred around appropriating and utilising the materiality of the city, whereby it is consumed with leisurely or political intent. However, there is evidence in his writing that Garrett notices something is not quite right with his initial assessment of ‘community’ because he goes on to refer to urban exploration, oxymoronically, as embodying a ‘tightly fractured community’ (2013b: 2). What this means, therefore, is that Garrett is certainly onto something, but he never quite manages to go on to explore the idea in a critical or nuanced way. Of course, it is quite understandable that he does not because, as Bauman (2000) reminds us, thinking about a world devoid of the warmness of community is certainly very depressing.

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To unpack Garrett’s understanding of ‘community’ further, it can be suggested that he uses the term in a way that invites misunderstanding. As a result, Garrett’s use of the term, to borrow Blackshaw’s phrasing, ‘seems to mean everything and nothing’ (2010: 2). On one level it appears that Garrett wants to believe in the idea that there is a community and he falls back on the comfortable feeling of believing in the security that something tangible exists. This is evidenced when he makes the point that ‘despite practitioners who assert that they have nothing to do with other crews, there clearly is an urban exploration community’ (Garrett 2013a: 20). It is also evidenced in instances where he speaks of his intimate experiences of unity and comradeship. An example that springs to mind is his conversation with an explorer named Guerrilla Exploring: He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Brad, there’s only one station left on the list. I’m going, whether or not it means arrest. Someone has to do it.” I said nothing and shook his hand, shocked into silence by the audacity of the moment. He told me later that I didn’t just shake his hand, I “shook the hand of someone who represented all London Tube explorers”. (2013a: 216)

Yet, as he also refers to ‘community’ as being fractured, Garrett’s use of the term is paradoxical. Although he attributes to it meanings that deal with social relations and close connections, he inadvertently rips from it the very fabric that holds a community together. This is an issue Garrett picks up on periodically by pointing out that ‘explorers are… on some level, quite tribal in their affiliations’ (2013a: 20), however it is a concern that remains unresolved. What Garrett’s use of the term ‘community’ reveals then is the habit among many scholars to recycle what Ulrich Beck (2002) has termed ‘zombie categories’—those ghostlike theories and concepts which have not quite died but linger on despite having lost their explanatory potential. In other words, Garrett has fallen victim to the fact that a traditional concept of ‘community’ has gained a firm place in our doxa, even though it does not quite work in ‘liquid’ modernity in quite the same way as it did in the past. The problem is that the concept of ‘community’ has transformed in the twenty-first century,

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and the type of ‘community’ Garrett envisions is arguably an anachronism belonging to the earlier world of ‘solid’ modernity (Bauman 2000). In reality, in a ‘liquid’ society there is a certain impossibility attached to the term ‘community’ because ‘communities’ today are contestable and defined by rootless weak ontologies (White 2005). As Bauman (2000) suggests, twenty-first-century life is episodic, a place where joining provisional ‘networks’ of people is preferable. To be free in this world means disassociating ourselves from the firm ties of community because ‘community’ in present modernity begins and ends with individuals. As Bauman (1993) reminds us, as the traditional idea of community has decayed and transformed, friendships and associations have started to become more about being for you rather than you being for them. To put it another way, in this world of fluidity our ontological security and status has shifted, from one of durability and uniformity as supported by Bourdieu’s habitus, to an unceremonious and informal world of habitat which signifies a world that is indeterminate and chaotic (Blackshaw 2005). What this means is that present modernity is all about the ‘imaginary communities’ it fosters which are produced entirely ‘through the repetition of [their] own ready-made discourse’ (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004: 150). As Bauman argues, it is now the case that ‘cultural capital’ is no more than a ‘cultural liability’ (1996: 25).

Consumers in Disguise Another way urban exploration has been examined in the wider literature is through its political orientation, most notably in the way it has been viewed as a form of ‘place hacking’ (Garrett 2013a, b). The idea that urban explorers are ‘hackers’ redeploys a term normally affiliated with the online world. The term is used to draw out the political significance of urban exploration in the way it is used as a means of transgressing hegemonic regulatory norms (Mott and Roberts 2014). Espousing what could translate as a Foucauldian approach, then, many urban explorers suggest that this is the reason why they engage in urban exploration—their modus operandi. Garrett (2013a) and Kindynis (2017) both highlight this point and suggest that urban exploration is

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used by many people as a way of transcending local borders, rules and regulatory systems, rejecting the surveillant gaze of Others, and steering clear from becoming docile beings or ‘good consumers’ as required by the spectacle. In other words, urban exploration is frequently identified as being a deviant form of leisure (although it has only ever been explicitly called this by Kindynis) where urban explorers are not unlike ‘rebels’ and ‘revolutionary heroes’ as they attempt to reclaim public space. As Mould (2015) argues, such forms of urban subversion essentially undermine the capitalistic and consumerist functionality of the urban environment. However, it is not enough to simply undermine or disrupt capitalism. As Garrett (2013a, b) and Mould (2015) argue, urban explorers are at leisure to redemocratise and decommodify urban social space. In this vein, it appears that the disillusionment caused by ‘monotonous, normative and surveyed urban spaces colonised by capitalist forces that encase and secure the city as a spectacle’ (Garrett 2013a: 4) fuels a concentrated desire among some, inspiring them to give urban space back to the everyday people. This way of thinking chimes well with Coalter’s (2000) suggestion that it is often assumed that transcendence of controlling capitalist forces inevitably supports the facilitation of leisure that is more meaningful and purposeful. It might also be suggested that Garrett and Mould’s arguments are very Gramscian. Analogous to many subcultural studies conducted in the 1970s, the pair appear to adopt Gramsci’s neo-Marxist understanding of the capitalist state and economic determinism as they are effectively attempting to challenge the hegemonic order from below to encourage a ‘crisis of authority’ (Bennett et al. 1981: 199). Nevertheless, despite the persuasive and potentially rousing nature of the arguments that call for the redemocratisation and decommodification of social space by alternative and ostensibly ‘deviant’ means, when it comes to urban exploration’s political orientation not all agree. As Bennett (2013) argues, exploratory practices should be envisaged as being more like ‘hobbies’ without radical or political agendas, because for many people this is their central purpose. In a similar vein, Edensor et al. (2012) are also dismissive of the idea that regulatory systems are being subverted and they argue that ‘playful activities’ which occur in the urban environment, especially in industrial ruins, are in fact attributable to a

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lack of surveillance and order. What is more, contra Garrett and Mould, it has been argued that while certain subcultures and leisure pursuits want to challenge dominant cultural values and processes, the individuals involved cannot help but be part of the societal condition they allege to oppose (Coates et al. 2010). The criminologist Theo Kindynis stresses this point, suggesting that urban explorers are almost completely cultivated by consumer culture: One need look no further than the popular rooftopping Instagram hashtag #createyourhype – where the slang ‘hype’ denotes the marketing strategies typically employed by streetwear fashion companies to generate a buzz around their products – to see the extent to which emergent variants of UE [urban exploration] have unhesitatingly aligned themselves with a hegemonic culture of spectacular consumption. (2017: 989)

The idea is explored further in Kindynis’s paper insofar as he goes on to question whether urban exploration has ever been free of capitalism and commodification. In the end, the conclusion Kindynis (2017) reaches is that beneath the imagined surface urban exploration has never been driven by a ‘subversive potential’; rather, it has been guided from the offset by the twenty-first-century culture of consumption. In other words, while many urban explorers may appear to resist consumerism and capitalism, in reality because they are reflexive consumers they remain politically indifferent beneath their performative identities (Blackshaw 2017). As Alan Tomlinson (2001) reminds us, all leisure is embedded, even sometimes clandestinely, in consumerism since it has become the main source of identity in the twenty-first century. On the same topic, another problem associated with Garrett and Mould’s insistence that urban exploration is a rebellious counterculture involving a libertarian struggle against capitalism and commodification is that they assume power and control is maintained through panoptic strategies. As Garrett puts it: The modern city is becoming more secured and controlled than ever. The here and now is the place and time for subversion. Urban exploration emerged in the midst of a cluster of growing urban interventions developed to (re)seize agency where freedoms appear to be constantly eroding,

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circumscribed and surveilled, often enough in the guise of protecting our freedoms (2013a: 174–175).

In a similar fashion, Mould (2015) argues that surveillance strategies set up in twenty-first-century cities, which comprise CCTV use, security officials and thousands of television monitors, create a modern-day Panopticon that is not too dissimilar from Jeremy Bentham’s original architectural description of a circular tower. As Mould (2015) suggests, the escalation of this type of control has enabled companies, wealthy bosses and security forces to ostracise all activities that do not act in accordance with how they envisage urban space should function. However, and notwithstanding the fact that the UK alone is reported to have an estimated 5.9 million CCTV cameras, it has been argued that overt Panoptic surveillance strategies are overstated as their status as the dominant surveillance strategy has gradually changed in present modernity (Bauman, in Bauman and Lyon 2013). To expound on this point, it is worth considering Didier Bigo’s concept of the ban-opticon. Put simply, Bigo (2008) uses the concept of ban-opticon to designate how certain profiling technologies regulate which types of people should be placed under surveillance. The ban-opticon’s dispositif —its discourses, rules, architectural structures and practices—segregate people into categories, indicating who should be welcomed and accepted and who should not across transnational borders (ibid.). In other words, banoptical strategies highlight who state enemies are so they may be labelled and kept at a distance. These are the people, as Bauman puts it, who fall outside the majority and cause uncomfortable feelings of insecurity and fear (Bauman, in Bauman and Lyon 2013). Therefore, in contrast to Garrett and Mould’s interpretations, it has been argued that devices such as tracking gadgets and CCTV cameras have become ban-optical instruments that do not exist to watch urban explorers and their seemingly obstreperous activities. As Bauman (1998) would point out, unlike refugees, asylum-seekers, terrorists and the homeless, urban explorers do not find themselves among society’s ‘flawed consumers’. Of course, it is important not to overlook the point that urban explorers do occasionally feel the firm hand of the law as Garrett (2013a) himself has experienced. From time to time various punishments are

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handed out. However, it is worth noting that the punishments urban explorers receive are usually to set a precedent (see: Booth 2014). Ultimately, their rights are never suspended for long periods of time, they do not face exclusion from their own society, their lives are very rarely destroyed, and forms of surveillance will continue to ignore them once they have made suitable amends (Bauman, in Bauman and Lyon 2013). Therefore, in contrast to the arguments made by Garrett and Mould it can be argued that urban exploration is actually a form of leisure that yields to the demands of a capitalist, consumer-based world and its participants show signs of willingness to fall into line as they accept, consciously or not, their role as consumers (Kindynis 2017). In reality, as Debord (2000) would likely argue, urban exploration has a firm footing in a society built on the theatricality of the spectacle. Hence, it is unlikely urban explorers are the rebellious anti-capitalists many claim to be because, beneath their performativity, they are really consumers in disguise. To this end, it can be argued that the strategies that govern and control most everyday people have in fact evolved to keep pace with the steady progress of present modernity and the pervasive consumer mentality. What I have in mind here is that while panoptic strategies have become less controlling urban explorers, like everyone else, appear to submit themselves to makeshift DIY surveillance strategies that have been encapsulated by the concept of the synopticon (Mathiesen 1997). As Blackshaw and Crabbe (2004) reveal, the synopticon summarises the condition whereby being observed has turned into something of a temptation because in ‘liquid’ modernity opportunities to parade ‘deviant’ performative selves supersede desires for anonymity, reserve and escaping the system. In many ways, Garrett’s (2013a) experience as an urban explorer exemplifies what it means to live a synoptic life. The first thing to note is that irrespective of their claim to be subversive ‘hackers’, which would imply there is a certain degree of clandestineness and covertness to urban exploration, Garrett and his ‘crew’1 have used variety of social media platforms to share their stories, photographs and videos with the wider 1Throughout his work Bradley Garrett refers to ‘his’ group as a ‘crew’ when describing or discussing their collective participation in urban exploration.

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public. In addition, Garrett confesses that his crew’s way of producing photographs and video transformed as they experimented with different means of capturing images. One of the main forms of experimentation highlighted by Garrett is the way he and his crew felt a desire to share their performative world by posing for photographs that became increasingly exaggerated, especially in what he refers to as ‘hero’ or ‘action’ shots. What is crucial is that Garrett likens such photographs to ‘highly stylised’ shots which are ‘uncomfortably similar to traditional photos of colonial explorers, evoking images of white men sticking flags in soil’ (ibid.: 181). In a ‘liquid’ modern world, then, where identities can be trialled and altered, it can be argued that the vast majority are more concerned about wanting to be seen (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004). To round things off, what is being proposed in this section is that future research should move on from Garrett (2013a) and Mould’s (2015) suggestion that urban explorers represent a subversive ‘community’ that is politically motivated, opposed to panoptic forms of control and surveillance and concerned with the redemocratisation of space. These ways of understanding urban exploration are arguably unrepresentative of our wider societal condition because panoptic strategies of surveillance and control have been replaced by synoptic ones as people have become devoted consumers. As Foucault points out: Society has changed and individuals have changed too; they are more diverse, different, and independent… it is clear that in the future we must separate ourselves from the society of discipline of today. (cited in Hardt 1995: 41)

In other words, it is important to accept that privacy and the evasion of control are not always central interests in the twenty-first century. In truth, what many people desire more than anything, even if they are unwilling to admit it, is to find themselves on the centre stage where the private can be consumed by the public.

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The Performativity of Urban Exploration As this chapter has revealed, having taken into account the way it has been examined in the wider literature, when it comes to understanding urban exploration there is room to unpack this particular form of leisure in a different way. Of course, this should not come as a surprise given that urban exploration is still a relatively under-researched phenomenon. Nonetheless, the key criticism that can be directed at the research that has emerged is that too much of it operates within the limits of similar tacit assumptions about society and culture. As it was noted earlier, too many scholars recycle unaltered sociological concepts and ideas that are no longer suitable for understanding present modernity (Beck 2002). To borrow a term used by Matthias Gross (2016), there are too many scholars who fall victim to a ‘sociology of ignorance’ whereby certain theoretical concepts are kept alive artificially despite being no longer (or less) relevant in the twenty-first century. With this in mind, this book follows Georg Simmel’s (1992 [1908]) suggestion that in order to understand something successfully and comprehensively we need to recognise that as new knowledge is produced so is non-knowledge. What is crucial, though, as Simmel argues, is that there can be knowledge about what is not known but it often escapes recognition perhaps due to a lack of interest, not really wanting to know, or being afraid to know. Therefore, this interpretation of urban exploration accepts that while new knowledge drawn from traditional sociological concepts such as class and gender can be important it is the unknown that is also a source of new, extended knowledge. It is for this reason that the final section of this chapter is about attending to what may be missing in the existing literature and introducing, if only briefly for now, a context that begins to unpack urban exploration and present modernity in a more compelling way. As Wynne (1992) has pointed out, it is only possible to understand what goes on in real life if we are willing to freeze those frameworks which are inadequate for understanding real-life contexts. As it was hinted at the beginning of the chapter then, this book is guided by Rojek’s (1995) call to critically analyse and decentre leisure in

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modernity. As he suggests, only by doing this can we begin to understand forms of leisure in a manner that remains amenable to seeing the world in a multiplicity of ways. In this sense, urban exploration can be viewed as something that is more than a fetish for decay, a gendered practice, a community, a radical call for redemocratisation, and much more than the one-dimensional understanding that it is merely the physical exploration of abandoned and difficult to access human-made structures and sites which remain largely unseen in day-to-day life. Urban exploration can also be defined as being a degree of perceived freedom relative to how far we are willing to view the self and the things we find around us as commodities. Viewed in this sense, urban exploration is a means of expressing performativity and, because it is tied up with that contagious societal-wide desire to consume, it involves everything that characterises the twenty-first century: contingency, chance, simulation, hedonism, individualisation, desire, imitation, nostalgia and, perhaps most importantly, fantasy. Indeed, this definition of urban exploration poses many questions, and these are questions that will certainly be explored in greater depth later in the book, but for now it will be used to help facilitate the essential argument that we need to understand urban exploration differently. The main point to concentrate on is that in a world where there is nothing that is uncommodifiable, urban exploration should be understood in the sense that formerly ‘solid’ forms of identity and difference have become much more porous and fluid.2 As Jean-François Lyotard (1984) suggests, performativity has emerged as the new criterion of the 2To get a better sense of how social identities have become less stable and assured as modernity has evolved the reader may find it useful to look at the following ethnographic and empirical studies from the twentieth century. In many ways the collection of papers put together by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson in their book Resistance Through Rituals reveal how changes in ideas of community and identity in the post-war years became less ‘solid’ and more consumer orientated. In a similar way, Hunter Thompson’s examination of a marauding biker gang that was all about long beards, swastikas, and stripped-down Harleys in his book Hell’s Angels also shows how performative tendencies steadily began to define identity and ideas of authenticity in the 1960s. As a means of comparison, the reader can contrast these texts with Richard Hoggart’s book, The Uses of Literacy, or Norman Dennis, Fernando Henriques and Clifford Slaughter’s book, Coal is Our Life, because they give an idea of what structured life was like in ‘solid’ modernity. These last two books outline an era based on the secure structures of hierarchy and social class, an era inhabited by people who knew instinctively who they were and what purpose their lives would serve.

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authenticity of truth and belonging. What this means is that it is fantasy and a multiplicity of performances urban explorers seek to discover. In other words, performativity comprises the many ways people use leisure to experiment with different modes of living in a consumerist world. As they cannot help but accede to the logic of individualisation and fragmentation, and the self-interestedness of a heterogeneous world of consumerist leisure and celebrity culture, urban explorers create and announce themselves through their performativity (Blackshaw 2017). What this tells us is that bodies in the twenty-first century are not bound by the limits of biology, they are sculpted in detail by the imaginations of their possessors. As Jean Baudrillard (1994) reminds us, bodies in present modernity are extraordinary because rather than being assigned roles that are controlled by rigid social conventions, they are forced to perform their own truths. Crucially, though, as Blackshaw (2017) contends, leisure appears to be the way many people cope with being responsible for their bodies. Yet, there is more to add if a fuller interpretation of modernity and the performativity of urban explorers is to be properly unpacked. What this means is that it is not enough to suggest that urban exploration is fuelled by individuality and equivocality. As Guignon (2004) argues, it is also important to note that most forms of performativity possess an irreducible social dimension. In other words, while individuality and self-expressive practices are central to the lives of urban explorers, they are first and foremost tied by intricate social ties, shared understandings, nostalgia and culture before they are individuals (ibid.). In view of this, it can be argued that urban explorers are each collectively individual . Thus, it can be argued that the meaning, identity and ‘authenticity’ urban explorers seek through being performative is not only attained independently through the ‘rich and dense weave of undertakings and responsibilities that make up [their] lives’, but by seeking the temporary safety of loose neo-tribal gatherings (Guignon 2004: 167). As Bauman puts it, although present modernity is especially hospitable and fertile for the intense production of difference that is better enjoyed separately, it is generally only obtained collectively with other likeminded people (2000). This is because collectives facilitate the sharing of ideas, they help people feel as though they are part of something, and they minimise

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the risk of being castigated by providing security against being different (ibid.). However, it is important to appreciate that the idea of ‘community’ being discussed here is not like an ordinary, traditional community. It is something different. Moreover, while this idea may seem to resonate closely with Garrett’s (2013b) notion of ‘tightly fractured communities’, it is important to understand that what is being proposed here deals with the idea more meticulously because it starts by challenging ontological assumptions that are part and parcel of our doxa. What the above observations attest, as Peter Borsay (2006) has argued, is that in present modernity many forms of leisure take place in ‘antistructural’, liminal places where people can live vicariously by doing things that generally cannot be done in everyday life. The task of contemporary scholars, therefore, should be to challenge deep-rooted ‘zombie’ concepts and ideas that have been given ‘pseudo-lives’ (Beck 2002) and find new ways of thinking ourselves into these leisure worlds. In other words, the crucial task is to analyse and develop explanations of neotribal gatherings that make sense of the type of social, cultural and political climate urban explorers face. In addition, the task is to understand exactly how twenty-first-century individuals discover a sense of freedom through leisure. With these concerns in mind, the sociology of Michel Foucault becomes especially important because while it recognises the impossibility of universalistic bordered communities, it provides an opening that allows us to examine a different kind of social space. As illustrated in Chapter 1, the name Foucault (1984) gave to this other type of social space or ‘community’ is heterotopia. Heterotopia denotes spaces of compensation that allow us to not only envisage twenty-first-century lives as being multitudinous, but also contend that there is scope to understand how people, each in their own individual ways, can exist together differently. That is to say, the concept of heterotopia has the potential to make it possible to consider urban explorers more aptly as people of performativity—people who perform together ‘through the repetition of [urban exploration’s] own ready-made discourse, its own code of intelligibility (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004: 150). That being said, it is important to point out that Foucault’s concept of heterotopia has been used before to investigate and better understand urban exploration. It has been applied in Kindynis and Garrett’s (2015)

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paper which provides an ethnographic account of their infiltration of the infamous ‘Maze Prison’ in Northern Ireland. However, what I want to highlight early on is that there are several problems with Kindynis and Garrett’s application of heterotopia that need to be attended to before the concept can be applied to the context of urban exploration and its social spaces more effectively.

Heterotopia Redux The first thing to highlight is that Kindynis and Garrett (2015) seem to miss the point that there is no archetypical heterotopic space or experience. What this means, therefore, is that it does not lie within the walls of an abandoned prison. Rather, the point of heterotopia is that anything can become heterotopic as long as it becomes a critical process, but it does also depend on who is involved in creating the space. In other words, any heterotopia is arguably a social space comprising essential others and sets of relations (Foucault 1981). What is clear, then, is that Kindynis and Garrett (2015) do not take into account Foucault’s other essential work that emphasises the significance of discourse or discursive practices. Thus, where the prison wall is described as being the ‘all too visible’ boundary of the heterotopia in Kindynis and Garrett’s experience—a literal physical edge separating their everyday and leisure worlds—it can be argued that the heterotopia was actually still in full swing before, during and after the group struggled to escape the complex. For example, although they could hear barking dogs there was uncertainty whether they were inside or outside the wall, and even speculation over whether the dogs were real at all. Really, the wall provided little safety of any kind because the heterotopia would have been just as alive and effective on either side, especially if the dogs had been waiting for them. By this understanding, then, it is the group that creates the spectacular sense of excitement, anxiety and alarm as they feed off one another to invent something far more intense than what any one individual or the space itself could excite. What is more, even the hotel room that is mentioned

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at the beginning of the article is overlooked as being part of the heterotopia when really it is just as much a part of their space of compensation as the exploration of the prison. Although the two sites (the prison and hotel room) appear to be juxtaposed, with one offering an impression of safety and the other insecurity, both are significant in the way they each contribute to the imaginative traditions and existential possibilities of the heterotopic social space. The second problem with Kindynis and Garrett’s interpretation of heterotopia is that they view it as being located ‘between a dystopic… horrific past, and a utopian future’ (2015: 15). The problem is that neither dystopia nor utopia exist in present modernity (Bauman 2005). To explain this point further, it is worth noting that if utopian ideals were actually real there would be no need for spaces of compensation; with their essential purpose rendered obsolete they could not exist. What this means is that the space Kindynis and Garrett occupy is arguably more Dionysian. It is, as Foucault (1984) describes, a transitional space that is both real and imperfect, but one mirroring an ideal reality that seems better than everyday reality. In this sense, Kindynis and Garrett are correct in their suggestion that ‘possibilities for encounter and discovery’ in the heterotopia are ‘too rich, too multiple to be contained on any linear spectrum’ (2015: 17). They are also correct in suggesting that heterotopia necessitates a process of exclusion, to keep Others out and strengthen the space of compensation. A final criticism of Kindynis and Garrett’s (2015) interpretation of heterotopia is their belief that certain places are filled thickly with memories of their past when, really, they are not. The only memories that really matter in a heterotopia are those which have been imagined and created by the individuals and the collectives involved. As they have been felt, these memories are much more powerful and persuasive than the ‘real’ history of a place; they carry meaning and intimacy while real history is, in effect, more illusionary because it has not been experienced directly (Sartre 1981). Certainly, as a heterotopia the ‘Maze Prison’ would function very differently for those Irish prisoners who were incarcerated there because they are likely to possess memories that are considerably more tangible and closer to the real than any other memory could be. Yet, for Kindynis and Garrett (2015) the prison cannot be ‘thick with dark

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memories’ ingrained in the building and its objects for the simple reason that they were never incarcerated there themselves. As Sartre (1981) argues, people do not possess the ability to restore the past because all things, including their original function and purpose, inevitably change. In other words, the past is based on a process of assumptive reconstruction and this means imagination cannot be dispended with so easily. As Levy suggests, the act of remembering involves a past that is ‘reconstructed from the perspective of present goals and aims’ (2012: 157), so they effectively abrogate the real. There is of course much more to be said about the concept of heterotopia vis-à-vis urban exploration, however, this chapter is not the place to explore it any further. It will instead be gradually unpacked throughout the remainder of the book. The concept has been mentioned briefly here only as part of a wider aim to reveal how the problem of unpacking the complex ontological world of urban exploration will be handled and developed. In a nutshell, what is being suggested is that research of and about urban exploration should be about exploiting ‘the power of re-describing, the power of language to make new and different things possible and important – an appreciation which becomes possible only when one’s aim becomes an expanding repertoire of alternative descriptions rather than The One Right Description’ (Rorty 1989: 39–40).

Summary What the observations in this chapter reveal is that there is plenty of room for further investigation of urban exploration. As the reader has seen, ‘urbex’ has been explored in several important ways but there are some limitations to these perspectives. Therefore, this chapter sought to uncover how urban exploration might be examined differently to better reflect how people experience leisure in the twenty-first century. With this in mind, it has been argued that it is time to turn our attention to present modernity which is decidedly consumerist so that the performative social space of urban explorers can be examined.

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However, before I can continue to develop my own contribution to research on urban exploration, it is important that some notes on methodology are provided. The methodological notes will help to give the reader a clearer focus as they go on to engage with the rest of the book. With this in mind, the next chapter goes on to discuss how this book is all about the feel of the experience and finding a way of making this accessible to readers so they can begin to comprehend what it is like to find leisure as an urban explorer in present modernity.

References Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. Trans. C. Turner. London: SAGE. Baudrillard, J. (2005). The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (L. Turner, Trans). Oxford: Berg. Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (1996). From Pilgrim to Tourist—or a Short History of Identity. In S. Hall and P. Du Gay (Eds), Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage: London, 18–36. Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2005). Utopia. In T. Blackshaw (Ed.), The New Bauman Reader: Thinking Sociologically in Liquid Modern Times. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bauman, Z., & Lyon, D. (2013). Liquid Surveillance. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U. (2002). ‘Zombie Categories’: Interview with Ulrich Beck. In U. Beck & E. Beck-Gernsheim (Eds.), Individualisation. London: Sage. Bennett, L. (2011). Bunkerology—A Case Study in the Theory and Practice of Urban Exploration. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29, 421–434. Bennett, L. (2013). Who Goes There? Accounting for Gender in the Urge to Explore Abandoned Military Bunkers. Gender, Place & Culture: a Journal of Feminist Geography., 20 (5), 630–646.

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Bennett, T., Martin, G., Mercer, C., & Woolacott, J. (1981). Culture, Ideology and Social Processes. London: Open University Press. Bigo, D. (2008). Globalized (In)Security: The Field and the Ban-Opticon. In D. Bigo & A. Tsoukala (Eds.), Terror, Insecurity and Liberty: Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes After 9/11. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2003). Leisure Life: Myth, Masculinity and Modernity. London: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2005). Zygmunt Bauman. Routledge: London. Blackshaw, T. (2010). Key Concepts in Community Studies. London: Sage. Blackshaw, T. (2013). Working-Class Life in Northern England, 1945–2010: The Pre-History and After-Life of the Inbetweener Generation. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-Imagining Leisure Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Blackshaw, T., & Crabbe, T. (2004). New Perspectives on Sport and Deviance: Consumption, Performativity and Social Control . Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Booth, R. (2014). Oxford University Academic Who Scaled Shard Is Spared Jail. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/ 2014/may/22/oxford-university-academic-shard-jail-place-hacker-garrett. Accessed 27 April 2020. Bordoni, C. (2016). Interregnum: Beyond Liquid Modernity. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Borsay, P. (2006). A History of Leisure. Basingstoke: Hampshire. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Coalter, F. (2000). Public and Commercial Leisure Provision: Active Citizens and Passive Consumers? Leisure Studies, 19, 163–181. Coates, E., Clayton, B., & Humberstone, B. (2010). A Battle for Control: Exchanges of Power in the Subculture of Snowboarding. Sport in Society, 13, 1082–1101. Debord, G. (1955). Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography (K. Knabb, Trans.). In H. Bauder & S. Engel-Di Mauro (Eds.), Critical Geographies: A Collection (pp. 23–27). Kelowna: Praxis. Debord, G. (2000). Society of the Spectacle. Detroit, MI: Black & Red. de Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life (S. Randall, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Dennis, N., Henriques, F., & Slaughter, C. (1956). Coal Is Our Life: An Analysis of a Yorkshire Mining Community. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. DeSilvey, C. (2017). Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Dobraszczyk, P. (2010). Petrified Ruin: Chernobyl, Pripyat and the Death of the City. City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 14 (4), 370–389. Dobraszczyk, P. (2017). The Dead City: Urban Ruins and the Spectacle of Decay. London: I.B. Tauris. Edensor, T. (2005a). The Ghosts of Industrial Ruins: Ordering and Disordering Memory in Excessive Space. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 23, 829–849. Edensor, T. (2005b). Industrial Ruins: Space, Aesthetics and Materiality. Oxford: Berg. Edensor, T. (2007). Sensing the Ruin. Senses & Society, 2(2), 217–232. Edensor, T., Evans, B., Holloway, J., Millington, S., & Binnie, J. (2012). Playing in Industrial Ruins: Interrogating Teleological Understandings of Play in Spaces of Material alterity and Low Surveillance. In A. Jorgensen & R. Keenan (Eds.), Urban Wildscapes (pp. 65–79). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Fassi, A. (2010). Industrial Ruins, Urban Exploring, and the Postindustrial Picturesque. CR: The New Centennial Review, 10 (1), 141–152. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Foucault, M. (1981). The History of Sexuality I: An Introduction. Harmondsworth: Pelican. Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1), 22–27. Garrett, B. (2013a). Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City. London: Verso. Garrett, B. (2013b). Undertaking Recreational Trespass: Urban Exploration and Infiltration. Transactions, 39, 1–13. Garrett, B. (2014). Worlds Through Glass: Photography and Video as Geographic Method. In K. Ward (Ed.), Researching the City: A Guide for Students (pp. 135–152). London: Sage. Garrett, B., & Hawkins, H. (2014). And Now for Something Completely Different… Thinking Through Explorer Subject-Bodies: A Response to Mott and Roberts. Antipode. Available at: http://radicalantipode.files.wor dpress.com/2013/11/garrett-and-hawkins-response.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2020.

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Greco, J. (2012). The Psychology of Ruin Porn. CityLab. Available at: https:// www.citylab.com/design/2012/01/psychology-ruin-porn/886/. Accessed 24 April 2020. Gross, M. (2016). Risk as Zombie Category: Ulrich Beck’s Unfinished Project of the ‘Non-Knowledge’ Society. Security Dialogue, 47 (5), 386–402. Guattari, F. (1996). Remaking Social Practices. In G. Genosko (Ed.), The Guattari Reader (pp. 262–272). Oxford: Blackwell. Guignon, C. (2004). On Being Authentic. London: Routledge. Hall, S., & Jefferson, T. (2003). Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Hardt, M. (1995). The Withering of Civil Society. Social Text, 14 (4), 27–44. High, S. (2013). Beyond Aesthetics: Visibility and Invisibility in the Aftermath of Deindustrialization. International Labor and Working-Class History, 84, 140–153. Hoggart, R. (1992). The Uses of Literacy. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ingold, T. (2014). That’s Enough About Ethnography! Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 4 (1), 383–395. Kim, M. (2009). Naked City Spleen. Available at: http://mirukim.com/nakedcity-spleen. Accessed 24 April 2020. Kindynis, T. (2017). Urban Exploration: From Subterranea to Spectacle. British Journal of Criminology, 57 (4), 982–1001. Kindynis, T. (2019). Excavating Ghosts: Urban Exploration as Graffiti Archaeology. Crime Media Culture, 15 (1), 25–45. Kindynis, T., & Garrett, B. (2015). Entering the Maze: Space, Time and Exclusion in an Abandoned Northern Ireland Prison. Crime Media Culture, 11(1), 5–20. Klausen, M. (2017). The Urban Exploration Imaginary: Mediatization, Commodification and Affect. Space and Culture, 20 (4), 372–384. Levy, L. (2012). Rethinking the Relationship Between Memory and Imagination in Sartre’s the Imaginary. Journal for the British Society for Phenomenology, 43(2), 143–160. Longhurst, R. (1995). The Body and Geography. Gender, Place and Culture, 2(1), 97–106. Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Macfarlane, R. (2019). Underland: A Deep Time Journey. London: Hamish Hamilton. Mathiesen, T. (1997). The Viewer Society. Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 215– 234.

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McDowell, L. (2010). Capital Culture Revisited: Sex, Testosterone, and the City. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34 (3), 652–658. Mott, C., & Roberts, S. (2014). Not Everyone Has (the) Balls: Urban Exploration and the Persistence of Masculinist Geography. Antipode, 46 (1), 229–245. Mould, O. (2015). Urban Subversion and the Creative City. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Pinder, D. (2005). Arts of Urban Exploration. Cultural Geographies, 12, 383– 411. Prescott, H. (2009). Birth-Place. Feminist Review, 93, 101–108. Rojek, C. (1995). Decentring Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory. London: Sage. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowsdower, Z. (2011). Fresh Rot: Urban Exploration and the Preservation of Decay. Journal of the University of Manitoba Archaeology, 29, 1–15. Sartre, J-P. (1981). The Words (B. Frechtman, Trans.). New York: Random House. Simmel, G. (1992 [1908]). Sociology: Studies on the Forms of Socialisation. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Stebbins, R. (2007). Serious Leisure: A Perspective for Our Time. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Thompson, H. (1967). Hell’s Angels. London: Penguin. Tomlinson, A. (2001). Sport, Leisure and Style. In D. Morley & K. Robins (Trans.), British Cultural Studies: Geography, Nationality and Identity (pp. 399–415). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Trigg, D. (2006). The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason. New York: Peter Lang. White, S. K. (2005, Summer). Weak Ontology: Genealogy and Critical Issues. Hedgehog Review, 11–25. Wynne, B. (1992). Uncertainty and Environmental Learning: Reconceiving Science and Policy in the Preventative Paradigm. Global Environmental Change, 2(2), 111–127.

3 Constructing a Critical Lens

Introduction As methodology is the basis of all theory, this chapter unpacks the essential decisions and processes that were involved in the production of knowledge. For the most part, the chapter offers a brief overview of how the author entered into the lived experience of the social space of a group of urban explorers. However, given that the topic could be perceived as ‘deviant’ the chapter also provides some additional thoughts on ethical issues and moral choices. The remainder of the book is based on three years of ‘official’ research that was conducted as part of my doctoral studies, and additional experiences that were gained before and after completing the study. In other words, all in all this book draws on over seven year’s worth of research and experience that was gathered across Europe (including the UK) alongside other urban explorers. The view I developed while conducting the research was that if I was to properly understand and unpack the social space of a group of urban explorers I would have to do so from their point of view. Although this point will be explored in more depth later in the chapter, for now it is important to note that I sought to find out what really goes on in © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_3

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a social world by stripping the methodology down to something raw and less concerned with the application of a strict, inflexible framework. As Richard Rorty (1989) has argued, while social scientists often assume reality can be pieced together by drawing on complex theories and methodologies, social inquiry should really be treated as a creative way of ‘making’ culture and this converges around using tools that are dependent upon our own particular frames of reference. Therefore, what I was more interested in was being able to investigate urban exploration through a wider scope or what we might term a critical lens. In other words, to appeal to the imagination of the urban explorer, this project invested in a wide-angle lens which, while being short in focal length, offers a significantly greater magnification of the world within the frame. As Gerlach and Gerlach (2007) suggest, wide-angle lenses are perhaps among the most difficult to operate well, but if used deftly and judiciously, the onlooker can rub up very closely to an unusual viewpoint as more of a scene’s features and intricate details are captured. In addition, following Bauman’s (1992) point that plurality is a crucial part of the research process because it is an irremovable feature of twentyfirst-century life, it is important to note that the research approach I adopted is reflexive. By this I mean it is characterised by the reflexivity of the individuals being examined, and by the reflexivity inherent in the research context which is part and parcel of espousing such an approach. It is also reflexive in the sense that it highlights the subjective position of myself and my role as the researcher throughout the research process. Of course, it is useful to be mindful of the extent to which subjectivity can have an impact upon the findings of a study, but it is more important to recognise that it is a vital component of any social research (Rorty 1989). To borrow one of Jacques Derrida’s famous references, when it comes to social research and the application of traditional methodologies citing objectivity ‘one cannot say: “here are our monsters”, without immediately turning the monsters into pets’ (1990: 80). What is meant by this is that a consequence of not being a reflexive scholar is that people are at risk of being quickly transformed into objects, regardless of the many narratives and discourses they could really be part of. To offer a brief outline for the rest of the chapter, it begins with some considerations about the ontological and epistemological foundations

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that underpin this research. To stimulate the sociological imagination of the reader and breach rather than follow closely guarded norms and procedural codes, I go onto explain how two kinds of hermeneutics were selected as the most suitable research strategy to achieve my aims and objectives. The chapter then moves on to consider my ‘insider-ness’. Following the essential work of Tony Blackshaw (2003), a scholar who has provided a compelling ethnographic contribution to the fields of leisure and culture, it is argued that while being immersed in the world of urban exploration as a ‘body-in-action’ it was important to practice ethnography empathetically, intuitively and empirically. Thereafter, the chapter goes on to introduce an urban exploration group known as WildBoyz; I explain how I came to know the group and how I have interacted with them for several years. To ease the reader into the magic of heterotopic social space, the first of many ‘episodes’ is employed. The episode describes one of ‘the Boyz’ first explores in the North East of England where they discovered and explored an abandoned hospital. At this stage, the chapter also serves as an introduction to some of the central characters whose leisure lives are explored in a great level of depth throughout the book. Finally, some important ethical considerations are raised to explain how the safety of everyone involved in the research was attended to.

Metaphysical Orientations The methodology underpinning the research in this book takes as its starting point the understanding that ontology is where all research begins, and that ontological assumptions are based on ‘what we believe constitutes social reality’ (Blaikie 2000: 8). With this in mind, as I was interested in bringing the world of a group of urban explorers to life this research is based on existential knowledge that was obtained through empirical investigation. This was accomplished by employing a method of investigation that directs its inquiry at an urban exploration world from the inside, and by drawing on common-sense constructs and understandings in order to interpret human actions (Schütz 1967). In other words, this approach supports the idea that social worlds should

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be viewed as being objects of study in and of themselves, and that they should be made available and accessible to readers in an open and straightforward way. It also supports the idea that the various everyday actions of individuals, which can often seem basic or unremarkable, are a crucial part of any social world so they should always be included in this style of research (Skeggs 1997). Furthermore, it is important to note that by adopting a reflexive approach there is an underlying assumption at the heart of this book that views our world as no longer being based on a strong ontology. As Blackshaw (2017) argues, the world has become more plural and guided by pointillist time which means our lives, especially when it comes to our leisure worlds, have become increasingly episodic. What this means is that this approach recognises that our being-in-the-world is guided by weak ontologies which are always contestable and have no rooted or permanent foundations (White 2005). To paraphrase Blackshaw (2017), although people’s lives are guided by their own choices there is also a sense that events and identities in the twenty-first century are governed by contingency and this can leave individuals feeling as though they do not have complete control over their lives. With this in mind, having acknowledged the evolving face of ontology, this methodology recognises the usefulness of Schütz and Jacobs’ (1979) notion of the insider and ‘reality reconstructionists’ (other urban explorers) because they are the only way weak ontologies can be explored. In other words, what is being suggested is that it is only through gaining insider knowledge that different ontological ‘truths’ of and about urban exploration can be uncovered. Alongside ontological considerations some thought has been given to epistemology. In short, epistemology can be referred to as ‘the possible ways of gaining knowledge of social reality’ and how what we assume exists can be known (Blaikie 2000: 8). However, as Rojek (1995) has argued, it is important to consider the idea that modernist epistemological thinking often tries to neatly organise people, realities, experiences and objects into familiar categories and theories. The problem with this is that it can only result in orthodox sociological interpretations being produced as it tends to be the same doxic ‘zombie-categories’ that are recycled (Beck 2002). What is being suggested here, then, is that as

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this book’s methodology supports a view that recognises the world as being increasingly fragmentary, we need to start looking for new ways of forming interpretations about it and the forms of leisure people experiment with. To put it simply, an alternative epistemological position needs to be considered, one that takes into account the fragmented and episodic nature of life in present modernity. This is where Foucault’s (1984) epistemological systems of heterotopia come in useful. As heterotopic social space exists in pointillist time, and it signifies space that injects life into things that are out of the ordinary, very different ontological and epistemological assumptions come into play. With this in mind, it might be argued that the concept of heterotopia is most effective for gaining knowledge of a particular ‘deviant’ social reality because it functions as a space of expression and compensation. Heterotopic social spaces represent those spaces where people do not surrender to everyday or usual societal norms; all norms are successfully dissolved and replaced by desires and an alternative shapeshifting type of knowledge and awareness (Blackshaw 2017). As an alternative epistemology, then, heterotopia is important for reflecting on a special type of freedom where people have managed to find their own creative way of existing in the world (Foucault 1984). In other words, it is the mystery of Foucault’s heterotopia that can force us to confront the limits of our ways of understanding, and it is the key to being able to comprehend the intensity, performativity and richness of the worlds urban explorers manage to create for themselves. It is crucial, therefore, that researchers find ways of accessing and experiencing them first-hand.

The Research Design To make the research approach more explicit, this section of the chapter informs the reader of the type of ethnography that was employed. Essentially, because I was interested in what really goes on in the social world, the research design I developed sought to operate several tools— ethnography, autobiography, journalism, individual stories/histories and novelistic detail—that can all be used in different ways to stimulate the sociological imagination (Rorty 1989). By following this plan of action,

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I hoped to capture, in some measure, the performativity that acts as a temporary shelter in a world where it often feels as though life is poised between exerting individuality and seeking those warm, cosier feelings of familiarity and closeness. As it will be argued, situated at the margins of society there are performative spaces of shared endeavour, what I refer to as heterotopias, that manifest themselves as ‘real places… without geographical markers’ (Blackshaw 2010: 141). These, like Blackshaw’s (2003) lads in his study that follows the leisure lives of a group of working-class men in Leeds, can be thought of as being a little like neo-tribes or Gemeinschaften—‘mobile and flexible groupings’—as Lash (2002: 27) terms them. Regardless of the name given to them, it is these sorts of collectives that allow for temporary social bonding and which provide a sense of belonging without the demands of any long-term commitment. What this idea builds on, then, is Garrett’s (2013) identification that there is a ‘tightly-fractured’ character to the type of community urban explorers create for themselves. However, it is not enough to suggest that the social space of a group of urban explorers was straightforwardly investigated and unpacked in the remainder of this book. To uncover the level of depth and richness I was after, it was essential that the critical lens I employed was focused more finely, and that the aperture was adjusted accordingly to fit the wider context. What I mean by this is that although the research contained in this book sought to unpack heterotopic social space, it was also concerned with the wider societal and political factors that are closely linked to participation in urban exploration. Therefore, in line with Bauman (2014), this research design takes into consideration that two kinds of hermeneutics are available to researchers with sociological interest. That is to say, hermeneutic sociology and sociological hermeneutics can be drawn upon to support the intuitive interpretation of the shared worlds of social actors (Blackshaw 2005). As Henning Bech describes it, hermeneutic sociology is useful because it is a way of ‘snuggle[ing] up to [the] quotidian and recognisable, even trivial’ (1997: 6). In other words, hermeneutic sociology is not unlike Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole into a completely different world.

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The crucial point, though, is that the reader who is after a ‘mimetic representation’ is made to feel as if they are an insider as they experience the vividness and intensity of the social world under investigation (Bauman 1992: 42). What is more, in addition to offering the reader a way of viewing a world which they would not otherwise be able to access, it is arguable that hermeneutic sociology operates with a keen moral awareness (Blackshaw 2005). This is because hermeneutic sociology accepts that the world is made up of a multiplicity of different contingent universes which often interconnect with one another to create an interminable number of possible realities (ibid.). Captured in a nutshell, then, this way of writing is steeped in rich detail and it uncovers the important things that are part and parcel of, and give meaning to, people’s lives. As Bauman (1992) puts it, hermeneutic sociology exposes the pure magic and intimacy of existence. However, left unaided hermeneutic sociology as a method of interpretation is limited to the explication of the social space facing consideration; it is shaped wholly by the invention of deep immersion. What this means is that this research keeps in mind that it is fruitless to imagine ‘depth’ analysis alone can reveal more than ‘surface’ accounts can (Rinehart 1998). In other words, what is being attended to here is the preoccupation—one that is evident in many sociological and leisure texts—with ‘binary opposites’ or duality to argue that a form of alternative tactics are required to amalgamate ‘depth’ and ‘surface’ so that neither is overlooked or underestimated (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004; Rinehart 1998). As Derrida (1973) points out, there is always prejudice invoked in antagonistic or binary opposites and one slice of the relationship is always preferred over the other. The aim here, therefore, is to move beyond the assumption that ‘depth’ equates to truth, while ‘surface’ meaning conveys something that is misleading and insufficient. In view of the points raised above, the ethnographic account contained in this book is also shaped by sociological hermeneutics to explicitly attend to the ‘surface’ phenomena that is an important part of society and the leisure-life worlds that are part of it (Blackshaw 2005). This approach seeks to analyse and develop explanations of heterotopia in relation to what the wider yet equally thinner surface of reality means to

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certain groups and individuals, and what implications there are for realising freedom. As Bauman puts it, ‘[sociological] hermeneutics consists, in a nutshell, in reading the observed behavioural tendencies against the conditions under which actors find themselves obliged to go about their life-tasks’ (2004: 23). However, what this approach also recognises is that the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987) is fundamental to the position of this discourse because they draw attention to the idea that every undertaking in the world corresponds to a rhizomatic medium, as nonhomogeneous flows of collective desires, interests, nuances and struggles. In other words, what is being suggested here is that because most bodies in the twenty-first century are perpetuated and pushed by a milieu of what could be termed states of meaning, we need to be alert to the ever-changing nature of life and society (Bauman 1992).

On Being an Insider To facilitate my methodological approach, it was important to envisage how I would interact with my participants. As it was hinted earlier in the chapter, and as the reader has most likely guessed by now, I opted to become an ‘insider’ because this position would allow me to integrate myself fully into the life and heterotopia of a group of urban explorers. I used this position to observe other urban explorers but also to feel and be part of the lived experience of a collective. Of course, being an insider is not without its problems and there are many scholars who would argue that researchers should always try to remain somewhere on the periphery of the research field to ensure they do not become too deeply involved (Ozkul 2016). As Loïc Wacquant argues, ‘going native’ can have a negative impact on the scientific angle of research, especially as it can easily become too subjectivist and quickly spiral from being a good social analysis into a ‘narcissistic story-telling’ exercise (2011: 87–88). Other critics have also pointed out that researchers should continually reassess and resituate their insiderness throughout the research process because at some stage the researcher will be required to stand out as a non-biased observer as they ensure the protection of the intellectual perspective (Hammett et al. 2015).

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It seems, then, that the leading problem when it comes to ethnographic research is that there is a deep-seated belief in the idea that it is important to establish a divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Bauman 1993). What I want to argue, however, in my attempt to push aside the inward-looking epistemological gap between real-life leisure worlds and abstract theory, is that researchers should try to be more inclusive with their ethnographic accounts of the world. What this means is that we should be less obsessed with the ‘outsider’ position of researchers. As Natoli (1997) argues, it is doubtful there is an epistemological split between dualisms within social inquiry, not least because this way of thinking is rooted in the Cartesian way of thinking—a standpoint that is well-known for privileging the mind over the body. What is more important, as Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) point out, is that both the social researcher and the researched should be viewed in equal measure as being essential pieces of the same puzzle. To avoid privileging the ‘outsider’ perspective, I decided to fully immerse myself in the world of urban exploration as a ‘body-in-action’ (Wacquant 2011) where I would be able to practice ethnography empathetically, intuitively and empirically (Blackshaw 2003). By this I mean that I acted as a cultural intermediary by exploiting the fact I was already an urban explorer before this research was even a thought. Against the heavy prejudice that good research cannot be produced without strict rules, ethics and some sort of abstract positivistic foundation, I decided I wanted to produce something that utilised the full potential of hermeneutic sociology and sociological hermeneutics. This method, therefore, would entail living life as an urban explorer first and that of a researcher second. Of course, I was a little worried initially that some readers might view my work as being less credible and grounded too deeply in the self-styled rebellious attitude of the urban explorer which has been highlighted in literature pertaining to this topic area (see: Bradley Garrett). However, to contribute to the ongoing development of ethnography in the field of leisure studies, and to appeal to sociological imaginations rather than objective minds, I decided to follow Wacquant’s suggestion about ‘go[ing] native armed’ (2011: 87). By this I do not mean arming myself with theoretical tools, for these would emerge later as I tried

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to make sense of everything I experienced and witnessed, but with my ‘capacity for reflexivity and analysis’ (ibid.: 87). In other words, I tried to make sure I was being faithful to my fellow explorers by not representing their reality as a rigorous set of empirical facts, but by giving them a voice and gradually transforming myself into a sociologist as interpretations of the heterotopia around me became clearer. This is what is known as adopting an intuitive outsider perspective coupled with an empathetic insider perspective (Blackshaw 2003). In this regard, throughout my time ‘in the field’ and while writing this book I have endeavoured to focus less on myself in the research context and more exclusively on those who were there alongside me. This was to ensure I produced a scrupulous analysis rather than a narcissistic story.

Introducing WildBoyz As this section of the chapter will show, my research approach attempts to provide the reader with a window from which they can gaze into, and in the end become immersed in, the ‘cultural imaginary’ (Castoriadis 1987) of the heterotopic social space of a group of urban explorers. However, to avoid turning anyone into a pet, to borrow Derrida’s phrasing, I decided to make the world I wanted to investigate accessible by using narrative ‘episodes’ (short stories) that deploy the rhetorical strategies normally used by authors of fiction. This allows ‘the Boyz’ to announce themselves and share their inimitable sense of performativity and culture. It is important to add that in addition I have included frequent ‘academic interruptions’ to maintain the focus of discussions and ensure the surface phenomena is not overshadowed by the depth (Blackshaw 2003). The initial idea for my research and this book developed from something I happened to do from a young age as I grew up in the North East of England. If any group of people were to be the ideal candidates for a study, it was those I grew up with. Most of us have been friends since childhood and for years we managed to create our own form of leisure around a veritable playground of iconic bridges, collapsing

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industry, wasteland, empty mines, forgotten quarries, burnt-out buildings and dilapidated modernist concrete that always seemed to be crusted in pigeon shit. Today, now all in our late twenties and early thirties, although our careers have evolved in different ways not a lot has changed in terms of our passion for ‘urban exploration’ as it is now referred to. Most of us still cling to our bizarre fascination for chaos, devastation and adventure. In the urbex world, the collective my research focuses on is known as WildBoyz, or ‘the Boyz’ for short. It is, for the most part, an all-male group whose name was inspired by the Duran Duran song ‘Wild Boys’. Although the group existed long before 2012, it was around this time we decided a shared name was obligatory. The reason for choosing a group name probably had something to do with the fact we had started to notice that ‘urbex’ forums existed. At any rate, after hearing ‘Wild Boys’ being played over the radio several times that particular year it became known as a ‘beasty tune’ and we convinced ourselves it encapsulated our collectiveness perfectly. Ever since then, the name has become part of the craic and a sort of running joke, a form of self-parody as it were, and we usually play the song at least once every time we meet up together. It was around 2012 ‘the Boyz’ started to invent individual names for themselves too. Most urban explorers do this, and it seems to serve as a way of making the whole urbex endeavour feel all the more real, ‘cool’ and inimitable. And so, at some point in the seasonably cold March of 2012 the world of WildBoyz Urban Exploration began, and its central characters were born: Ford Mayhem, Meek-Kune-Do (MKD), Rizla Rider, Rock Rags,1 Box and Subject Forty-Seven. One of our first explores together under our new nicknames and banners was an old hospital that was built in 1888 and used as a facility to treat infectious diseases. —

1 If

my original unpublished thesis has been read by the reader, it may have been noticed that one of ‘the Boyz’ names has changed. Following a small identity crisis while writing this book, ‘The Hurricane’, as he was previously known, decided he wanted to change his name. Hence, from this moment on he is known as Rock Rags.

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Crammed together inside Box’s ‘fucked’ three-door Corsa, we were heading towards Newcastle. According to Rizla there was a ‘mint explore’ over that way, so we were off to take a look before the demolition team moved in. The craic inside the car was well and truly alive, and MKD was doing his bit to make it ever better by leaning between the two front seats to crank up the volume of the music. Duran Duran’s ‘Wild Boys’ was blasting loudly from the sound system that took up the entire space of the boot. Box’s driving seemed to reflect the excitement reverberating throughout the car. With his foot on the floor and the engine screaming he was high on the ecstasy of the moment. Consumed by our arrogance and the thrill of something that seems otherwise unattainable in the everyday world, we laughed at the danger and the irony we were heading to the right place if we crashed—a hospital. Fortunately, half an hour later we found ourselves standing outside a pair of old Victorian wrought iron gates. They were linked together in the middle by a heavy chain and padlock. Together, we gazed at the hospital in the hope we might spot an entry point. However, the building was impenetrably black inside. In fact, it was so dark even the streetlights seemed incapable of illuminating the outside grounds. Yet, something seemed to entice us on, forcing us to want to take a closer look, so we each climbed the twisted bars of the gate and set off in the direction of a long glass corridor that would no doubt have a broken window or two. The wind howled as it crept through the dilapidated corridor. Loose windowpanes rattled furiously, and the frames creaked and groaned under the strain of keeping the glass in place. Above us, somewhere on the roof, something metallic clattered loudly. The noise was unexpected, and it caused Rizla to ‘shit himself ’. Everyone laughed. As we rounded a corner, other objects seemed to join the chaotic orchestra. Crumpled blinds and bits of broken guttering clanked and scraped in the chilly evening wind. Several holes in the windows that were not quite big enough to climb through seemed to breathe ragged breaths as the wind swept through the corridor from the inside. Careful not to let any of the others see us jump like Rizla had, each of us carefully navigated our way over and around the various pieces of furniture and equipment that littered the ground, until MKD suddenly stopped in his tracks.

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As MKD was leading the pack his large silhouette blocked our path. Curious to find out why he’d stopped, Forty-Seven strolled up to him and tapped him roughly on the shoulder. MKD quickly spun himself round. He was clutching a battered old fire extinguisher. There was no time to react. Half a second later and a slight squeeze of the trigger was all it took for a tremendous amount of stale white sticky powder to erupt from the canister. A raspy, vociferous sound followed. Flapping his arms erratically, Forty-Seven tried desperately to avoid some of the blast, but he had little success. The rest of us stared at him as the cloud of white powder began to clear. We were trying our best to hold back wide grins, but as a spluttering ghostlike figure emerged from the settling dust cloud we exploded into a frenzy of laughter. –– As the reader can see, I decided early on to keep the research environment as natural as possible. With this in mind, from an early stage in the planning process I simply asked ‘the Boyz’ over a few pints in Ferryhill Working Men’s Club if they would be willing to be my ‘research participants’. I explained my plan was to let them lead the way and that my aim was to write about some of our stories. After they agreed, I decided to divide my research into two parts. The first would entail using some of the experiences I had already gained prior to the official start of my research, and the second would involve following our continuing journey over the next few years. I chose to do things this way because I felt the heterotopic social space of my participants could only be unpacked comprehensively if the whole story, which includes the past, present and future, was taken into consideration. Throughout the research process I have followed Bech’s notion of ‘sticking to the phenomena in question’ (1997: 5) by taking an active part in everything the rest of the group has done. Together, we have completed over four-hundred explores and in this time I have listened to ‘the Boyz’ and I have observed them; I have laughed and joked with them, I have been angry and frustrated with them; I have shared intimate stories with them; I have experienced sadness and distress with them. To borrow a small part of Mayhem’s speech from my wedding, ‘we have all

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been through thick and thin together’. In other words, it was always my aim to continue treating all of my trips and adventures with ‘the Boyz’ as trips and adventures, not research being conducted ‘in the field’. For this reason, other than subtly documenting potentially useful quotes on my mobile phone and taking photographs and video footage which is all an integral part of urban exploration anyway, I took no field notes in front of ‘the Boyz’. Instead, after most explores or longer trips together, I would produce a set of detailed field notes that would vividly describe what happened out in the field exactly as it happened. — Having navigated our way through a series of dark corridors, we’d finally found some of the hospital wards and the X-ray department. We split off at this point, as everyone chose to do their own thing. Box wandered into one of the old administration rooms and began shuffling through some old draws and the documents that had been left inside. He was trying to find something interesting. As for MKD, much to Forty-Seven’s amusement he’d accidently put his hands in a black sticky sludge while he’d been taking a look around the X-ray room. Now, having found an old dusty container filled with alcohol gel, he was busy trying to clean off the ‘fuckin’ black shit’ and steadily becoming more pissed off as it refused to budge from his hands. I left him to it and decided to see what the others were up to. Turning a corner that led directly into a damp, stale-smelling ward, I found Rags and Rizla shuffling around on a couple of zimmer frames. As they continued to play out their parts as ‘decrepit’ and infirm patients, I decided to take the opportunity to grab some photographs of their strange performance. Arching his back over the apparatus, Rizla let out a low groan, imitating in his words the actions of a ‘cripple’. His frame banged noisily against the grey curling floor tiles which rasped occasionally as their folded edges rubbed against the rusted legs of the zimmer. Rags hobbled past, entering a room to our right. I followed him and found that Forty-Seven had joined in with the frolics. After discovering old beds, he’d decided to climb into one and feign illness. Lying flat

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on his back and covered partly by an old dusty sheet he moaned and produced a few feeble coughs. ‘I’m a gone-a, I got the fuckin’ plague, boys’, he announced in a low whisper. — It is worth noting that there are some scholars who would argue that an obvious disadvantage to keeping the research side of things separate from ‘the Boyz’ as much as possible is that it is impossible to chronicle all events as they happened and this in turn can affect the validity and reliability of the research (Ladkin 2004). However, in response to such criticism I turn to the important work of Max Weber (1949) because he justifies this way of doing things with a concept he termed Verstehen. In short, what Weber suggests is that even if a researcher directly observes someone doing something, often they cannot comprehend or explain what is occurring immediately. Therefore, it is necessary for the researcher to try to account for the reasons behind actions later on. In other words, what Weber (1949) is pointing out is that researchers need time to reflect on what has occurred if they are to develop new ideas and theories. Weber also makes the point that it is perhaps more beneficial to provide a rich, empathetic analysis of a select number of situations rather than trying to regurgitate every single thing that happened. After all, if a researcher tries to catalogue everything, they run the risk of losing the richness and profundity of their research. In terms of chronicling key events then, I made sure that my research would be focused on producing ‘thick descriptions’ of a select number of otherwise transient and equivocal spaces of compensation (Geertz 1973). Of course, this approach would mean I would never be able to codify my findings or make them generalisable vis-à-vis the wider population, but it did mean I would be able to make pragmatic generalisations about the social space of a specific group of urban explorers. The vocation of this research, therefore, has been to construct a detailed interpretive understanding of urban exploration, to record in detail something about its heterotopic social spaces in the twenty-first century since we currently know very little about them. Doing things this way has enabled me to uncover the underlying ideals, opinions, social interactions, routines,

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behaviours, feelings and motives that are intrinsic to WildBoyz. This is not to suggest that the research aimed to be fictitious in any way or that it is based on guesswork, only that it served to emphasise the point that truth is based on ‘the feel of the experience – the verisimilitude’ (Rinehart 1998: 204). As Bauman reminds us, there is much truth in the ungeneralisable fiction we produce for ourselves and it is the task of social researchers to tell us more about them (Bauman and Tester 2013).

Raising Ethical Issues and Making Moral Choices Given the questionable nature of the type of leisure this book focuses on, and the fact it could be interpreted as being ‘deviant’ or ethically problematic, the final section of this chapter attends to some of the ethical and moral issues I had to consider. Given the restrictions on space here I have only been able to highlight a few of the most crucial issues, but readers can find a more comprehensive and critical examination of these ideas in a separate article I wrote in 2017/2018 titled Trespassing in (Un)Familiar Territory: Knowing the ‘Other’ in Ethnographic Research. In a nutshell, the first thing I took into account was the law. As urban exploration often involves trespassing on other people’s property, I felt it was important to understand my ‘rights’ and those of ‘the Boyz’. Thus, I discovered very early on that the act of trespass in many countries has not yet been made illegal (Crown Prosecution Service [1994] 2019). Quite understandably, trespass does become a criminal offence if an individual is caught breaking and entering, or if they are caught with tools that suggest there was an intention to break and enter. However, I want to make it clear from the offset that to my knowledge none of the participants involved in my study engaged in any type of law-breaking behaviour while I was with them. Only legitimate means of entry were sought (access through open windows, doors and holes, etc.) and tools to break and enter were never carried or used. The second thing to note is that although I completed the university’s ethical documentation, in the end I decided to remain moral and faithful to my participants. Following Bauman’s (1993) suggestion that morality

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is by no means universalisable and involves action that can be perceived as being non-rational, unregulated and unpredictable, I understood it was more important to respect ‘the Boyz’ rights and their trust rather than follow a set of abstract rules and regulations. After all, as Foucault (1984) reminds us, when it comes to investigating heterotopias ethics are no longer relevant because different rules matter. With these ideas in mind, I had several conversations with ‘the Boyz’ to find out if there was anything they did not want including in the book, and to uncover whether they were happy for me to incorporate unedited past and future experiences into my research. They all agreed there was a lot of moral value in bringing up these issues with them, and in seeking their ‘ethical approval’. During our conversations, ‘the Boyz’ made it clear that they wanted to be represented for who they really are, not who they are in accordance with the university’s policies and guidelines. Therefore, it was very early on in the research process I realised I would have to prepare myself for the likelihood I would have to occasionally become ‘unethical’ by conventional and procedural standards for the sake of the heterotopia and ‘the Boyz’ unique way of viewing the world. The third point to make is that I made sure all ‘the Boyz’ were informed about my research, and that they were happy to participate in the study. As I indicated in the paragraph above, I made it explicit to everyone that they could raise concerns about the research at any point, and that they should inform me if there was anything they did not want including in the final text. In addition, I assured ‘the Boyz’ that they would remain anonymous. So long as they agreed, only their ‘urbex names’ would be used and no other personal details would be incorporated without their permission. For their added protection, I also decided to remove certain characters from some events by replacing their names for those of the other ‘Boyz’. What this means is that it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty who did what or when they might have done it. This is not to imply that the events in this book are fictitious or that the integrity and richness of the research has been damaged, it is simply to note that some have been blurred slightly. In other words, every episode in this book was still real.

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Fourthly, as far as health and safety was concerned, it is important to note that I did not want to affect the research by refusing to participate in explores that might be deemed ‘risky’ or ‘dangerous’ according to policies and procedures. Crucially, I did not want my image as an urban explorer to be replaced by my identity as a researcher. However, this does not mean I followed ‘the Boyz’ into every explore they ever did with a lack of common sense, or that the others were forced to participate in things they did not want to do. Depending on the situation and how we each were feeling, it would sometimes be the case that a few individuals ‘bailed’. Sometimes a site might be deemed too dangerous, or the risk to reward ratio might have seemed ‘a bit shit’ at the time. In other instances, some of us would be physically incapable of getting into a site (if access involved squeezing through a very narrow opening for instance), or sometimes we simply ‘couldn’t be fucked’ to bother trying and would rather sit in the car or stay at home with a beer. In other words, everyone in this study had freewill and they were familiar with the limitations of their own skills and abilities. Finally, while addressing moral and ethical issues I feel I should comment on the ‘bad’ language the reader will encounter throughout the book because in my quest for verisimilitude I have chosen not to omit or challenge this. In anticipation of my critics, I want to be clear that I am very much aware that some of ‘the Boyz’ comments, especially their vicious banter, might be deemed offensive especially since they appear to be misogynistic and misandrist. However, as offensive as these comments might seem to an outsider, what I would like to stress is that ‘the Boyz’ choice of language is often not used to attack other people or even one another. In reality, the language is simply part and parcel of where they are from and a feature of their shared identity. What I mean by this is that the language is used as a means of ‘fitting in’ and it is employed in all sorts of ordinary circumstances and conversations (Allan and Burridge 2006). That is to say, it is part of ‘the Boyz’ performativity which has been built in part around the fact they come from an area of the North East where the use of such language is more normal. There are many occasions, therefore, where their language does not really mean anything (in the eyes of ‘the Boyz’ at least), it just happens to slip into conversation. Having said that, ‘the Boyz’ recognise that this sort of language is

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not appropriate in all walks of life. They would not speak to all peers in this way, and they would certainly not use it in all other areas of their social lives. That being said, sometimes the ‘bad’ language does mean something of course. The reader will see this when a rival group known as the Fr3e Roamers make an appearance later in the book. In these instances, certain words (‘cunt’, ‘wanker’, ‘dickhead’, etc.) are employed for their shock effect because they bring with them particular feelings (an obvious sense of violence, anger and distaste for example). In other words, the point is that there is no better way of verbally articulating hostility and aggression (McEnery 2006). In the same way ‘fuck off ’ does not simply mean ‘go away’, these are words that have no English equivalent. There is nothing else that can be said in their place. They articulate powerful feelings that are otherwise impossible to express coherently (Derrida 2001). As the reader continues with the rest of the book, then, I encourage them to keep these points on language in mind. I also want to stress that I am not implying I agree with ‘the Boyz’ choice of language, nor am I attempting to defend it. I am merely contextualising it and explaining how and why it is used. More to the point, I am suggesting that the quality of the study ultimately depends on its inclusion.

Summary The methodological approach detailed in this chapter represents an attempt to unpack the heterotopic social space of a group of urban explorers using a strategy that involved oscillating between being an empathetic insider and an intuitive outsider (Blackshaw 2003). What is important, though, is that neither perspective was privileged over the other. Instead, by drawing on the dialectic between sociological hermeneutics and hermeneutic sociology the reader should not only begin to feel what it is like being an urban explorer, they should begin to mediate on how present modernity affects the lives of urban explorers (Bauman 1992). Another important feature of this research methodology is the appreciation that empirical research will always remain fractional.

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However, by making use of rhetorical strategies that are typically associated with a novelistic style of writing I have tried to enhance our understanding of how a group of urban explorers live out their leisure lives in the twenty-first century. In this regard, the present book is a step in the direction of challenging common-sense doxa (that everyday knowledge we often think with but not about) and offering a different way of seeing and understanding leisure in our ‘liquid modern’ world. What I ask the reader to do now, before we go on to explore in more detail the sort of world ‘the Boyz’ find themselves in, is that they suspend their own ontological standpoints and assumptions for the time being. For a short while all ontological questions should be postponed as the reader takes my word and follows the notion that the things I am saying about ‘the Boyz’ are true. If this is accomplished, it is possible the heterotopic social space of several individuals will be understood for what it is with compassion, understanding and an appreciation that new rules of method are sometimes necessary if we are to speak with any authority about leisure in the twenty-first century.

References Allan, K., & Burridge, K. (2006). Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (2004). Liquid Sociality. In N. Gane (Ed.), The Future of Social Theory (pp. 17–46). London: Continuum. Bauman, Z. (2014). What Use is Sociology? Conversations with Michael-Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z., & Tester, K. (2013). Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity. Bech, H. (1997). When Men Meet: Homosexuality and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, U. (2002). ‘Zombie Categories’: Interview with Ulrich Beck. In U. Beck & E. Beck-Gernsheim (Eds.), Individualisation. London: Sage.

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Blackshaw, T. (2003). Leisure Life: Myth, Masculinity and Modernity. London: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2005). Zygmunt Bauman. London: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2010). Key Concepts in Community Studies. London: Sage. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Blackshaw, T., & Crabbe, T. (2004). New Perspectives on Sport and Deviance: Consumption, Performativity and Social Control . Oxfordshire: Routledge. Blaikie, N. (2000). Designing Social Research. Cambridge: Polity. Castoriadis, C. (1987). The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge: Polity. Crown Prosecution Service. (2019 [1994]). Trespass and Nuisance on Land [online]. Available at: http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/trespass_and_nui sance_on_land/. Accessed 27 April 2020. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (pp. 3–28). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, J. (1973). Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs. Evanston: North Western University Press. Derrida, J. (1990). Some Statements etc. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Derrida, J. (2001). Writing and Difference (A. Bass, Trans.). Oxon: Routledge. Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1), 22–27. Garrett, B. (2013). Undertaking Recreational Trespass: Urban Exploration and Infiltration. Transactions, 39, 1–13. Geertz, C. (1973). Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. New York: Basic Books. Gerlach, J., & Gerlach, B. (2007). Digital Nature Photography: The Art and the Science. Oxford: Focal. Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1983). Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London: Travistock. Hammett, D., Twyman, C., & Graham, M. (2015). Research and Fieldwork in Development. Oxon: Routledge. Ladkin, A. (2004). The Life and Work History Methodology: A Discussion of Its Potential Use for Tourism and Hospitality Research. In J. Phillimore & L. Goodson (Eds.), Qualitative Research in Tourism: Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies (pp. 236–254). London: Routledge. Lash, S. (2002). Critique of Information. London: Sage. McEnery, T. (2006). Swearing in English: Bad language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present. Oxon: Routledge. Natoli, J. (1997). A Primer to Postmodernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Ozkul, D. (2016). Emotive Connection: Insider Research with Turkish/Kurdish Alevi Migrants in Germany. In L. Voloder & L. Kirpitchenko (Eds.), Insider Research on Migration and Mobility: International Perspectives on Researcher Positioning (pp. 117–134). London: Routledge. Rinehart, R. (1998). Fictional Methods in Ethnography: Believability, Specks of Glass and Chekov. Qualitative Inquiry, 4 (2), 200–224. Rojek, C. (1995). Decentring Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory. London: Sage. Rorty, R. (1989). Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schütz, A. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Schütz, A., & Jacobs, J. (1979). Qualitative Sociology: A Method to the Madness. New York: The Free Press. Skeggs, B. (1997). Formations of Class & Gender. London: Sage. Wacquant, L. (2011). Habitus as Topic and Tool: Reflections on Becoming a Prizefighter. Qualitative Research in Psychology., 8, 81–92. Weber, M. (1949). The Methodology of the Social Sciences. Boston, MA: University Free Press. White, S. K. (2005). Weak Ontology: Genealogy and Critical Issues. Hedgehog Review (Summer), 11–25.

Part II Exploring the Interregnum

4 Seeking Spaces of Compensation in Modernity’s Dark Side

Introduction Before any investigation and analysis of urban explorers and their social space can commence, it is essential that the world in which you, I and everyone else share is appropriately framed. The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to contextualise modernity in the twenty-first century. In other words, this is the method of sociological hermeneutics being applied to begin with so the reader will not only feel what it is like to be one of ‘the Boyz’ in later chapters, they will understand what it means to be part of a world that has entered a ‘liquid’ phase (Bauman 2000). The remainder of the book draws on the ideas in this chapter so for all intents and purposes they represent the foundation of this research monograph. To begin the task of unpacking present modernity, it is useful to turn our attention to Max Weber (1930) because he famously argued that the advent of modern capitalism, together with its constant drive for progress and improvement, brought with it an inescapable era of disenchantment . This perception is one that has since been popularised, particularly in the field of sociology, and many scholars now refer to Weber’s disenchantment as being a ‘post’, ‘late’ or ‘liquid’ condition (Wagner 2012; © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_4

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Giddens 1994; Bauman 2000). In other words, since writing about it at the beginning of the twentieth century, Weber’s sense of disenchantment has not disappeared. Rather, modernity continues to be something that is viewed as being bleak and pessimistic. A common theme that unites interpreters of twenty-first-century modernity is the view that capitalism has had serious negative implications on human freedom because everything in our world is achieved through consumerist means (Blackshaw 2017). To start with, then, this chapter makes it clear that there seems to be a shared feeling that ‘utopian’ experiments and visions in present modernity are no more than unachievable capitalist-driven daydreams (Bauman 2005). In point of fact, the turn of the twenty-first century signals a societal-wide shift into an era of heightened uncertainty, unpredictability and fragility (Beck 1992). As Sigmund Freud (2002) suggests, modernity might give the impression that it is evolving towards an improved neoteric society, but it can never rid itself of its imperfections and flawed pasts. In other words, no matter how utopian it appears there is always the other side to modernity that we often try our best to ignore—the side of ambivalence, dirt and decay (ibid.). Consequently, rather than providing life with meaning modernity repeatedly gives rise to feelings of fear, vulnerability and even a sense of hopelessness because there appears to be little we can do to change or control our circumstances (Beck 1992). To reinforce the notion that the idea of utopia is dead in present modernity, the chapter begins by exploring my hometown of Newton Aycliffe because as well as being the place where my interest in urban exploration began, it is also known for being a literal attempt to create a tangible site of perfection and Enlightenment. At first the reader may question the relevance of this initial section and wonder how it connects to urban explorers, but with some patience things should become clearer as the chapter continues. With this in mind, the chapter goes on to explain how the utopian vision of Newton Aycliffe failed by providing a detailed discussion of Bauman’s (2000) argument that we have entered a stage in modernity that is software-based, ‘fluid’ and individualised. The point of including these ideas is to emphasise the point that our lives are part and parcel of a ‘market-mediated’ mode of living where market

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mechanisms and consumer attitudes have taken control of every aspect of human existence (Bauman, in Rojek 2004: 304). As a result, it has been argued that in pursuing freedom individuals have been lured into a different type of subjugation that is controlled via seduction as opposed to overt repression (Bauman 2000). Thus, as the world around us has become more about quick-fixes, commodification and privatisation, it can be argued that we have lost our freedom, autonomy and authenticity. What I want to make clear from the offset then is that I agree with much of what twenty-first-century scholars suggest about the sense of meaninglessness, impermanence and ambivalence that lingers in the air in present modernity. This book, therefore, starts off with the view that enchantment in modernity has gradually declined. However, following an alternative reading of Weber’s thesis, I want to put forward the idea that enchantment has not completely disappeared from our world. As Weber writes in what is perhaps an overlooked paragraph from his work: The ultimate and most sublime values have faded from public life, entering either the obscure realm of mystical life or the fraternal feelings of direct relationships among individuals. It is no accident that our greatest art is intimate rather than monumental, and that today it is only within the smallest of circles of the community, from person to person and pianissimo, that there is any stirring of the prophetic spirit that once spread through the greatest communities like a raging fire and welded them together. (2008: 51)

Although it retains a heavy sense of pessimism on the surface, there is a different tone to Weber’s interpretation of modernity here, one that signals there is still some hope that the ‘iron cage’ characteristics of capitalism do not infiltrate every aspect of social and cultural life. As Blackshaw (2017) points out, if we are willing to take this alternative understanding of Weber into consideration then a different way of comprehending enchantment in modernity may be possible. Therefore, despite the seeming proclivity to entertain the same pessimistic outlook as scholars such as Wagner, Giddens and Bauman, this book turns its attention to Jean-François Lyotard’s (1984) performativity criterion thesis. Doing so allows me to steer things into a new

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ontological context which can be used to understand life in the twentyfirst century as being charged with a new kind of theatricality. To expand on this idea, what Lyotard’s work allows us to do is recognise that ‘even in consumption there is creativity of action’ (Beilharz 2002: xxx). In other words, what is often forgotten or dismissed is the point that some individuals are able to create their own spaces of self-definition and artistic production (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015), especially where modern leisure practices are concerned. According to Blackshaw (2017), this is what makes us characteristically human: our appetite for enchantment and a desire to make our lives significant and meaningful in some way, shape or form. The upshot of this is that performativity becomes all about the pursuit of self-knowledge, insofar as the distinction between consumerist and ‘authentic’ leisure becomes superfluous. In the end, regardless of the market-mediated mode of life, it is in forms of leisure such as urban exploration where individuals find new sources of enchantment as they convince themselves they have stepped outside the options made available by consumerism. What follows in the latter half of this chapter, therefore, is a closer look at Foucault’s (1984) concept of heterotopia, to argue the point that while utopian dreams may be fictitious there are still spaces of compensation that urban explorers such as ‘the Boyz’ manage to create for themselves. This is the key theoretical idea that underpins the remainder of this book as I attempt to reveal what goes on inside the darker side of modernity. Drawing on this concept allows me to consider the essential point that the world ‘the Boyz’ find themselves in is fluid, unpredictable and changeable, but also that it is possible to look beyond the nihilism that pervades many interpretations of society. Certainly, heterotopic social spaces are consumerist beneath the surface, but this point becomes irrelevant as far as the magic, imagination and creativity of the space is concerned. Ultimately, such spaces are different in their own unique way and this makes them far more special than those that are a direct product of the market.

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The Utopian Dream It was almost eleven o’clock on a warm August evening as four of us walked down an all-too-familiar footpath. To the left of us, behind alternating sections of a brick wall and carefully painted red wooden fences, there was a housing estate known colloquially as the ‘Posh Estate’. By all accounts, it’s a respectable area; the lawns are well-tended and the gardens immaculate. At the entrance, which we’d passed just moments earlier, there are four simple but elegant-looking pillars with large stone spheres positioned on top. Inside the estate, each house is constructed out of an attractive farmhouse style brick and the rooves are covered with a thin dusting of green moss that fits with the charming mellowness of the neighbourhood. Positioned on the outskirts of Newton Aycliffe where it is surrounded by ‘the Woods’, this area feels especially comfortable and inviting. This was where all four of us grew up. Together, we continued on through a monumental arch of overgrown trees where ‘the Woods’ have burst out above the path. In the gentle breeze, we could hear the branches just above our heads creaking and clattering lightly against one another. A little further on the path began to descend, leading us down a small bank towards an underpass that would take us to the other side of the road. The sweet scent of privet mixed with the refreshing, citrusy odour of conifers was strong in our nostrils here and the smell brought back nostalgic memories of walking to school since this was the route we’d walked every morning and weekday afternoon as children. The old school was just ahead from this point and we could see its dark silhouette in the distance. But we were not heading in that direction. We turned right instead and headed straight into the pale light of the underpass. — Once a key munitions site during World War II, selected for its marshy lands which blanketed the area in regular mist that offered protection against the Luftwaffe, Newton Aycliffe was to emerge as an example of a modern paradise in the aftermath of the war (Alexander 2009). It was an experimental town ascending from William Beveridge’s report

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(the Beveridge Report) which was drafted to suggest how Britain would rebuild and tackle the five ‘Giant Evils’ known as ‘Want (poverty), Disease (ill-health), Ignorance (poor education), Squalor (poor housing) and Idleness (unemployment)’ (Beveridge 1942). These were precisely modern weaknesses in a time that still believed in the dream that an ultimate state could be established (Bauman 1992). The popularisation of this movement to create a better world reinforces Norbert Elias’ (1994) suggestion that a ‘civilising process’ took effect across society in the twentieth century as there was a progressive shift towards improving standards of living and eliminating undesirable or destructive behaviours. As Jameson and Žižek (2016) point out, it was a rejuvenated understanding of Marxism that lay at the heart of this mode of thinking, and the visions that followed pictured new kinds of towns and cities which would not only be tangible, substantial and socialist but also independent from the rest of world. The strategy to bring Beveridge’s plan to life began with Modernism’s new brutalist architectural techniques. Together with their béton brut, glass plate, brick, breezeblock and ducting, the concrete monoliths of Aylesbury, Newcastle, Sheffield, Leeds, London and, of course, Newton Aycliffe were brought into existence. As Hatherley (2010) points out, these structures were not built with aesthetics in mind, they were a ‘weapon’ and a firm ‘attitude’ against the evils of Britain—especially prewar weaknesses and infirmities. Many of the projects became known as ‘streets in the skies’ and they were the dream castles of a new era of prosperity (Pidd 2018). Newton Aycliffe was no different for it too represented progress and the belief that perfect destinations could be reached. However, Newton Aycliffe was perhaps a more intrepid experiment with the brutalist exposé because architects did not plan to build only one perfect complex or housing estate; instead, the entire town was designed to provide a better life for all (Alexander 2009). As John Clare explains: [Beveridge] envisaged a classless town, where manager and mechanic would live next door to each other in council houses. Newton Aycliffe was to be a paradise for housewives, with houses grouped around greens so children could play safely away from the roads. There would be nurseries (to look after children while their mothers went shopping), a sports stadium, a park and a ‘district heating system’, so dirty coal fires would

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not be necessary. The pubs were going to be state-run, and would sell nationalised beer. The town centre was to include a luxury hotel, a college and a community centre, a people’s theatre, a dance hall and a cinema. There were even plans to use the Port Clarence railway to give townspeople a link to the seaside. (Clare 2008)

In many ways then, utopianism is at the heart of the modern project. As Levitas (2013) explains, the process of utopia building has always originated with a strong sense of dissatisfaction with the world and its extant order, and projects such as Newton Aycliffe were intended to change history by bringing an ideal form of society to life. To this extent, the modern project was important because it brought with it the promise of strength, optimism, equality and a concrete, cooperative community by challenging capitalist ideology and eradicating all notions of private property and individual wealth (Manguel and Guadalupi 1999). Reflecting on it now, Newton Aycliffe is demonstrative of these ideas, and its safe, functionally predictable but robust architecture was the first step in the direction of creating the ideal society. As Bauman (2005) points out, the common starting point for any utopian project has always been by way of architectural expressions in the urban environment. — Inside the underpass lights were flickering and streaks of illegible graffiti stung our eyes. A mixture of ‘GAZZA WOZ ERE 2000’ and ‘GREENY IS A FUCKIN GRASS’, scrawled alongside pictures of cocks and spunk transformed the short tunnel into an insane, psychotic scene. The heavy smell of piss and stale fag smoke pricked at our nostrils, but crunching our way over broken glass, empty Space Raiders crisp packets and used condoms we continued on. The picturesque setting from earlier had disappeared altogether. Of course, I should note that the quaint scene had never really fully existed at all. Much like the rest of the narrative that makes up this study it was part of a fabricated truth—the imaginary mixed with the idealised real . That is to say, it was an isolated fantasy that was an essential part of the magical moment created by our small group.

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The path we’d walked along for instance is regularly used by ‘chavvy cunts’ who ride their ‘mini motos’ down it. There have been many occasions where they’ve nearly crashed into people, and it is common in this area to see the police chasing them in their patrol cars. By the same token, my short description of our walk to the underpass failed to mention the inestimable amount of dog shit we’d carefully had to dodge, or that the ‘Posh Estate’ was only assigned that status on the basis that it has always been considered to be marginally better than its neighbouring ‘Rough Estate’ over the road. If we revisit the ‘Posh Estate’, what I didn’t mention was that three of the concrete spheres that once sat at the entrance are missing. The rumour is that they were stolen. Nor did I mention that a closer inspection of the buildings reveals the cracked bricks and crumbling mortar are much cheaper than they likely once appeared. The warmness of the original streetlights, those that once cast a delicate golden light, has also been lost as they have been replaced by harsh white LED lamps which provide high levels of scotopic lumens. What is more, during the summer months the drains tend to emit a rank stench because the drainage system was not designed to cope with the area’s gradual expansion. Even ‘the Woods’ located behind the houses, where teenagers once went for a hopeful fondle in the bushes, and where children went to light fires and blow up deodorant cans, are almost gone nowadays, ever since the council hacked them down to make space for new housing. Anyway, back in the underpass we passed a couple of dodgy-looking ‘smackheads’ as we approached the end. They were each sporting tartan Burberry caps and Nike trainers, and their tracky bottoms were tucked firmly into their white tennis socks. We caught a strong scent of weed as we tried our best to avoid eye contact. Surrounded by several splatters of yellow ‘gozzy’, they were each taking large swigs of their bottles of Frosty Jack’s—the finest quality beverage you can find in an underpass. One of them spoke, addressing our group as a whole: ‘Now then, fellas. Where ya’s off too, like? Fuckin’ Paki shop’s shut, dickheads’. Without any need to converse with one another, we seemed to decide unanimously we would ignore the ‘cunt’ and so continued on our way. A moment later, having pushed our way through a lifeless cloud of smoke, we emerged from the other side of the underpass. Quickly glancing at

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Forty-Seven, I could read the repulsed expression daubed across his face. Like some of the others, he hated chavs and would often comment on how the ‘scummy fuckin’ bastards’ belong in the ‘piss-filled gutter’. Just ahead, behind a row of thin bushes, a silhouette of a building came into view. It was larger than I remembered. To the immediate left of the dark outline sat another building. It was smaller but since it was closer it was more distinguishable. This was the former community centre, opposite the locally known ‘Paki shop’—one of many identical yellow-bricked shops scattered around the town—which regularly changed hands and always seemed to be partially boarded up. A few weathered boards clung on desperately to the community centre’s exterior. The long-standing rumour was that a rabies outbreak had forced it to close and, although we knew the real reason for its closure was that it was supposedly too expensive to run, like many of the other services in the area, we still liked to imagine it held within it some dark surreptitious past because it fulfilled our desire for a better story. But this wasn’t the building we were interested in tonight. We had a different explore in mind and this was the old care home next door. — Newton Aycliffe is not a utopia, and nor has it ever been. For years, in spite of the promise of restoration, the town centre spiralled into a state of degeneration. Once a pristine white, in anticipation of Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 1960 (Chapman 2006), the town’s concrete façade quickly developed a greyish tinge, and the early brickwork which was at one time solid and dirt-free became stained and squalid. The dull beaten paving stones too, outside the various boarded up vacant shops, lay cracked and broken, adorned heavily with old chewing gum and the crust of many years of pigeon faeces. Of course, it is important to note that there have been attempts to transform Newton Aycliffe, and the town has been undergoing a redevelopment project for the past twenty years. However, what this really means is that a small amount of available funding has been spent on a few new paving stones, and some of the decaying buildings have been

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demolished to make way for a new Tesco Extra, Aldi and Costa Coffee. These are located at the end of the old town centre and are the new hub of social activity. A new Job Centre Plus has opened down at that end too, to replace the older building which lacked space, and it sits alongside the empty shells of new retail spaces which hold the promise of a variety of new shops and more consumer freedom. On the outskirts of Newton Aycliffe sits the industrial estate, which frequently sends pungent chemical smells and the sounds of emergency sirens billowing across the residential parts of the town. Since the days of the Aycliffe Angels, the wartime female industrial workforce in the area (Alexander 2009), the old munitions buildings for which Newton Aycliffe was originally famous for have gradually been replaced by large manufacturing plants such as the new Hitachi Rail site. Over the years then, the industrial estate has gradually creeped into nearby fields, marshes and woods to the extent that the townspeople are now predicted to have significantly lower life expectancies when compared with other populations across the UK due to growing levels of pollution and decreasing green spaces (Durham Insight 2019). What is more, while on the surface it would appear manufacturing is booming in Newton Aycliffe, in actual fact the area is still affected by the prevalence of high levels of unemployment (ibid.). Thus, rather than finding security and stability many ‘Newtonians’ as they are colloquially known are left feeling vulnerable because they are part of a world where their jobs and livelihoods can be terminated tomorrow with little or no warning. Although characterless red brick housing estates are regularly thrown together on the fringes of the town, towards the centre the number of rundown, abandoned or unoccupied sites seem to accumulate far more quickly. Any hope of concealing the ever-growing degeneration of the inner town with cheap disguises is a futile task. Like a dog found chasing its own tail, modernity presents itself as being ineffectual and unpromising in Newton Aycliffe, and certainly very bleak. In view of this, we can easily reject Clare’s (2008) suggestion that the townspeople of Newton Aycliffe ‘have established a vibrant, happy community’. The ‘Newtonian’s have found out the hard

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way that the greatest difficultly with utopian visions was never how to build them but how to preserve them and guarantee their longevity’ (Mumford 1922). — Three of us were standing on the patio of the exhausted-looking residential care home. We were waiting impatiently for Box to climb onto the roof to check out whether a smashed window would grant us access to the building. As usual, Box had volunteered himself for the task at hand, or rather we’d volunteered him since he’s best recognised as the ‘mad cunt’ who’s willing to take risks greater risks than most in potentially hazardous situations. After confirming there was a way in with three owl hoots, because we thought it was the stealthiest way of doing things at the time, Ford Mayhem went next. In his own squirrelly way, he scrambled past the ‘DANGER: FRAGILE ROOF’ sign and up the side of the festering brickwork. His shoes slipped noisily against the green slime on the wall. Next, it was Forty-Seven’s turn. As usual he climbed with an exaggerated style and technique. Pushing his leg up high to lock the back of his foot inside a smashed ventilation gap, he executed a heel hook and hauled his entire body upwards using the brute strength of his upper thigh. Lastly, I followed, hoping the others would wait for me before entering the building. Once up on the roof I immediately saw the smashed window. There was a near perfect circular hole, just large enough to climb through. Excited we’d almost accessed the building, I took the opportunity to poke my head inside. A blast of warm, clammy air registered against my face and the smell of damp trickled into my nostrils. Glancing around the room with my torch guiding the way, I could see that a wild blend of green and orange mould covered the far wall. Ready to embrace the fetidity, I went first, being careful not to tear my clothes on the sharp edges of the glass. Inside the building, the carpet wheezed under the pressure of our footsteps as it coughed up years of plaster dust and a foul brown bubbling liquid. At this point we pulled on our masks and feeling like bandits we ‘cracked on’, exiting the room onto the corridor outside. As we

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walked past the open doors of various bedrooms, we could see dusty armchairs, prepared beds and elongated moth-eaten curtains draping from the windows. The light from our torches burned renewed life into the building and before long we started to uncover an array of interesting objects. Various personal effects—hand mirrors, yellowed photographs of loved ones and leftover clothing—were scattered here and there on old bedside cabinets, tables and shelves. Downstairs, water cascaded over our trainers as we entered a small medical room. The air had a thick clinical smell to it. Yet, this odour was more intense than the normal smell of medicine you would find in a doctor’s surgery or hospital; it was a nauseating stench, an enigmatic aroma of medication tinged with the sting of decay. As I looked around, I spotted Mayhem holding a grimy syringe, gazing at it with an expression of amazement. Across from him, Box was pulling out a large black book that was decorated with white mould spores. He opened the stiff pages carefully, pausing for a moment as he realised what he’d discovered. These were the records of every former resident of the home. All of their personal and confidential details were listed systematically, revealing much about the fragile nature of their mortality. Mayhem’s eyes lit up when he noticed what Box was holding, and together they excitedly delved into the contents of the book. As they scanned the pages, they commented on how tremendously disturbing it is to read about deceased residents, and all the more so to find that their names matched those printed on the sides of various items of medication that were scattered around the room. And yet, according to the pair, there was something strangely electrifying and sensational about it as well. We continued to explore the building for an hour or so, but eventually it started to bother us that no one gave a shit about the place anymore, especially when there were so many old personal belongings lying around. Having lost our excitement, we decided to leave. However, it was at this point we noticed that none of us had seen Forty-Seven for a while. A quick search for him ensued and we discovered him sitting in one of the dusty armchairs upstairs. With his hood and mask covering most of his face, a broken picture frame in his hand, and the beam from my torch plunging him in an intense white light, he began a deep recital of a passage from Hamlet. According to Mayhem, he was

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being ‘a dramatic bell end’. However, part of me actually thought it was an important moment because it made me think about Ernest Becker’s point that everything, including all our culture and the imaginative ways of living we engineer, are nothing more than fruitless theatrical protests against the true nature of reality. I wasn’t sure if I agreed with Becker, but this place was certainly a punitive reminder of the absurdity and transitory nature of everything human. ‘Where by your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?’ bellowed FortySeven with his arms held open and an enormous grin on his face. Broken from my trace I turned to leave the room. Shaking my head, I decided I couldn’t help but agree with Mayhem who was ‘in stiches’ at this point, ‘what a fucking idiot’.

Rethinking the Nightmare of Disenchantment As Bauman (1992) suggests, only ambivalence and insecurity are likely to survive in the constant waste that is secreted by present modernity. This is the key point that the episode above tries to encapsulate as it explores Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity by examining a typical UK town and an abandoned residential home that was part of it. Certainly, towns like Newton Aycliffe were founded on the idea that humankind is capable of creating and mastering the world via calculative means. However, what people soon discovered while conducting their experiments is that the dynamics of rational mastery and producing more freedom essentially do no more than undermine one another (Wagner 2012). Moreover, as human rationality and subjectivity have a tendency to change over time, often without warning, the task of reaching a tangible and stable state of affairs becomes impossible (Bauman 2000). In the end, all we are left with is the Wittgensteinian idea that no stable, utopian world can ever be accomplished while a plurality of diverse language games blossom. It has been suggested that it was the wake of the First World War that symbolised a moment of radical change in perception with regards to modernity (Alexander 2013). It was during this time eminent scholars

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such as Wittgenstein, Durkheim and Weber lost spirit and began to move away from their earlier optimistic belief in a promising and hopeful future (Germain 1993). As a different side of ‘progress’ emerged a sense of disillusionment was felt throughout Western civilisation (Alexander 2013). The perfectionism and sense of mastery that once fuelled the Enlightenment all of a sudden seemed to fade and the darker side of human hope, reason and evolution was quickly realised. Consequently, the central tenants of modernity were challenged and faith in progress became lost. As Wittgenstein argues: When we think of the world’s future, we always mean the destination it will reach if it keeps going in the direction we can see it going in now; it does not occur to us that its path is not a straight line but a curve, constantly changing direction… The earlier culture will become a heap of rubble and finally a heap of ashes. (1980: 3e)

As it was noted in the episode above as Box and Mayhem shuffled through the black book, a lack of care and concern is now rife in present modernity; before things have even ceased being important and useful they are cast aside and forgotten. As Bauman, Beck and Giddens remind us, the nightmarish, cancerous world of decomposition and oppression has been accelerated further by our capitalist penchant for consumerism. Consumerism is useful because it distracts people and they can convince themselves they are happy (Bauman 2000). However, the moment our gaze falters is when we begin to question our purpose, and what follows is the gut-wrenching realisation that this sort of behaviour is self-destructive as everything around us is built with inadequacy and redundancy in mind (ibid.). Perhaps it was Antonio Gramsci who captured this condition perfectly when he suggested that ‘the old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters’ (Žižek 2010: 95). What this short section has attempted to reinforce, then, is the crucial point that when we seek enchantment in present modernity what we are always likely to find its common affiliate, the nightmare of disenchantment. Even when we feel immersed by the ambience of places such as Haussmann’s Parisian boulevards, or by the grandeur of the ‘Posh Estate’

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in Newton Aycliffe, perfect worlds still fall short of perfection (Nietzsche 1997). Just as the reader saw earlier, the ‘Posh Estate’ has to be juxtaposed against the ‘Rough Estate’ for it to seem superior. The ‘perfect’ entity, article or being has to be imagined because, in truth, the essential and desirable elements that are required to keep any utopian dream characteristically balanced and unadulterated do not exist. In other words, the reader must bear in mind that what has been described in this chapter so far encapsulates the features of the world in which ‘the Boyz’ experiences in urban exploration are situated. Of course, it may seem like I am making a disheartening proclamation very early on in this book and it could easily be taken as a sign that what follows builds on the disillusionment that is part and parcel of present modernity. However, this is not the case because what the rest of this book demonstrates is that for many people enchantment can be found in among the disenchantment, but in order to think this way we must start to view present modernity as being an interregnum.

Unpacking the Twenty-First-Century Interregnum It goes without saying that the above interpretations of our world are depressing. So, what I want to suggest is that this does not necessarily have to be the only way we view present modernity if we are willing to look at things differently. To instigate this change of thinking, as I noted at the end of the previous section, it is worth considering the idea that an interregnum has begun. According to Carlo Bordoni (2016), the interregnum is a theory that designates a conjunctural change, highlighting the point where one kind of society is reaching its end while another approaches the beginning. What this means is that the arrival of a new type of society creates a rupture in the known order of things and so throws us into an unfamiliar new world that is difficult to ‘identify, determine, recognise or analyse’ (Blackshaw 2017: 37). Consequently, the interregnum becomes a lot like a vast desert where conflicting values and beliefs gather as ‘frightened and lonely individuals wander aimlessly’ as they try to survive (Bordoni 2016:

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35). In view of this, it is understandable why there is often great reluctance among people (especially scholars) to journey into a new world with optimism since it still remains partially invisible and unknown and this can be daunting. What also follows, as Agnus Heller (1999) has observed, is that there ends up being a disproportionate tendency to romanticise and embellish those ideas of disenchantment and disillusionment. The problem is that in the end the prefixes ‘uncertainty’ and ‘fragmentation’ which are repeatedly used to depict present modernity cannot help but leave little room for alternative assessments of things such as leisure in the twenty-first century. In other words, as Blackshaw (2017) argues, there are many arguments that are counterintuitive when it comes to exploring the enchantment found in forms of leisure such as urban exploration. To look at the interregnum in a different way, then, it is important we push aside everything we find familiar and homely. By doing this we can give up perceived certainties and commit ourselves to a journey that entails both risk and discovery (Bordoni 2016). Of course, it may not be possible to understand the shift modernity is undergoing entirely because there is no certainty that the transition is anywhere near complete (ibid.). In fact, we can probably say with confidence that it is not. However, to comprehend in a more optimistic and hopeful way than most scholars already do, and understand all of its qualities and shortcomings, we have to venture the whole way inside the interregnum. In other words, we need to start viewing the transition as an opportunity for people to construct their own futures because they are not predefined or planned out (Gramsci 2011). What this means is that there is likely to be much value in focusing on other things, such as artistic production and the power of the human imagination, rather than giving into fatalism and pessimism—even if we do not always like what we are seeing (Bordoni 2016). To put it another way, the physiognomy of modernity may be rife with chaos, division and consumerist values, but human beings do not live their entire lives as if they are mindless captives of this system. As Weber (2008) suggests in his later work which has a tone that is slightly more optimistic about modernity, only when it is recognised that rationality is constructed from an irrational base can its complex development be comprehended with greater success. By this Weber means

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the world is not imbued with meaning in any sort of guiding teleological or supernatural sense. Instead, he is proposing that some crucial sense of meaning could in fact exist in ‘the existential effort of individual interpretation’ (Alexander 2013: 34). It is possible, therefore, to begin to understand with much more optimism the major strategy in the construction of urban explorer’s stories: that they draw upon the features of ‘liquid’ modernity which urge change, impermanence and the constant drive to construct their own stories and truths (Bauman 2000). In view of the points that have been raised so far in this chapter, it stands to reason that utopian places cannot exist (Faubion 2008); visions such as Newton Aycliffe are unreachable in their picture-perfect forms. What the interregnum does offer, however, especially when it comes to thinking about leisure, are other less conspicuous spaces which function well in their capacity to be compensatory. In the language of Foucault’s (1984) sociology, such spaces are referred to as heterotopias of deviation and they emphasise freedom relative to imaginative possibility in the way space can be experienced. What links Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to the period of interregnum we find ourselves in particularly well are the suggestions that they have no logical path, they oscillate between ‘countervailing imagistic and rhetorical currents’, and they come into existence as impermanent refuges and safe havens (Faubion 2008: 32). What is more, heterotopic spaces need not be part of the Parisian metropolis mentioned earlier for they are more likely to appear in the side of modernity that is ostensibly darker (Foucault 1984). Since the irreconcilable ideas of the gardeners (those bold creators of ‘solid’ modernity) left their carefully designed plots to decompose people have become hunters and tourists who care less about utopian blueprints and the overall balance of things (Bauman 2007). In this kind of world, it is the so-called disenchantment that interests people more because it facilitates innovation and incites creative impulses. In other words, in present modernity there has been a shift away from cumulative grand narratives as lives are now sliced into episodes, just like the one above in the residential home, and they are perfect because they keep our interest only ‘until further notice’, for as long as they are required (Bauman 2000; Lyotard 1984). As ‘the Boyz’ demonstrated on their late-night venture inside the derelict care home, ways of making history have become their

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own in the interregnum. What this means is that urban explorers like ‘the Boyz’ have a special kind of freedom (although, it is no more special than other people’s with their own choices of leisure, whether they are ‘abnormal’ (Rojek 2000), ‘dark’ (Spracklen 2013) or ‘deviant [Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004]) that allows them to follow their own frames of reality which can otherwise be described as their own beautifully fragile ontological positions. With these ideas in mind, what follows in the latter part of this chapter is a discussion that will encourage the reader to think more about the alluring magic of alternative realities through the eyes of urban explorers. What the reader will also begin to notice is how urban explorers are able to create a sense of ‘community’ for themselves through their leisure, despite seeking it in a fluid and transitory world. However, before we move on to explore any of these ideas another episode follows to help bring ‘the Boyz’ world to life even further. As the remainder of the book will reveal, the episodes I have incorporated divulge what the darker side of modernity really entails, but, as a word of warning, in order to appreciate the true value of this work it is important that any side of us that is more of the sceptical nihilist should be pushed aside for the time being. To remind the reader, this book is less about viewing the darker side of modernity as being emblematic of the bad and the ugly, it is instead about reinvigorating the way we think about imagination, freedom and enchantment in the twenty-first century. As Blackshaw (2017) suggests, looking at things in this way allows interpreters to re-imagine leisure in present modernity, so we are better able to understand what has been described as the art of living and what this might entail.

Finding Enchantment in Disenchantment: Taking the Spillway A few months after exploring the residential care home in Newton Aycliffe, we found ourselves travelling towards the Pennines in MKD’s broken SEAT Ibiza. The weather was much different from the beautiful summer we’d just experienced. In fact, it was ‘wank’ according to Rizla,

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and for most of the journey we all moaned copiously about the dampness and the cold. The weather really was shit though, and at times we had difficulty hearing one another over the sound of heavy raindrops beating against the car’s roof. However, the reason we were heading out into the ‘arse-end’ of nowhere was precisely because of the bad weather. We’d heard that a reservoir was on the verge of breaking its banks and that the spillway of its dam was struggling to cope with the volume of water it was discharging. Not wanting to miss out on a great opportunity, we’d decided we could take advantage of the otherwise potentially calamitous circumstances and so with several pairs of wellies and a rubber dinghy stuffed inside the boot we chose to brave the terrible weather. After journeying down winding country roads for well over an hour, we finally arrived at the base of the dam. We parked up in small muddy layby where we could catch a good view of the spillway, and what we saw was a ferocious torrent of water cascading down a steep concrete ramp. It looked just like a waterfall: absolutely terrifying. Suddenly there was a growing sense of apprehension in the car, but before it could escalate any further, Box clapped his hands and signalled for everyone to get cracking. Reluctantly, we all clambered out and set about unloading the gear. To avoid detection by the water board who would no doubt be curious as to what we had planned with a dingy, we concealed it in some nearby bushes. With a contagious lack of enthusiasm, we then donned the wellies and some waterproofs and slipped into the bushes ourselves to inflate the boat. Mayhem was the unlucky fucker tasked with blowing up the raft while the rest of us watched him. Judging by the beads of sweat forming on his brow, and his grievance that his arms were ‘fuckin’ killin”, it looked like hard work. Still, as we only had one pump there wasn’t much else the rest of us could do. That’s what we told ourselves at any rate. — The basin we were in is part of an area of moorland that was once steeped in history and natural beauty. Scattered throughout the valley there were several collections of prehistoric rock art and some evidence that Roman

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and Scandinavian occupiers defended nearby settlements from this position. As for the landscape, it was shallow marshland at the base of the valley fed by many small springs. Above the marshes, patchwork fields sat on the rolling hills; some were used for farming and others were heather fields which during blooming season would transform the slopes so they became a deep shade of purple as far as the eye could see. However, what remains of this façade today is limited because the onset of modernity has changed the area dramatically. During the nineteenth century the valley was heavily quarried for limestone and sandstone across at least thirty-six sites, and the quarrying is reported to have destroyed many important archaeological remains. In addition to the quarries, towards the end of the nineteenth century two large reservoirs were built to provide water to towns further downstream. Consequently, much of the valley floor was flooded along the length of the original river. All that remains of the valley’s former enchantment now are a handful of weathered rock paintings, a fraction of the moorland, and the crumbling ruins of old shepherds’ bothies and sheepfolds. By all accounts, then, this transformation reinforces Bauman’s (2000) point that the project of modernity might strive to bring about progress and growth, but really what it always gives rise to are dreams of progress and growth on the one hand and promise of chaos and destruction on the other. In other words, to reiterate the argument made in the previous section of this chapter, ours is not the sort of world we can expect to find the deep, long-term commitment of utopia. Ours is a world where we can expect to find crumbling concrete monoliths in place of rolling hills and verdant meadows. — With the dingy fully inflated, it was time to make our way to the top of the dam. To avoid detection, and a potential fine for trespassing on water board territory, we decided to make our own path through the bushes. It was tough going but by using the greenery for cover we managed to reach the middle section of the spillway without being seen. Now, however, it was time to ‘give it legs’ the rest of the way because we would

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be in plain sight to anyone who happened to be looking in our direction. Still clutching the dinghy, Mayhem leapt down onto the spillway first, followed by me, Box and then MKD, Rizla and Rags. Alongside the torrential flow of water there was just enough space for us to ascend without getting swept away. All grasping tightly onto the dingy, we each felt an abrupt surge of excitement as we ‘legged it’ as fast as possible across the slippery concrete. There was a high possibility any one of us could flounder and fall into the torrent of water pouring down the slope, but the ecstasy of the moment spurred us to keep going. At the top, there was no time to rest. We’d just seen a water board van drive past MKD’s parked car at the bottom of the valley. There was no doubt the engineers inside would have been able to see us if they’d happened to glance to their right. Looking concerned, Mayhem yelled at everyone to get their shit together before throwing himself into the boat. The rest of us followed, one by one. Once inside the dinghy, we frantically tried to organise ourselves as we drifted towards the tipping point. Clumsily, we tried to stop the boat from turning, but it was impossible in the raging water. And then, before we knew what was happening, the edge of the concrete ramp was upon us. At this point it dawned on us that there was no turning back. Almost as if they were riding a log flume in a theme park, Rizla and MKD yelled—‘Whooooaaaaahhhhh’—just at the moment we were swept over the side. We went over the edge of the dam at an angle, so the dinghy veered sharply as we joined the main cascading flow. Various ‘holy shits’ and yells of panic could be heard over the crashing sound of water. Our speed picked up quickly, more so as we somehow managed to straighten the course of the boat. Glancing behind us, I could see we were leaving behind a distinctive trail in the gushing water. I then watched as Rags and MKD tried to position themselves lower down in the boat to feel the safety of its inflatable sides, all the while hoping they hadn’t made the worst decision of their lives. They were laughing hysterically, but there was a sense of terror etched in their expressions. Mayhem on the other hand seemed much less fearful as he was leaning precariously over the side to get some ‘epic’ footage on his GoPro. As for Rizla and Box, they were at the front of the dinghy and they seemed to be relishing the

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experience. With their arms raised in the air and big grins on their faces, they looked just like they were riding a log flume. Halfway down now and we were rocketing towards a small pool at the bottom. With no way of knowing how hard the impact was going to be, we each began to brace ourselves. Mayhem shouted: ‘Hold on tight you fuckin’ pussies’, we’re comin’ in hard as fuck’. The gushing sound seemed to grow louder and the water around us seemed to pulse more vigorously. Seconds before reaching the bottom, Mayhem laughed nervously and shouted one last time: ‘Brace yourselves, boys! Fucking hell, brace! Arrrggghhh!!’ Water cascaded over the sides of the dinghy as we hit the bottom and a great surging wave exploded into the air. Although we’d been expecting the worst, perhaps that we’d be ejected from the boat or that it would capsize, we landed perfectly. Like a plane touching down, there was a firm bump followed by a sudden decrease in speed. The water around us quickly began to settle as we drifted through a fine mist, safely away from the main torrent that was frothing at the base of the dam. —

Heterotopic Social Space In developing an interpretation that draws attention to the attraction of imperfection, disenchantment and chaos that is generated by modernity, it is important to think about the desire many people have to search for different ways of experiencing the world. As it was mentioned earlier in the book, there is a name Foucault gave to a certain kind of ‘community’, a ‘community’ that is too difficult to comprehend in any rational sense. What is interesting about this concept is that it owes its existence to the failure of utopianism; it emerges as an alternative way of seeking something that feels almost perfect but does not quite meet the mark. According to Foucault (1984), while utopias are ‘unreal’ places, not unlike myths or fables, this concept deals with those ‘real’ places without geographical markers that are found all throughout society and its many different cultures and social formations. What Foucault had

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in mind are those uncanny worlds known as heterotopias of deviation because, as the reader will see, they are sites of possibility, improvisation and performativity and they offer the kind of fullness of life people struggle to locate in the everyday world. To this extent, heterotopias are not about resisting reality, they are about escaping it through the creative use of leisure (Blackshaw 2010). The sort of leisure experienced as part of a heterotopia is very different to leisure designed and sold by the market. In many ways, marketable leisure fits comfortably into everyday reality and it indoctrinates individuals into thinking and acting in particular ways, so it might be suggested that in the end people are deprived of the fullness and richness life has to offer (Blackshaw 2017). However, in line with the arguments Foucault (1984) has made, heterotopias people create for themselves using forms of leisure such as urban exploration are not limited to the rigidity of a predetermined discursive practice, or even the shared behaviours and controlling mechanisms of a closely knit collective. Instead, as the two episodes in this chapter reveal, ‘the Boyz’ are able to express individual feelings, interests and desires while exploring together. All the while, though, they do not leave behind the fact that they are still part of something communal. What this reinforces, therefore, is Foucault’s suggestion that ‘the heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible’ (1984: 6). It is impossible to know precisely what each of ‘the Boyz’ were thinking and feeling as the dinghy hurtled down the side of the dam, but what is obvious is that each of them experienced the event in their own way. And this is what matters; it is the reason why we chose to raft down a spillway. The heterotopia did not end with MKD and Rags shrinking into the depths of the boat as they struggled to make sense of their paradoxical feelings of extreme exhilaration and pure, unadulterated trepidation. At the front of the dinghy, it appeared there was a different feeling of euphoria being experienced by Rizla and Box, and from Mayhem’s perspective, there was the thrill of being able to capture something ‘epic’ on video. In other words, this reinforces Bauman’s evocation that there does not always have to be something absolutely collective about our places of ‘collective consumption’ (2000: 97). Every

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realm of heterotopia is an extremely broad one; as Mayhem and FortySeven revealed in their individual moments inside the residential home, and likewise each one of ‘the Boyz’ in the dinghy, our performativity and imaginations allow us to find our own place within a unique elsewhere space (Lyotard 1984). Another important feature of heterotopias is their penetrability. As Foucault points out, ‘they always presuppose systems of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable’ (1984: 7). What this means is that urban explorers cannot simply enter the worlds described in the episodes above, they may only be permitted entry into a particular heterotopia if they have special knowledge and permission to do so. More on this point will be discussed later in Chapter Six, but for now what the reader needs to know is that temporary access into urban explorers’ shared moments depends upon being included in that ontological reality or ‘truth’, and this involves the subsequent exclusion of all ‘Others’ from the equation. With ‘Others’ completely excluded, what happens when ‘the Boyz’ explore together is that they create a sense of self -certainty (Heidegger 1962). This wider project of ‘self-support’ among one another reinforces, collectively, all of their other attempts to secure a shared sense of identity and their belief in it. In other words, they give one another the self-assurance and confidence to be who they want to be and do what they want to do. As ‘the Boyz’ admitted after rafting down the spillway, none of them would have been willing to do it if they had had to trust ‘a bunch of fuckin’ randomers’. In line with the points above, the discussion can be extended further to argue that heterotopias are also based on a unique revision of the past, through what Paul Ricœur (1992) refers to as ‘forgiveness’. To explain what I mean here, sometimes ‘the Boyz’ will cause a disturbance in the group dynamics by doing something that unsettles the collective. For example, some of ‘the Boyz’ have felt uncomfortable when Mayhem and Box have examined old medical records, or when MKD has discharged fire extinguishers in decent explores, and when Box launched fireworks from the roof of the care home a week after our initial explore which resulted in the building being resealed. However, these things become irrelevant in the greater scheme of things because together they learn to block out certain misdemeanours and centre their attention on the more

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important things—the good stories and experiences. This is another point that will be re-examined in more depth in the coming chapters, but as Ricœur (1992) points out, it is important to recognise that ‘forgiveness’ can protect survivability. In this case, I am talking about the continued existence of heterotopia. It is important, of course, to appreciate that ‘forgiveness’ is not the same as ‘forgetting’. There would be nothing to forgive if people simply forgot, but more to the point forgetting is not always an easy endeavour (Ricœur 1992). Yet, for ‘the Boyz’ to share memories and experiences the act of forgiving is essential. As heterotopias are built around weak ontological truths, there is a risk they might collapse without the involvement of forgiveness, and any one of ‘the Boyz’ could quickly find themselves being rejected if they found they had inadvertently detracted from the fragile ontological basis of the group. However, this is the nature of any heterotopia, without care they can easily become closed or hidden (Foucault 1984), which makes the strategies people have of keeping them alive all the more significant. Of course, this is not to suggest that the ontological truths of ‘the Boyz’ do not evolve over time; they are aware that certain things they might have disagreed on in the past can suddenly become tolerable or even acceptable. In other words, given the transitory nature of their lives in present modernity, the things they enjoy can easily adapt and evolve, but before they do the strategy of forgiveness is always ready to be played. On the topic of adaptation and evolution, what the episodes in this chapter also signify is that the original purpose of a structure or a place can suddenly take on a very different function when it becomes part of a heterotopia (Stone 2013). Two examples have been provided— the decaying side of Newton Aycliffe and the overflowing spillway of a dam—and while at one time these spaces were the embodiment of progress, growth and an era of continuing improvement it follows that they now have other imagined uses as they can be consumed and treated in unintended ways. As ‘the Boyz’ reveal, heterotopic spaces become more about creating a good story, and good stories can only be achieved by deviating from the banality of mainstream existence. Of course, there is the point that even in attempting to deviate from the perceived norm ‘the Boyz’ are still being ‘good consumers’ as Bauman (2007) would

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refer to them. However, the point is that ‘the Boyz’ feel they have more control over what they are consuming because they decide how things such as an overflowing spillway can be consumed. In other words, ‘the Boyz’ engagement with urban exploration captures something of ‘the phantasmagoric nature of existence’ in the twenty-first century, and the irrationality of rationality people contend with on a daily basis (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004: 9). It is how ‘the Boyz’ treat the phantasmagoria of the interregnum that matters though, and ‘the Boyz’ do so with enchantment and optimism in mind as opposed to disenchantment and pessimism. Another key feature of heterotopias relates to their chronology, or what Foucault (1984) refers to as ‘heterochronies’ (slices of time). What this means is that in heterotopic space people experience an absolute break with ‘traditional time’, albeit temporarily (Stone 2013). In many ways this is what Bauman (1995) has in mind when he describes our lives as becoming increasingly contingent and episodic; if we reflect on the episodic nature of life in the twenty-first century, it is possible to comprehend that most of us continually move between different episodes. The only difference is that for certain people some of those episodes are more unconventional and exceptional that others, especially where leisure is concerned. Nevertheless, as hinted above, eventually everyone returns to the supposed linear trajectory of everyday life because compensatory spaces cannot survive forever (Foucault 1984). As an example, after the residential care home explore, the heterotopia continued for a few more hours as ‘the Boyz’ sat and chatted about it over a few beers around Mayhem’s house. However, it soon ended when Forty-Seven and Box ‘bailed’ because they had to work the next day. All of a sudden, the episodic slice crumbled in on itself, and then it was over. Another episode of heterotopia would not appear again until ‘the Boyz’ were heading to the spillway during a storm. In developing the discussion of heterotopia even further, it is important to note that the heterotopia ‘the Boyz’ create for themselves is different to those that accumulate indefinitely, such as a museum or a cemetery (Foucault 1984). Instead, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia takes on a much more ‘festive’ character (ibid.); theirs is the sort of heterotopia that arises as a feast for people who are keen to taste the otherness

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of the world, but it will quickly dissolve again under the pressure of shapeshifting desires, the surface of everydayness and its own inherent deviance. As the reader has seen, whether they involve rummaging through an old care home or rafting down the side of a dam, each one of ‘the Boyz’ episodes of heterotopia is both phantasmagorical and spasmodic. In the end, once the heterotopia reaches an end ‘the Boyz’ move on, ready to face their lives outside of urban exploration. What is also important to note is that the ‘festive’ nature of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopias means they are not entirely repeatable either, even if ‘the Boyz’ revisit a location for a second time. Yet, this feature of their heterotopias is essential because good stories do not remain enjoyable if they are relived time and again. The beauty of any heterotopia lies in its capacity to evolve when it re-emerges, even if it only changes ever so slightly (Foucault 1984). As the reader has seen, what ‘the Boyz’ create is not permanent, but they show what can be accomplished when people follow a ‘heterotopic call to action’ (Blackshaw 2017: 147). It follows that the role of a heterotopia is not to resist everyday reality, it is to imagine it in alternative and creative ways (Blackshaw 2017). Without social intervention or involvement, places such as Newton Aycliffe and the spillways of dams are dull and lifeless formations, gradually dissolving as time reveals the illusionary, fragile nature of progress and utopianism. Yet, when they are re-imagined by people as places of wish fulfilment and leisure such places allow for the disruption of the mundanity of everyday life. In other words, as Stone (2013) points out, once people realise that the world is something that can be experimented with and transformed into something of their own—as their version of events—they can band together and begin to consume it in unique and compensatory ways. The heterotopia, therefore, offers something that feels like a ‘community’ as it represents a temporary unification of individuals who all share a drive to discover alterity, moments of ephemeral ecstasy and performativity.

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An Interim Summary To set the context for the remainder of the book, this chapter began by unpacking present modernity. Following the viewpoints of eminent scholars such as Bauman, Weber and Beck, it was argued that the world has evolved from a solid, hardware-based type of sociality and as a result it feels increasingly disenchanted for many people. On account of the market-mediated mode of life people follow and the realisation that utopian dreams always fail to meet the mark, an overwhelming sense of ambivalence and meaninglessness seems to pervade the twentyfirst century. When we view the world in this way there is nothing utopian about present modernity, there is only the sour taste of the impermanence and decay it excretes. However, to point out that disenchantment is so endemic in present modernity is to overlook the idea that some enchantment can still be found. On this point, if we are willing to overlook the opinion that escaping the influence of the consumer syndrome is impossible, there is room to appreciate the brilliance and diversity the interregnum inadvertently creates in its constant state of flux. What follows is the suggestion that people, despite being consumers, are able to employ their imaginations to create alternative heterotopic social spaces that are centred around magical, performative and often deviant leisure interests that are intended, in some sense, to oppose mainstream consumerism. It is with this in mind that this chapter has pursued the idea that it is subsequently the darker side of modernity that should be contemplated, on the condition that the darkness does not always have to emblematise malevolence. Returning to how this chapter began, ‘the Boyz’ managed to carefully climb through a broken window and this led them into a strange world of dust, decay and dampness. In an instant they were transported into a different sort of space, one that completely leaves behind the ordinary ontological flow of everyday life. For many people the care home may well have been nothing more than a still, foetid old building, but for ‘the Boyz’ it was something more fulfilling and it epitomised a different kind of ontological flow which could facilitate the search for real meaning. All of a sudden, other things were found to be important in this world.

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Masks were quickly donned, partly for safety but mostly to look the part, and tripods, each armed with its own camera, began to appear. The old carpets wheezed as ‘the Boyz’ crept from one room to another, and new sounds began to replace those of the outside world. The echo of dripping water could be heard from somewhere downstairs. Inside the walls, things shuffled. The yellowed, peeling wallpaper rasped as clothing rubbed past it. The entire building reeked of a heady mix of earthy decay and the sour trace of staleness. For many, this world almost certainly sounds dirty and disease-ridden, however, for ‘the Boyz’ it felt fantastical, exciting and beautifully familiar. What ‘the Boyz’ found is the full power of heterotopia. It follows that ‘the Boyz’ found an interim sense of homeliness inside the old care home. This was a space where they felt at home, living and breathing the aesthetics alongside others who experience this type of place in a similar way. In many ways, then, ‘the Boyz’ feel a greater sense of ‘community’ in this world than they do in other areas of their lives. Inside the care home ‘the Boyz’ felt accepted, respected and part of a collective ‘urbex’ identity: that of WildBoyz. What is just as important, though, is that at the same time this heterotopic space comprises freedom, meaning and theatrical intensity, and it provides people with a chance to express their individuality. In other words, the space of the care home which is ordinarily under-imagined allows ‘the Boyz’ to explore not only the other side of the urban environment but also themselves. With these ideas in mind, there is something much more hopeful and enchanting about present modernity and the world suddenly appears a lot less depressing than many scholars believe. To reiterate, then, the point has been made that utopian dreams are not possible. In practice, they are unreal spaces or places that crumble long before they can ever be accomplished. However, heterotopias of deviation act as spaces of compensation in present modernity and they help people escape the utter banality of the everyday. Of course, heterotopias may not contain the promise of utopia, but they certainly provide something that is real and present in the here and now, even if it is only ever short-lived.

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References Alexander, A. (2009). Britain’s New Towns: Garden Cities to Sustainable Communities. Oxon: Routledge. Alexander, J. (2013). The Dark Side of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (1992). Mortality, Immortality and Other Life Strategies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bauman, Z. (1995). Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (2005). Utopia. In T. Blackshaw (Ed.), The New Bauman Reader: Thinking Sociologically in Liquid Modern Times. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z., & Raud, R. (2015). Practices of Selfhood . Cambridge: Polity. Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. Beilharz, P. (2002). Editor’s Introduction: Bauman’s Modernity. In P. Beilharz (Ed.), Zygmunt Bauman. London: Sage. Beveridge, W. (1942). Social and Allied Services (The Beveridge Report ) [Online]. Available at: http://www.sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/ public-health-and-wellbeing/beveridge-report/. Accessed 27 April 2020. Blackshaw, T., & Crabbe, T. (2004). New Perspectives on Sport and Deviance: Consumption, Performativity and Social Control . Oxfordshire: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2010). Leisure. Oxon: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Bordoni, C. (2016). Interregnum: Beyond Liquid Modernity. Bielefeld: Verlag. Chapman, V. (2006). Around Newton Aycliffe. Stroud: Nonsuch Publishing. Clare, J. D. (2008). History of Aycliffe [Online]. Available at: https://www.greataycliffe.gov.uk/about/newton-aycliffe-story/. Accessed 27 April 2020. Durham Insight. (2019). Insight and Intelligence to Inform. Infographics [Online]. Available at: https://www.durhaminsight.info/infographics-andstory-maps/. Accessed 27 April 2020. Elias, N. (1994). The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and StateFormation and Civilization. Oxford: Blackwell. Faubion, J. D. (2008). Heterotopia: An Ecology. In M. Dehaene & L. de Cauter, Heterotopia and the City (pp. 31–40). London: Routledge.

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Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1): 22–27. Freud, S. (2002). Civilisation and Its Discontents (D. McLintock, Trans.). London: Penguin. Giddens, A. (1994). Living in Post-traditional Society. In U. Beck, A. Giddens & S. Lash, Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (p. 63). Cambridge: Polity. Germain, G. (1993). A Discourse on Disenchantment: Reflections on Politics and Technology. Albany: State University of New York Press. Gramsci, A. (2011). Prison Notebooks (Vol. 2, J. A. Buttigieg, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Hatherley, O. (2010). A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. London: Verso. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). San Francisco: Harper & Row. Heller, A. (1999). A Theory of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Jameson, F., & Žižek, S. (2016). An American Utopia: Dual Power and the Universal Army. London: Verso. Levitas, R. (2013). Utopia as Method: The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Manguel, A., & Guadalupi, G. (1999). The Dictionary of Imaginary Places. New York: Hartcourt. Mumford, L. (1922). The Story of Utopias. New York: Boni and Liveright. Nietzsche, F. (1997). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy. New York: Dover Publications. Ricœur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pidd, H. (2018). Streets in the Sky… the Sheffield High-Rises That Were Home Sweet Home. The Guardian [Online]. Available at: https://www. theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jul/20/streets-in-the-sky-the-sheffieldhigh-rises-that-were-home-sweet-home-love-among-ruins. Accessed 27 April 2020. Rojek, C. (2000). Leisure and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Rojek, C. (2004). The Consumerist Syndrome in Contemporary Society: An Interview with Zygmunt Bauman. Journal of Consumer Culture., 4 (3), 291– 312. Spracklen, K. (2013). Leisure, Sports and Society. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

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Stone, P. (2013). Dark Tourism, Heterotopias and Post-apocalyptic Places: The Case of Chernobyl. In L. White & E. Frew (Eds.), Dark Tourism and Place Identity: Managing and Interpreting Dark Places (pp. 79–93). London: Routledge. Wagner, P. (2012). Modernity: Understanding the Present. Cambridge: Polity. Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Unwin Hyman. Weber, M. (2008). Max Weber’s Complete Writings on Academic and Political Vocations (J. Dreijmanis, Ed.). New York: Algora Publishing. Wittgenstein, L. (1980). Culture and Value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Žižek, S. (2010). A Permanent Economic Emergency. New Left Review, 64 (July/August): 85–95.

5 Finding a Way in the Garden of Forked Paths: The Ontological Hybrids Extraordinaire

Introduction As the reader has now been introduced to the basic features and rules of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space, this chapter looks to add more meat to the bones in preparation for the comprehensive analysis of their leisure world that comprises the remainder of this book. As it has been argued so far, people who are dissatisfied with the confines and limitations of ‘reality’ turn their attention to heterotopias of deviation because they promise to transform lives so that they become a little different or ‘out of the ordinary’. Of course, it should be made clear that not everyone is interested in seeking heterotopic social spaces in the twenty-first century, the sort of people who do are those who are driven by their own sense of commitment and the feeling they have an obligation to change their lives. These are people who are less intent on connecting with social groups that appear ‘normal’ and part of the everyday order of things. To borrow Peter Sloterdijk’s (2013) way of articulating it, these are people who wish to live their lives as fully as possible. The appeal of seeking heterotopic social space that has its roots in a particular form of leisure can be attributed to the fact that it makes life © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_5

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seem more fulfilling because it offers the best of two worlds. On the one level, ‘the Boyz’ have found a social space with likeminded others that has real affinity and the spirit of communion. Not only do they share a common interest (urban exploration), they use gestures and language that are unique to their own collective. They share a loss of inhibition and a different moral awareness. They enter one another’s houses without the need to knock first. They drink and smoke together and in getting drunk they share their deepest woes and philosophical musings. When they are together, they share the understanding that they have access to a closed universe that is warm, familiar and heavily nostalgic. On a second level, ‘the Boyz’ have found a place where they can be an urban explorer but also express their own sense of individuality. How they each dress and whether they smoke, take drugs or listen to unusual music is irrelevant because none of these things disrupt the perceived stability of the collective. In their heterotopic social space ‘the Boyz’ can do both things, they can be themselves and enjoy the communal bliss of a protected leisure world. In view of these ideas, it is important to reiterate that there is a leisure studies framework at the heart of this book’s theoretical perspective. If the concept of heterotopia is placed carefully to one side for a moment, we can shift our attention to Blackshaw’s (2017) suggestion that there are many forms of leisure that can be understood as being devotional leisure . This is important because it is my contention that ‘the Boyz’, as urban explorers, fit into this classification. To make it clear, the heterotopic social space ‘the Boyz’ create for themselves is based on a particular kind of leisure that is devotional because it entertains two desires: the desire to find meaning in life and a sense of ‘collective destiny’, and the desire to seek ‘personal fulfilment’ by means of becoming performative and watchable (ibid.: 161). What this means, as Blackshaw has pointed out, is that urban explorers are ‘artists of life who have to make themselves up… and make themselves at home’ in the world (ibid.: 159). With these ideas in mind, so we can begin to understand ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space in greater detail this short chapter begins by making an artificial distinction between ‘devotional’ and ‘performative’ leisure (the two kinds of leisure practice that are essential aspects of devotional leisure ). By doing this we can begin to scrupulously unpack

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what it means to be a skhol¯er and a khôraster in the magical world of heterotopia. As the reader will see, once we understand these two strategies it will become clear how they awkwardly reconcile, each becoming just as important as the other in the creation and temporary survival of heterotopic social space. Without further delay then, it is at this point we should return our attention once again to ‘the Boyz’.

Obligation and Responsibility: Skholers ¯ Unite The sun was just beginning to set as we pulled into a car park on the edge of Durham City Centre. Myself, Rags, Forty-Seven and MKD were in the car. Following us on two guttural sounding motorbikes were Mayhem and Rizla. They made a point of revving their engines loudly as they pulled into a space next to us. Eager to say hello, Mayhem jumped off his bike and signalled for me to lower my window. I wound it down and with his helmet still on he poked his head through the opening at an awkward angle. With a big grin spread across his face, he shouted: ‘Oi, oi, oi. Now then, knobheads. Whatcha doin?’ MKD smiled and returned his greeting: ‘Now then, dickhead’. It had been a few weeks since we’d all last seen one another but judging by the smiles and laughter everyone was delighted to be reunited. Together, ‘the Boyz’ seemed gripped by a Maffesolian outburst of a shared ‘will to live’. Rags and Rizla both shook hands. MKD playfully drummed on the roof of Mayhem’s helmet and in return Mayhem threw some fake punches back at him. As for Forty-Seven, he gave Rizla a firm nod that was quickly reciprocated with a fist-pump. Since our last meet up we’d all longed to get back together again, to escape the shit mundanity of our everyday lives. Having begun the revival of our heterotopic social space at this point then, we could not have been happier. Now we were reunited we could concentrate on the more important things life has to offer and what we had in mind was some urbex and plenty of beer to follow. As we continued to embrace the fantasy of ‘community’ we slipped deeper into the coolness of our collective. ‘The Boyz’ were back. With the flame of our unification burning intensely, we ditched the vehicles and made our way towards the City Centre on foot. We walked

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for about ten minutes and in that time reminisced about other explores we’ve done together, until we reached a dark alleyway that would take us around the back of Durham’s old Palladium Theatre. Glancing left and right to make sure no one was watching, Mayhem signalled for everyone to continue. We entered one by one, walking blindly until we reached the other side. Then we waited for Mayhem to catch us up so he could show us where to go next. He’d scouted the Palladium out a few days ago and reckoned he had a good method of getting inside. Once he was through the alleyway himself, Mayhem pointed to a metal staircase that seemed to be an old fire escape. He explained we would have to climb it to reach the roof, but to also be careful to avoid a window halfway up. Following his advice, we clambered up the metal steps, trying hard to quieten the dull metallic clangs of our footsteps and the rattle of the loose railings. At the window we crouched low to avoid being seen by a pair of students who were getting frisky on their kitchen countertop. On the roof of the Palladium Theatre, ‘the Boyz’ stopped in front of an old wooden door. It was almost completely stripped of paint and missing a small window near the top. We paused quietly for a moment until Rags smirked and an eruption of laughter ensued. ‘Shit, they cudn’t wait to get some, cud they? I got a right look at her tits just there’ shouted Forty-Seven. The others laughed more intensely, only stopping to throw in similar comments: ‘I fuckin’ wud’ and ‘reckon they’d let me join in?’ ‘The Boyz’ continued to laugh until Mayhem snapped back into ‘urbexmode’: ‘Right, boys, enough fannyin’ on. We need to go through that window there. Let’s dooo it!’ Without any need for further conversation, we lifted Mayhem up and set about guiding him through the narrow hole. It was tight but Mayhem’s superb agility and flexibility allowed him to worm his way through. Once inside, Mayhem discovered that the lock keeping us out was an old rim lock. Knowing what sort of key to look for in a pile resting on a nearby worktop, it wasn’t long before the rest of us joined him inside. — In line with the hermeneutic tradition, it has been argued that the onset of modernity has resulted in the creation of ‘communities’ that are

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more enduring and these can be viewed as ‘value-spheres’ (Weber 2008). According to Weber, since the turn of the modern era there has been an absence of any universal ethical binding power because people find their own ethical powers which enable them to choose which social spheres they wish to join. Once a person has joined a value-sphere, they become committed to it thereafter because they accept its principles, norms and rules (ibid.). However, it is important to keep in mind Weber’s (2008) point that people can exercise existential choice and therefore still have the freedom to move between spheres. As Heller (1999) reminds us, unlike ‘community’ in the traditional sense of the word people are able to choose their value-sphere; the only condition is that they cannot join all of them simultaneously. In many ways, joining a leisure value-sphere is no different to committing oneself to a chosen vocation, not least because a person must invest both time and emotional effort for the domain to really become theirs (Rojek 2010). What this means is that those forms of leisure that are ‘devotional’ have craftmanship-like qualities. As Blackshaw (2017) points out, to craft something means a particular set of skills and abilities have been invested in a project, but also that the project has been driven by a compelling sense of curiosity, dedication and creativity. What is more, because a value-sphere and everything it stands for is produced for its own sake each one carries with it the key to its own manufacture (ibid.). As Weber argues, every value-sphere is a work of art that ‘will never be surpassed, and will never become obsolete’ because for the individuals involved each one has a real sense of purpose and significance that cannot be found anywhere else (2008: 34). With the craftmanship-like qualities of leisure in mind, a key universal feature of value-spheres is their educational function. As Blackshaw (2017) suggests, there are certain forms of leisure that reveal a cognitive sensibility that results in the creation of a unique educational field and this is where skhol¯er s 1 come together. According to Blackshaw, skhol¯er s are people who have become experts not only in the technical aspects 1The

term skhol¯e is used by Chris Rojek (2010) to refer to leisure that is deep and meaningful and requires emotional labour and emotional intelligence. Skhol¯er s, therefore, are people who are highly skilled craftsmen and women who use their knowledge to establish a sense of shared spirit and ‘community’ (Blackshaw 2017).

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of their choice of leisure, but in the discourse that surrounds their ‘subculture’ or ‘community’ as well. The qualities of the skhol¯er can be understood more clearly if we think back to the moment ‘the Boyz’ began entering the abandoned Palladium Theatre. Together, ‘the Boyz’ knew how to get everyone inside the building using the only opening available to them, and on this occasion they knew they could rely on the skills of one person in particular. As for the person they had in mind, he was very familiar with the group so he knew they would help him get back out if he was unsuccessful, or if he got into any kind of difficulty. Selecting the nimblest of the group to enter first then, ‘the Boyz’ set about carefully lifting Mayhem through the door. Once on the other side, a torch was passed through to enable him to investigate the lock and find out whether it was openable. It was, and Mayhem was able to get us all inside; having encountered many locked doors before in our experience as urbexers, Mayhem knew exactly what sort of key would unlock the basic sliding bolt and where he was likely to find it. In addition to encompassing craftmanship-like qualities and a unique educational field, each leisure value-sphere also serves to kindle the spirit of homeliness since they function on the basis that people work together collaboratively and democratically (Blackshaw 2017). In other words, the art of exploring abandoned and unseen human-made sites unites certain individuals and provides them with something that feels like a home, albeit temporarily. Sites of decay and destruction are the playing field, the object of shared desire and adoration, but this is only because skhol¯er s know what to do to seek refuge in such places which are otherwise dangerous and hostile. This is another way of saying that without one another present and active in the value-sphere, ‘the Boyz’ experience of urbex changes dramatically. Without one another the spiritual home is weakened to the extent that part of the desire to return again and again to the physical sites becomes lost. Whether we can call it ‘community’ or not, what is clear is that cooperation and companionship are vital components of a leisure value-sphere and together they keep the vocation alive. As Bauman (in Bauman and Raud 2015) would point out, it is through spiritual nourishment and spontaneous outbursts of generosity that ‘the Boyz’ reinforce their social solidarity. As self-established skhol¯er s, ‘the Boyz’ understand that they

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can rely not only on their high level of skill and knowledge, but also on each other’s as they are willing to guide and teach one another by exchanging their skill and knowledge. In other words, it is the idea that ‘devotional’ leisure provides a shared feeling of home that keeps ‘the Boyz’ together. There is, however, one crucial problem with this interpretation of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space. As the next section of the episode reveals, the idea that ‘the Boyz’ are skhol¯er s becomes much more complex when we begin to think about the other side of their interest in urban exploration, the side that is less identifiable as a vocation and a source of homeliness.

The ‘Art of Living’ Performatively: The Realm of the Khôraster Glancing around the room for a few seconds as our eyes adjusted to the dark, we discovered we were standing in an old projector room. Two enormous projectors were positioned against the far wall, facing out into the main auditorium, each coated in a thick layer of white dust. Rows of shelves and open cupboards lined the walls, all cluttered with assortments of cassettes, boxes filled with miscellaneous objects, yellowing books and empty bottles. The urge to touch things was overwhelming so it wasn’t long before we were pushing buttons, pulling rusty levers, and running our fingers through dry, crispy pages that creaked softly as they were turned. From a narrow staircase to our left that most of us hadn’t noticed until now, Forty-Seven called for us to follow him. He was brimming with excitement so naturally we were keen to find out why. One by one we filed down the staircase after him. At the bottom it joined a larger stairwell that was part of the public section of the building; it was equipped with a black handrail that was dusty on top and the walls were adorned with neat hand-painted signs indicating where to find the toilets. ‘Come on, lads! Wait until you see what I’ve found, you’ll love this shit’, yelled Forty-Seven as he jumped down the steps two at a time. With growing anticipation, we continued to follow him.

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The final staircase we reached was lined with wooden panels and a red carpet that was so faded it had turned almost completely grey. Here, the air was thick with a foisty aroma; everything around us was covered almost entirely with white mould spores and a fine layer of grimy condensation. Trying our best not to touch anything, we followed the steps through a set of double doors that were badly warped, and this led us into the main auditorium. In its own way, the room before us was breath-taking. In its extreme state of decay there was something magical about it. The chairs were largely intact, but the fabric covering them had turned mostly white due to mould. At the sides of the room it was clear large golden curtains once concealed the long brick walls, but now they rested in heaps on the floor among broken boards and piles of damp plaster. As for the stage, beneath the debris scattered across its surface it appeared to be sagging in the middle. The balcony above was also listing on the far right-hand side, and together they gave the impression that we’d entered a real-life version of the final panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s painting, ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’. We had to clamber over a pile of broken beds to reach the main stage and once we were there ‘the Boyz’ decided to disperse. Mayhem veered off down a small, cellar-like corridor to find the fuse boxes. He had a thing about dodgy electrics and seeing if he could turn ‘shit’ back on. Rizla made his way towards the stage, disappearing around the back to climb the rickety lighting gantries and scaffolding. MKD and FortySeven decided to rummage through some of the junk scattered in front of the stage and after uncovering two large frying pans, several ping pong balls and a large piece of plyboard they set about creating their own game of table tennis. Uninterested in what everyone else was doing, Rags decided to go for a wander. Having noticed a concrete staircase to the right of the stage area, he vanished from sight for the next twenty minutes or so. As for myself, aside from watching everyone intently, I decided I really wanted to get some photos of the main stage from the balcony above us. I’d recently bought a new camera, so I was eager to play around with it, especially in such a spectacular setting as this. From the balcony, my camera clicked and whirred faintly while it processed a long exposure shot. Fancying myself as a bit of a photographer, I’d been busy trying to light up the auditorium using a torch

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but found myself getting increasingly pissed off with Forty-Seven and MKD. It seemed to me they were intentionally getting in the way of my shots as they fucked around with their improvised game of ping pong. I shouted down to them, calling them every profane name I could think of—‘knobheads’, ‘cunts’, ‘wankers’, ‘arse-bandits’—anything to get a rise out of them, but none seemed to work. Giving up, I decided to go check out what some of the others were getting up to. I began by taking a look behind the stage. There I found Rizla twenty or so metres up a section of scaffolding that looked precarious to say the least. With Rags watching, he was ‘psyching’ himself up to ‘dyno’ (jump) past a broken ladder to reach a rickety gantry platform. I called him a ‘fuckin’ nutter’ before making my way towards the corridor Mayhem had gone down. The passage leading to the electrics was cold and damp. No expense had been spared on painting or maintaining the walls down here, so the bricks had begun to crumble and realign themselves. At the end, I found Mayhem who was crouched by a row of badly corroded fuse boxes. He was fiddling with something inside of one them. Occasionally it would spark angrily, and Mayhem would jump slightly in what seemed to me like a lackadaisical attempt to avoid being electrocuted. After a few more minutes of tampering and causing several more intense sparks, the lights inside the corridor sprang to life. Mayhem looked up at me and with a smug expression spread across his face gave me a nod. We left together to see if the lights in the main auditorium were working. They were, and as we emerged from the corridor MKD and Forty-Seven cheered loudly, hailing Mayhem a ‘fuckin’ legend’. Absorbing all possible gratification he could, Mayhem lifted his arms and shouted: ‘How about that then, boys. Told you I’d get them working! Got some fuckin’ skills, eh’. — As I pointed out in the previous section, the idea of heterotopic social space becomes much more complex when we take into consideration the idea that certain forms of leisure (in this instance urban exploration) have another side to them that is not vocational. As the reader has seen, one

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side of devotional leisure is not unlike Weber’s (2008) notion of a valuesphere that is rich with meaning because it carries a sense of homeliness and craftmanship. The other side, however, offers different possibilities because it is driven by an alternative interpretation of ‘community’ that revolves around performativity. A problem with this kind of devotional leisure practice, though, is that it is difficult to explain what type of ‘community’ it is. As Blackshaw argues, ‘the trouble with ‘performative leisure’ is that it is based on a kind of ‘community’ that is unknown to us since it ‘belongs neither to the intelligible nor to the sensible world’ of ‘devotional leisure’ (2017: 139). To paraphrase Blackshaw, there is a spellbinding allure when it comes to performativity but it ‘is situated too low on skhol¯e’s conceptual radar to be taken credibly’ (ibid.: 139). Then again, what it does offer as a different kind of devotional leisure is the opportunity to experiment with theatrical and spectacular desires. Another essential problem, of course, is that it is hard to convince oneself that ‘performative’ leisure is a ‘community’. Other than the fact ‘the Boyz’ share a desire to seek leisure in places that are dirty and grungy, and that there is a shared appetite for discovery and excitement, everything else about performativity is about seeking a detached, inimitable existence through symbiosis (Butler 1990). In other words, ‘performative’ leisure is less about imagined traditions and more about connecting with others because it enables people to adopt forms of stylistic expression which they can then experiment with in a public domain. As Derrida (1988) argues, there are no universally accepted norms and regulations that underpin performativity; anything can go since beliefs, values, behaviours and ethics can be altered or completely reinvented almost instantaneously. These ideas were evidenced above when ‘the Boyz’ left behind the idea of their collective in favour of displaying their own performativity. For example, Rizla is sometimes a passionate climber and he likes to bring elements of this pursuit and the imagined style along to other areas of his life. Hence, he was quick to find something to scale using what we might call an improvised stage to dislocate himself from the identity of ‘the Boyz’. We could also turn our attention to Mayhem. With his penchant for being ‘tech-savvy’, it can be suggested that he performed to this identity by being the one to turn the electricity on.

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As he emerged from the cellar-like corridor, he did so with swagger and style because when it comes to tech, he is the man who ‘knows his shit’. In view of the discussion so far, then, it might well be perceived that ‘performative leisure’ appears to be very idiosyncratic and lacking a ‘community’ feel. However, as Blackshaw (2017) suggests, it is perhaps worth trying to understand the ‘community’ associated with this type of ‘devotional leisure’ in an alternative way, one that takes into account the idea of khôra. As Wolfreys (1998) explains, Derrida suggests that khôra can refer to anything—almost anything goes—and so it is a ‘home’ for all things. Of course, it is important to point out that the vagueness of this definition means the concept has not been taken seriously by many scholars, but what Blackshaw (2017) argues is that ‘performative leisure’ essentially represents the openness and inexplicit nature of khôra. It does so in the way it breaks away from the tradition of ‘devotional leisure’ by existing as an in-between place that manages to bring performers together into something of a union or a communitylike gathering (ibid.). In other words, ‘performative leisure’ allows people to become khôraster s—people who want to express their individuality and freedom and yet still manage to gather together in common spirit as itinerant performers in that ‘shadowy realm called khôra’ (Caputo 1997: 93). As Blackshaw argues, in the hope of finding transcendence from the mundanity of everyday life, khôraster s create for themselves something that ‘might be described (very loosely) as a ‘community” (2017: 140). The type of ‘community’ being described here, a ‘non-locatable nonspace’ that is centred around seeking transcendence outside the limits of everyday reality, is precisely what Foucault called a ‘heterotopia’ (Blackshaw 2017: 139). However, as noted in the discussion above, the problem with a heterotopia is that it can be difficult to believe in the idea that such a disturbing and ‘deviant’ space can be called a ‘community’. In point of fact, though, khôra—that other word for heterotopia—still comprises social relations and while those relations may not be as deep as the spirit of a value-sphere there is something about them that convinces people they are. What this means, in other words, is that heterotopias are frequently practised as skhol¯e despite the common assumption that ‘performative leisure’ entails a different quasi form (ibid. 2017). With these ideas in mind, then, it is important we start thinking of how

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we can interpret and try to understand heterotopic social space vis-àvis the interregnum with better effect. As Blackshaw argues, ‘a radical kind of understanding’ needs to be adopted, one that dissolves the artificial dichotomy that exists between ‘devotional’ and ‘performative’ leisure (2017: 153). Doing this will allow us to acknowledge, and indeed appreciate, the type of ‘community’ that is made to the measure of heterotopic social space, a ‘community’ that is pulled together for performative individuals.

‘Of Other Spaces’: The Non-absolutes An hour later and ‘the Boyz’ had grown tired of the Palladium Theatre. Everything of interest had been seen or played with, so Rags suggested we should take the bevvies we’d brought with us up to the roof. Keen to get outside for some fresh air and to watch the everyday world of Durham go past, we all agreed. We had intended to drink our beers in the theatre’s old bar, but much like the rest of the building it was now too far decayed to enjoy a drink in. Rizla led the way this time, following the same route we’d taken when we first entered the building. Up on the roof, MKD passed around a bottle opener. There was a long wall a few metres from where we’d exited, marking the point where the Palladium ended and the next building began, and it was the perfect height to sit on. So, one by one we grabbed a bottle from our crate of beer and made our way over to it. The surface was slightly crusted with moss and bird shit, so Mayhem gave it a quick rub with his sleeve before sitting down. Rizla pointed out that he’d missed a bit, indicating toward the spot he’d chosen as his own, but Mayhem laughed and retorted with a firm ‘fuck off ’. Rizla laughed and responded by tapping the base of his bottle on the opening of Mayhem’s. Caught by surprise, beer frothed all over the place. Mayhem jumped up to prevent anymore from soaking his trousers, but the damage was done, he was sopping. Realising what had just happened, the rest of ‘the Boyz’ turned to join the howl of laughter. Mayhem replied: ‘You fuckin’ knobhead’, but this only served to fuel the laughter further.

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Still chuckling to himself, Rags switched the conversation back to the theatre. For a while we talked about what we’d found inside and what a shame it was that the historic building was falling into a state of disrepair. This was the usual sort of discussion that tended to ensue after an explore. However, this time Rizla decided to chime in with a new topic of conversation: Rizla: Oh, guys, I forgot. I was thinkin’ we should invite [Husky] on an explore. He’s been couch surfin’ round ours so we told him a bit about urbex n’ that and he seems down for it. Rags: Can’t do that, like, he’s not one of us, man. Rizla: [Laughs]. Man, that’s canny anti-social, like. MKD: Dude, yer can’t just bring people to the group n’ that. Won’t be the same craic on. Rizla: Yea, true. Forty-Seven: Aye, I went to school with him. He’s not interested in this sort of stuff, even if he says he is. He’s a bit of a dickhead too. Mayhem: Maybe we give him a chance? We don’t av’ t’ invite him again if he’s a cunt. Kev: Nah, man. MKD: Nah. Sounds like a fuckin’ fanny, like. Rags: Sounds like a dickhead, like. Mayhem: I guess. [Pause briefly]. Fuck ‘im then. I just hope he gets the fuck off our sofa sometime soon. [Box] is doin’ fuck all about it. Pissin’ me right off.

It was Forty-Seven who ended the conversation. Holding up his beer he shouted: ‘WildBoyz!’. The rest of us repeated it as we clinked our bottles together. After that, our conversation quickly changed, returning to something much more familiar—what we were planning to explore in a couple of days’ time. — As noted earlier in the chapter, to begin forming an interpretation of heterotopic social space and the kind of ‘community’ it embodies a ‘radical kind of understanding’ needs to be adopted (Blackshaw 2017: 153). As Blackshaw argues, this is an understanding that effectively

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dissolves the artificial dichotomy that exists between ‘devotional’ and ‘performative’ leisure. By doing this it is hoped we can acknowledge what heterotopias truly entail in our current period of interregnum, in both a homely sense and a performative one. As the episode in this chapter sought to demonstrate, the heterotopia ‘the Boyz’ create for themselves offers something that provides their lives with meaning, especially through the compelling feeling of ‘community’ it produces, so there is certainly something ‘devotional’ about it. Yet, at the same time there is the ubiquitous urge among each of ‘the Boyz’ to assert their individuality and satisfy their own sense of belonging by doing things they find personally interesting, intensely pleasurable and perhaps most importantly, as the reader will discover later, watchable. With both these ideas in mind, then, it is important we begin to accept that ‘the twenty-first century is the age in which all devotional leisure practices dissolve into the art of living’ (Blackshaw 2017: 153). What this means is that we need to weigh up the idea that rather than exemplifying one or the other ‘the Boyz’ (as urban explorers) perhaps exemplify khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire (ibid.: 155). In other words, this is the point of heterotopia and what it means to bring an episodic world to life. After all, as Blackshaw has argued, ‘the ‘community’ found in heterotopia is not really a community, but it really is a ‘community’; it is a ‘community’ only in the loosest and more precarious sense’ (2017: 149). Nevertheless, it is important to note that there are still certain conditions that need to be met for ‘the Boyz’ to find both pleasure and belonging in heterotopia. To paraphrase Blackshaw (2017), it is not enough to suggest you are one of ‘the Boyz’; you do not become one simply by adopting the name. Becoming one requires certain preconditions. What this means is that when it comes to being part of the performativity of WildBoyz Urban Exploration certain felicity conditions need to be met. Borrowing John Austin’s (1975) idea which was originally formulated to comprehend the truthfulness or falsity of words and sentences, it can be argued that to really become one of ‘the Boyz’ each one of us must first be officially authorised to enter the heterotopia by those in the collective. As the last section of the episode above reveals, without unanimous consent the idea of admitting an ‘outsider’ will be quickly rejected, even if a friendship has been formed between an

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‘outsider’ and some members of the collective. The crucial point in ‘the Boyz’ minds was that Husky was a friend to some of the group only in a different context, a context set far apart from the world of ‘the Boyz’. The second felicity condition concerns sincerity. What this means is that a person seeking to become one of ‘the Boyz’ must believe, sincerely, that they are in fact one of ‘the Boyz’. According to Leslie Arnovick (2006), sincerity is perhaps the most important condition because an individual must not only indicate how they are one of the group they must also genuinely believe it. This means someone such as Husky would need to be able to prove to both ‘the Boyz’ and themselves that they are an urban explorer, but also demonstrate that they have something to contribute that can benefit the group. In other words, as Arnovick suggests, there is said to be a ‘psychological state of intention’ at work (2006: 157). As John Searle (1969) points out, if an illocutionary act is to be unadulterated and ‘happy’ a promise to the performative act must be made, and this, as Blackshaw (2017) reminds us, involves being grateful for having been accepted, and being prepared, when required, to share knowledge and expertise with the rest of the collective. Of course, it is possible to make insincere promises, so Husky could effectively try to ‘blag’ his way into the collective if he decided, but this kind of promise lacks the true sincerity that is required in the performative act (Searle 1969). It follows that insincere promises never fulfil the intention; the individual concerned manages to adhere to all the relevant rules except the one concerning the essential psychological state. The final felicity condition concerns becoming authentic . As Blackshaw (2017) argues, having made the promise to be sincere, each one of ‘the Boyz’ must make a full social commitment to the collective. Following Martin Heidegger (1962), this may be referred to as a mode of being-in-the-world , and this is precisely when individuals are able to recognise that their existence has a particular kind of uniqueness that manages to evade straightforward description and analysis. As ‘the Boyz’ demonstrated in this chapter, this is the ability of individuals to embrace khôra and skhol¯e and in doing so achieving one of the greatest senses of belonging that can be found in life. Elsewhere, Heller (1999) has referred to this as a type of authenticity that feels virtually perfect in every way; a form of existence that feels genuine and an essential part of a person’s

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life. What this means, as Blackshaw (2017) suggests, is that ‘the Boyz’ are completely enchanted by their own truth about the world and the storytelling that is at the heart of it all. In other words, for ‘the Boyz’ being an urban explorer is not merely about saying they are urban explorers, or even believing sincerely in being one. Being one of ‘the Boyz’ is about being able to tell tales of adventure; it is about embracing individuality in tandem with the broader WildBoyz identity, both of which are inimitable and one of a kind; it is about sharing experiences as part of a felt ‘community’. This is what being an authentic WildBoy and urban explorer is all about, a life that comprises real meaning that cannot be found in everyday life, and this is something Husky did not have.

Summary To bring the chapter to a close, it is worth considering what Slavoj Žižek has said about human existence. According to Žižek (2003), there are two ways in which human beings exist in the world: one relates to those in positions of authority with their regimes and firm beliefs about how the world should be viewed, and the other is located in the everyday world that comprises the masses. However, what Žižek overlooks is that there are some people such as ‘the Boyz’, perhaps even urban explorers in general, who may argue there is in fact an additional world that has gone unnoticed. What I have in mind here is the world of heterotopias of deviation that allows individuals to engage in leisure that grants both the ecstasy of performativity and the intense warmness of ‘community’. And yet, this third type of world is always short-lived because heterotopias are impermanent spaces (Foucault 1984). Nevertheless, heterotopias thrive by allowing people to not only have greater control over their search for meaning but also in how they practice their being-in-the-world . Not everyone can locate meaning and the performative life in heterotopia of course because certain felicity conditions must be met, but it seems ‘the Boyz’ manage it when they come together as urban explorers. The heterotopia, therefore, is precisely what being one of ‘the Boyz’ is all about and as the reader will see in the remainder of this book it entails becoming a non-absolute—a khôraster-skhol¯er extraordinaire. What this

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means is that devotional leisure and its double meaning (the combined dispositions of ‘devotional’ and ‘performative’ leisure) essentially provides the conditions for what might be described as ‘the art of living’ (Blackshaw 2017). Perhaps this is what Foucault had in mind when he made the point that: In our society, art has become something that is related only to objects and not to individuals or to life. That art is something which is specialised or done by experts who are artists. But couldn’t everyone’s life become a work of art? Why should the lamp or the house be an art object but not our life? (1994: 261)

In view of the discussion so far then, it seems that the next step is to delve further into the world of ‘the Boyz’. By doing this we can begin to understand what it really means to be a khôraster-skhol¯er extraordinaire. The rest of this book intends to do just that, to draw the reader into a heterotopic world that is perhaps starkly different to their own; a world which would otherwise be hidden and inaccessible. In other words, reader, it is now time to venture all the way into the world of ‘the Boyz’.

References Arnovick, L. (2006). Written Reliquaries: The Resonance of Orality in Medieval English Texts. Amsterdam: John Benjamin’s Publishing Company. Austin, J. L. (1975). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bauman, Z., & Raud, R. (2015). Practices of Selfhood . Cambridge: Polity. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Oxon: Routledge. Caputo, J. D. (1997). Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida (J. D. Caputo, Ed.). New York: Fordham University Press. Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc. Illinois: Northwestern University Press. Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1): 22–27.

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Foucault, M. (1994). On the Genealogy of Ethics: An Overview of Work in Progress. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (pp. 253–280). London: Penguin. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). San Francisco: Harper & Row. Heller, A. (1999). A Theory of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. Rojek, C. (2010). The Labour of Leisure: The Culture of Free Time. London: Sage. Searle, J. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. London: Cambridge University Press. Sloterdijk, P. (2013). You Must Change Your Life (W. Hoban, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity. Weber, M. (2008). Max Weber’s Complete Writings on Academic and Political Vocations. New York: Algora Publishing. Wolfreys, J. (1998). The Derrida Reader: Writing Performances. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Žižek, S. (2003). The Puppet and the Dwarf . New York: Routledge.

Part III Unpacking Heterotopic Social Space

6 The Cognitive Spacing of WildBoyz: On Thinking Skholerly ¯

Introduction As it has been argued so far, living in the interregnum has resulted in those traditional ideas of hard-wearing, resistant identities and communities both becoming products of fantasy. What this means is that it has become increasingly difficult to map social spaces because they have transformed radically as the world has entered a confusing state of flux as it steadily becomes more ‘software-focused’ and consumer ‘light’ (Bauman 2000). With this in mind, it can be suggested that one of the few things we can rely on to make some sense of our seemingly melancholic and yet equally exciting and captivating condition is the idea that there are some people who manage to create for themselves temporary spaces of compensation known as heterotopias of deviation (Foucault 1984). In many ways, heterotopias function as a type of makeshift ‘community’ (which is another word for home) and, as the reader will see, ‘the Boyz’ are intent on controlling it by deciding who belongs and how things work. Yet, while this indicates ‘community’ can be anything © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_6

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we want in the interregnum, it is important to reiterate that heterotopias have an inherent temporariness, so they are always short-lived and contingent (Foucault 1984). Indeed, this sounds incredibly melancholic still, pointing out that rational communities do not work and that what replaces them is impermanent, but the fact is that by creating and controlling our own versions of heterotopia people are able to create something performative that is much more intense and convincing while it lasts. It might even be suggested that what is created is far more enchanting, fulfilling and pleasurable than traditional community (Blackshaw 2017). This is of course the beauty of heterotopia. However, to substantiate these claims it is necessary to delve into the workings of this type of ‘community’. Doing this will allow us to unpick the social processes that bring heterotopia to life and understand the rules, knowledge and performativity that support its temporary existence. In view of this, what this section of the book aims to do is identify and explain how ‘the Boyz’ understand and control heterotopic social space. In short, this is where the method of hermeneutic sociology starts to come into play as it is combined with the method of sociological hermeneutics. In order to probe the workings and rules of ‘the Boyz’ urban exploration-based heterotopia, Bauman’s ‘complex interaction of three interwoven, yet distinct processes – those of cognitive, moral and aesthetic spacings’ (1993: 145)—have been explored in the next three chapters. These processes can help us make sense of the impact the interregnum has had on social space. In other words, they can help the reader reflect on the notions of proximity and distance that all three processes deploy in conjunction with the seductive mode of living most of us face that inspires change, adaptability and creativity (ibid.). By understanding these processes and the complex nature of their arrangement, the reader will be better equipped to tackle the next part of the book which deals with four life strategies of ‘the Boyz’ that I have identified. In the end, what all of this points to is that there is unlikely to be a concise or consistent account that reveals something about heterotopic social space; by their very nature they are unsystematic, chaotic and ad hoc. Like crooked pieces of wood, they cannot be straightened (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015). However, attempting to understand the evolution of modernity, and taking self-reflexivity into

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consideration along the way, can provide us with an improved insight into the illusiveness, changeability and collectivity that is all part and parcel of heterotopic social spaces. Although we may not notice it from the outside, a vast amount of effort and imagination goes into the creation of heterotopias, alongside other important things such as memory, nostalgia, emotion and interpretation. This means there is a considerable amount of ‘labour of self-composition’ involved in the creation of heterotopias that never ceases to accumulate and restructure over time (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015: 103). This is precisely what this section of the book sets out to explore in depth, to uncover something about the heterotopia of a particular group of urban explorers who call themselves WildBoyz. Beginning with the idea of cognitive space then, this chapter follows a new narrative piece that sees ‘the Boyz’ trespassing on an abandoned artificial skiing complex. The episode has been examined to reveal how ‘the Boyz’, as skhol¯er s, manage to form their own heterotopic knowledge of and about themselves and the world around them. In other words, the intricacies of ‘the Boyz’ skhol¯er behavioural traits are explored and analysed in depth. Drawing on Bauman’s idea of cognition (1993), and of course an analysis of ‘the Boyz’, this chapter unpacks how skhol¯er s think and behave, and how they succeed in making a ‘home’ for themselves through their choice of devotional leisure. What is also considered later in this chapter is the essential point that there is a whole new level of complexity surrounding the cognitive processes of heterotopic social spacing when we begin to think about how ‘Others’ can have an impact upon spatial arrangement and social dynamics. As the reader will see as they descend with ‘the Boyz’ into an abandoned Second World War air raid shelter in a second narrative episode, there is always the fear that heterotopias can be invaded and subsequently destroyed if its creators are not careful. However, as the discussion will reveal, because ‘the Boyz’ are skhol¯er s they are able to adopt creative strategies to strengthen the performativity of their heterotopia. Before that though, as noted above, it is time to follow ‘the Boyz’ as they ‘hit up’ Sheffield for the first time.

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Skiing in the Interregnum It was a bright December morning and despite Box’s protests about walking we were heading in the direction of Sheffield Ski Village. As MKD always points out, Box often ‘whines like a fuckin’ fanny’ when he’s forced to walk anywhere. Nevertheless, because he was around us it was, as it is at all times, acceptable. It is possible to do and say whatever you want around ‘the Boyz’; we will listen to one another and probably take the piss afterwards, but that’s the way we like it, that’s the way it’s always been. I watched Box’s shoulders sink and the expression of his face drop as he stared at the hill ahead. Rags laughed at him. Ten minutes later we’d reached a footpath that suddenly twisted off into a curious section of land that was part nature reserve, part wasteland. The area was littered with McDonald’s wrappers and dog shit. Still, it cheered Box up. He liked a good bit of nature, especially the flat bits. At this point the conversation began to pick up again having been lost as we’d hiked up the hill, and we started to reflect on past explores together. Driven by nostalgia and a sense of solidarity and close friendship, we seemed impelled to reconstruct memories of our past. We began to talk about the time Mayhem abseiled off a cliff ‘starkers’; when MKD managed to spill spaghetti hoops over his freshly waxed car; when Rags ruined his best jeans while trying to push a car out of a muddy field. They were all simple moments, but such moments always impel us to recreate something of this former world. Now we were feeling truly animated, ready for some good ‘craic on’ which would only be possible if we worked to create it together. Sensing the time was right, Mayhem ‘got the tuneage together’: Duran Duran’s epic song, Wild Boys. However, by the time we’d reached the perimeter fence of the ski village the usual bickering had begun. Who would climb over first? Each of us justified precisely, although with varying degrees of persuasion, why we shouldn’t be the first to scale it. Out of everyone, Box did perhaps have the most valid argument—he was indeed often the one to go first. After several minutes of quarrelling, it was Rizla who stepped up to the mark, or, rather, ‘the Boyz’ had called him forward. Rizla would be the ‘little bitch’ this time; ‘it was his own fault for bein’ mint at climbing’, according to MKD. We expressed our amusement together as one as he

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began to climb the fence. A frenzy of chortling and chuckling erupted among us. In spite of this, Rizla ignored us and ‘cracked on’. Carefully, he pushed his long fingers through the gaps in the rusted wire and, with a tremendous show of strength, he managed to scale the fence effortlessly. It might sound inequitable, but this way of doing things was our way of adhering to one of our foremost ‘golden rules’. Of course, there are many of them, but, in this instance, we were following the principle that it’s better for one person to scout alone rather than the whole group risking detection by ‘secca’ or worse, the ‘boys in blue’. The sacrifice of one for the benefit of the rest was our way of doing things and this is an arrangement ‘the Boyz’ seem determined to preserve. Inside the grounds, I gazed at the scene that lay before us. It was a fucking shithole. From the fence, after receiving the all-clear from Rizla, we’d continued on through some dead thorn bushes towards an old bobsleigh track which was just beyond the dramatic towering remains of the support towers for the ski lift. Our clothes, suddenly big and cumbersome, were snagged by the thorns, and sticky blood trickled from our arms where the coarse barbs had managed to pierce our skin. The bobsleigh track was heavily overgrown and filled rubbish, broken ski equipment and what appeared to be dog shit. However, a couple of ‘the Boyz’ seemed convinced it was human shit. As Mayhem reminded us, ‘the gyppos’ regularly came down here ‘to burn the fuck out of the buildings’ at the base of the slope so they must have done it. Rags’ slow repulsed nod and tightly pursed lips seemed to confirm it. MKD also seemed to agree as he muttered ‘scummy fuckin’ gyppos’ under his breath. Aside from the destruction of the toboggan run, the rest of the slope was less destroyed and for the most part still looked useable. However, the world below us was still one of apocalyptic-like chaos. From where we were stood, we had a spectacular panorama. It appeared as though Hell had somehow managed to erupt and spit out its graffiti, filth and disorder across the former ski village. Incredibly, considering how heavy they looked, even some of the dendix mesh material tiles had been uprooted in certain areas and now the dull, abrasive ground beneath was exposed. Nevertheless, despite the deteriorating condition of the complex, ‘the Boyz’ all agreed that we would still be able to have a few good runs down

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the entire length of the slope. Although he’d had a car crash a few weeks earlier, it was decided that MKD would go first. Fuck it. We wanted to see him fly off one of the old ski jumps and we knew he’d give it a go. At the top of the slope we crowded around a nervous-looking MKD. Sat on a blue sledge, a trail of sweat ran down his dark stubbly cheek as he carefully tried to absorb our words of encouragement. Around MKD we were one, and nothing was more powerful. The words of the group were more important and effective than any individual contribution could ever hope to bring to our impromptu symposium. Our confidence grew rapidly, forming a protective buffer around MKD that could not be emulated. I felt it, like a warrior preparing for battle. Suddenly, we all knew MKD would survive! Ensnared by the moment, Mayhem volunteered to jump on board with him, ‘like a propa’ fuckin’ legend’. As he sat down, he pulled out his phone to start playing our tune, Wild Boys. As the distinctive drumming began, the pair in the sledge cheered loudly. Everyone else chanted, following the opening chorus: ‘Wild-boys! Wild-boys! Wild-boys!’. A forceful push set them off. Rags was the last to let go of Mayhem’s back; he’d run with them as far as possible before they’d gained too much speed for him to keep up. This seemed like a nice thing to do, sticking with them right up until the last moment, but I knew he was only trying to force them to travel faster than they were comfortable with. The dendix mats scratched loudly beneath the sledge as years of grainy dirt erupted into Mayhem and MKD’s faces. As they reported afterwards, it tasted salty and stung their eyes badly. Struggling to manoeuvre themselves, the pair narrowly avoided a pile of sharp-looking debris. They continued to gain speed with the plastic sledge grinding even more vociferously against the matting. The first ramp was fast approaching. It appeared much larger than it had at the top of the slope. We heard Mayhem yell, ‘FUCKKKKK!’ MKD seemed to agree with him as he too bellowed raucously. According to Mayhem afterwards, the pair had shot through the half-pipe at record speed, causing the graffiti on both sides to blur dazzlingly. The sledge was rattling violently as they hit the base of the ramp, but it didn’t slow them down. Nothing could stop them now. In the next moment, the pair were flying through the air. They soared over Box who had lain flat on the ramp to get some ‘epic footage’. As

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they shot past, he was blasted by a cloud of coarse grit. Together, MKD and Mayhem cursed and swore, until they crashed back into the ground at a terrific speed. The front of the sledge exploded and ejected MKD from his seat. Mayhem managed to cling on to what was left, but in the process smashed his nose against his knees. From the top of the hill, the rest of us began to laugh at the ‘poor bastards’. We watched as MKD tumbled down the remainder of the slope towards a pile of debris near the bottom. Gradually, Mayhem began to slow down. The back of the sledge he was still sitting on had mostly crumbled away, but the sharp, jagged edges were particularly effective in bringing him to a complete stop. Risking a quick glance back he saw ‘the Boyz’ were applauding. Rags was cheering, Rizla holding his arm up high was executing the classic fist-pump, and Box was sliding down towards him on an old ‘For Sale’ sign with a big grin across his face. Mayhem felt like a hero, an absolute fucking legend, but he knew this feeling wouldn’t have been possible without the others. After all, ‘wild boys always shine’, but only together in the spirit of the collective. —

Cognitive Spacing in Heterotopia: The WildBoyz Way There is much that can be learnt about ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social spacing in the episode above, especially when we begin to think about the cognitive space that has been created. According to Bauman, cognitive spacing is formed intellectually ‘by acquisition and distribution of knowledge’, and it is this which forms ‘the Boyz’ doxic understanding of and subsequent relation to the heterotopia and each of the individuals who help create it (1993: 146). With this in mind, then, it might be argued that when they are together ‘the Boyz’ appear to find an extraordinarily powerful impression of companionship, a feeling of happiness and, above all, a sense of belonging. As Garrett (2013) found in his own study involving urban explorers, it is this sense of tangible ‘community’ that

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often feels present within our leisure worlds, almost as if Tönnies (1963) Gemeinschaft community still exists. In other words, with these ideas in mind it might be suggested that the episode above appears to describe in some detail the construction of a world in the zuhanden mode, a world where people do not consciously reflect too deeply upon the objects and things they encounter (Heidegger 1962). To put it another way, what the episode above seems to reveal is a sense of what Alfred Schütz has termed the ‘reciprocity of perspectives’ because each one of ‘the Boyz’ has found common ground in which they can engage in the reciprocal process of locating shared meaning and belonging (Schütz and Luckmann 1973: 4–5). As Schütz and Luckmann would likely suggest, together, as skhol¯er s, ‘the Boyz’ share the same history and the same perspectives as one another and so they are able to understand each other naturally and completely in their mutually constructed reality. Following the way ‘the Boyz’ are able to force each other to submit themselves to tacit rules, a particular kind of humour, and a past that seems to re-enter and influence the present, the episode above certainly appears to support Schütz’s suggestion that they are guided by a ‘pre-packed’ knowledge. Together, in the way they laugh unanimously at the same things, the way they employ profane language, or in the way ‘delinquent gyppos’ are identified as being ‘scum’, ‘the Boyz’ natural attitude is one where they can see what each other sees and understand what everyone else among them understands. There is of course no way of knowing whether each of ‘the Boyz’ really believes in the ‘truth’ of their reciprocity, it is simply the case that each one of them assumes this way of thinking is normal (Bauman 1993). However, there is a problem with the above exposition, and this lies with what Bauman refers to as misunderstanding —when we are made to ‘pause and think’ and our experiences demand some sort of clarification or explanation (1993: 147). As described by Heidegger (1962), this act marks the shift from a zuhanden world to a vorhanden one, when a person’s process of knowledge building suddenly becomes a conscious, reflexive task. This is when someone begins to realise that the equilibrium between a collective, and of course the reciprocity, is sometimes unstable and even questionable. Although the episode on the ski slope is packed with examples, it is useful to draw the reader’s attention back to MKD.

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After congratulating Mayhem on his ‘epic’ show of courage and daring we finally turned our attention to MKD who was not only tangled in an old safety net but also slightly obscured from view beneath a pile of debris at the bottom of the slope. As we approached MKD, we found he had just managed to free himself. He was standing upright, clutching his back which was obviously in a lot of pain. What was also manifest was his frustration at us. Trying to hold back laughter, Rags attempted to make conversation with him, but MKD reacted badly and discharged a barrage of insults towards the group. He was ‘pissed off ’: ‘Fuckin’ bag-heads! What the hell! Why am I the one always gettin’ injured, yer fuckin’ bunch of boobs? Bastard fuckin’ fannies, all of yer’. What was less conspicuous, however, was that at this point MKD seemed to realise, once again (for this was not the first time something of this nature had happened to him), that ‘the world as world is only revealed to [us] when things start to go wrong’ (Ussher 1955: 40). What this tells us is that social worlds can open to reveal much more depth ‘when naïve expectations are frustrated’ (Bauman 1993: 147). This, of course, is a point that requires further elucidation. Having gone on to question the event which had taken place, it can be suggested that as a skhol¯er MKD’s thought-about knowledge was brought into the equation. What this suggests is that being a skhol¯er does not just involve the technical aspects of something like urban exploration, or entail adhering mechanically and naïvely to the discourse of a value-sphere, it also supports a cognitive sensibility that is dynamic and self-referential. What this tells us is that the distance that exists between people in social space can be ‘made’ or ‘unmade’ via thought-about knowledge because an individual can use it to determine whether respect for the shared discourse still exists and is worth holding onto (Schütz and Luckmann 1973). However, it is important to note that propinquity and detachment is often measured by the level of ‘richness or paucity of knowledge’ and since ‘the Boyz’ can be located at the intimate pole in the ‘system of spatial arrangement’, which gives preferentiality to familiarity over strangeness, MKD leaned towards staying with the collective (ibid.: 148). In other words, because MKD had already invested a tremendous amount of time and rich knowledge into WildBoyz, and acquired many

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experiences of homeliness and common spirit, in the end he ‘took it all on the chin’ (Bauman 2001). Choosing to preserve the warm feeling of security, this time MKD chose to remain part of the discourse and so the cognitive space continued to live on. What all of this tells us, then, is that heterotopic social space, much like a ‘community’, requires patience and understanding, and although ‘the Boyz’ must consciously reflect and think about it in the interregnum, a convincing feeling of homeliness and belonging can triumph over most of the problems they encounter (Blackshaw 2003). As Bauman (1993) suggests, it is the feeling of intimacy that draws ‘the Boyz’ back together, because without it someone can quickly find themselves unprotected, lonely and without a sense of shared identity. Coming together as skhol¯er s, therefore, entails the feeling of needing to be part of the warmness and pleasure-giving qualities of a value-sphere. However, it is important to note that what the coming together still necessitates is the preservation of respect, acceptance and a willingness to be involved (Blackshaw 2017). As it was noted in the previous chapter, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space has its own felicity conditions which must be met; the moment they are not is the point at which the heterotopia is called into question. What this indicates is that beneath the surface it is the power of performativity that keeps the vision of heterotopia alive rather than the depth of social relations. The survival of the heterotopia only matters insofar as the performance continues to incite pleasure and ecstasy. In this sense, the real skill is not in founding a comfortable spiritual home, it is in being able to carry on creating and imagining it, and in knowing when it is time to move on to greener pastures. The reader, therefore, should not be fooled into thinking ‘the Boyz’ are searching for a sense of certainty or unbreakable ontological security in the ‘community’ they create for themselves. ‘The Boyz’ are committed to one another only insofar as they are a Gesellschaft type of ‘community’ (Tönnies 1963), which means their affiliation is guided predominantly by their shared interest in urban exploration and the different existential possibilities it grants access to. As Blackshaw (2010) would point out, ‘the Boyz’ sense of ‘community’ is entirely postulated , to the extent that they have misplaced the true innocence of community. In view of this,

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as the reader will observe later in the book, it seems that what ‘the Boyz’ actually try to defend, possibly above all else, is their ability to exist as palimpsests (Bauman 2001). Each of them keeps the heterotopia alive only for as long as is necessary; none last forever because interests and identities change and evolve over time (Bauman, in Bauman and Raud 2015). Over and above the group it is performativity and idiosyncrasy ‘the Boyz’ value, and the reason they are willing to deal with heterotopia, especially in light of all the ‘bad craic’ they might entail, is to construct their own desired identities. MKD demonstrated this point well as he attempted to reinforce his chosen ultra-masculine, ‘hard man’ identity later in the pub after exploring the ski village. Did you see us fly? [Laughs]. Bet none of yous would av done that same ramp as me n’ [Mayhem], like. Yer fuckin’ fannys, we went from the highest point. Yer man, we were pretty beast like. [Looking for ‘the Boyz’ to agree]. N’ I did it again afterwards. None of yous did. Yous would have fuck’d yerselves. It’s cos I’m a beast. [Laughs].

As the reader has observed, by creating their own urbex collective ‘the Boyz’ fulfil two desires: the intersubjective need for the warmness and comfort of a ‘home’, but also their craving to be part of something that is flexible, where the experimentation of identity can take place. As Beck (1992) reminds us, this is the nature of our world, it is one where humans are torn on a daily basis between seeking freedom and security knowing that neither are attainable without the other. On the face of it, then, it may appear that ‘the Boyz’ are devoted to each other, especially when it comes to the individual sacrifices they make, but beneath the surface this is not the central driving force in their lives. The only thing they are truly committed to is themselves, their identities and their own pleasure and happiness (Blackshaw 2010). What this means is that the WildBoyz heterotopia which has been built around urban exploration contains the playing fields for producing identities by providing the illusion of ‘community’, and it is here they can be performed, contested and quickly rewritten. What the heterotopia also allows ‘the Boyz’ to do is move between heterotopic social spaces so they are free to choose their

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next source of pleasure and identity elsewhere if their existing heterotopia no longer works for them—a feat that certainly would not have been possible in the era of ‘solid’ modernity.

Traitors and Ominous Strangers: Overcoming the Arcane ‘Other’ So far, the focus of this chapter has been centred on social proximity in heterotopia and understanding the rewards and pleasures that can result from being in control of cognitive spacing. As it has been revealed, what is crucial to cognitive spacing is the effort, imagination and degree of decision-making ‘the Boyz’ put in, for without this labour the heterotopia would not provide the same sense of belonging and fulfilment. However, what has not been considered yet is the idea that heterotopic social space has a new level of complexity when the other side of Schütz’s ‘system of spatial arrangement’ is taken into consideration. At the other side of Schütz’s ‘system of spatial arrangement’ there lies another extremity known as the anonymity pole (Bauman 1993). Objects situated at this end of the continuum do not provide the rich knowledge or benefits we are able to gather from our more intimate relationships. These objects are the ‘Others’—the ‘gyppos’ and ‘chavs’ the reader witnessed earlier—who do not share the same performative cognitive space as ‘the Boyz’. Although ‘Others’ have always existed throughout human history, the problem, as Bauman (1993) points out, is that while there were once fixed boundaries that allowed people to distinguish with certainty between fellow neighbours and the ‘faceless bodies’ of the ‘Others’, in the interregnum the protective walls have crumbled away. What this means is that ‘Others’ and neighbours live among one another and so, much like an unwanted disease, those ‘faceless bodies’ can easily end up entering heterotopic social spaces and they can threaten to alter or destroy them (ibid.). Therefore, this situation calls for some sort of solution, a way of deliberately exerting power and control to ensure the performativity of the heterotopia does not fall into

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destruction. To begin unpacking these ideas, the reader’s attention will first be turned to another narrative episode. —

‘The Fr3e Roamer Cunts’ We’d just entered Victoria Tunnel, an abandoned WWII air raid shelter that lies beneath Newcastle City. As we walked down the old pitted ramp into the heart of the former refuge, following an old silver-coloured handrail that was shimmering with condensation, Mayhem began to recall some of the tunnel’s history. The rest of us tried to listen but as the floor was extremely slippery with mud, we ended up directing all our attention to the task of not falling ‘arse over tit’. There were five of us on this occasion: myself, Mayhem, Forty-Seven, Box and some random ‘fit lass’ Boxed worked with. Strictly speaking, ‘the fit lass’ wasn’t really one of us, but Box had given her ‘special permission’ to join us for the night because ‘she was hot n’ had a good set on her’. In this sense, ‘the Boyz’ were doing Box a favour; she was still a contaminant to their way of doing things, but knowing Box was hoping to ‘bang’ the lass, they’d agreed to her coming along. Once inside the main part of the air raid shelter, we continued to walk for almost half an hour. In that time, we passed the fragile remains of several wooden seats and numerous rusted frames that once supported large communal benches. The arching tunnel itself wasn’t particularly high, but it was enough that we didn’t have to stoop. The only things we had to be careful of were the old crusted light fittings that were dangling down from the ceiling in certain places. For the most part, the structure was beautifully crafted, and it was only towards the end we started to notice evidence of subsidence. It was here the air quality seemed to become staler, too, so we made sure we didn’t linger around for long. Instead, we turned back to seek out a decent area to light up some steel wool. After another hour or so, having grabbed plenty of photos of Box and Mayhem waving steel wool around, we decided it was time to pack up

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and go enjoy a few beers back on the surface. Forty-Seven led the way as we waded back through a flooded set of concrete blast doors. We were almost all through and just waiting for Box to catch up when everyone suddenly froze. Forty-Seven had raised his hand to silence everyone because he thought he’d heard footsteps. Against the stillness, water dripped slowly from the ceiling. We were listening intently, waiting to hear something… And then we heard it, definite footsteps and muffled voices. An uncomfortable feeling of alarm set in as we began to imagine secca, or worse, the police heading towards us. There was nowhere to run—the tunnel ended as a fucking sewage overflow now—so we were forced to wait. Our anticipation grew quickly. Glancing at Mayhem and Forty-Seven, I could tell they were beginning to ‘shit themselves’. Then we saw them, the fucking ‘Fr3e Roamer cunts’. There were three of them, all suited up in camouflage trousers, combat boots and bandanas with skulls adorning the fabric. As ‘the fit lass’ commented later that same evening, much to the amusement of ‘the Boyz, they all looked like ‘retarded neo-Nazis’. For several seconds we all stood in silence, until Box broke the awkwardness by greeting them. Hidden behind the cloth that was covering the lower part of his face, the leader of the group mumbled a greeting in return. He seemed uneasy, anxious perhaps. Ordinarily, he would’ve had another ‘Roamer’ by his side, his right-hand man so to speak who was a mass of quivering fat, but this time ‘the gigantic cunt’ hadn’t been able to squeeze his way through the narrow entranceway. Noticing this, Mayhem decided to put the Roamers firmly in their place. Regurgitating a thick ‘gozzie’ from deep inside his throat, he spat at the floor. For a moment, it floated on the surface of the water, before it collided with the side of a Fr3e Roamer boot. None of them looked impressed. In the beginning, Mayhem had introduced the Roamers to the world of urbex by taking them into ‘derps’ and, in a way, he had thought of them as being his own ‘disciples’. However, the ‘stupid fuckwits’ had gone off and created their own Facebook page and now tried to compete against ‘the Boyz’. Although Mayhem confessed he had once admired their drive and commitment to the game, he’d started to dislike them when they began to question ‘the Boyz’ ways of doing things. As Mayhem

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put it, ‘they disrespected the fuckin’ code, broke the rules and contaminated us. We couldn’t have the bellends doin’ that’. In the end, then, ‘the Boyz’ decided they needed stamping out and so they would purposely feed them bad information and try to ensure they kept real access details to themselves. Having tolerated them for too long already, Mayhem decided to break up the meeting by pointing them in the direction of the sewer where ‘arse soup’ lay waiting. He made a point of describing how ‘awesome’ it was down there and how there were plenty of ‘photo opportunities’. After that, we began to make a move. One by one we splashed past the Roamers, but Box stopped suddenly. He’d noticed MKD lurking at the back of the group. Surprised, he gave him a nod and sparked up a quick conversation: ‘Alright, man. Good to see you, bro! What the fuck! Fancy meeting you here, dude’. Together they chatted and laughed for a brief moment before parting ways. As MKD followed the Fr3e Roamers off into the darkness, Box shouted after him: ‘See you tomorrow, man. Don’t forget, we’re meeting round Shawbrow!’. —

Heterotopic Space and Its Politics of ‘Otherness’ As it has been indicated previously, despite ‘the Boyz’ longing for idiosyncrasy the performative identities they construct are difficult to fashion and control alone. For this reason, heterotopic social spaces are assembled alongside likeminded others (as skhol¯er s) who are familiar on the purported social proximity scale. This is a strategy, as Ricœur (1992) suggests, that is used to produce shared discourse and it works on account of the co-authorship and ‘exchange of memories’ that take place. According to Blackshaw (2003), and indeed as it was demonstrated as ‘the Boyz’ became nostalgic while walking to the abandoned ski village, this strategy allows those concerned to appeal to certain sentimental memories that involve key characters who are considered to be part of the collective. What it creates is a stronger, more concentrated sense of

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power and knowledge that makes the heterotopia feel as though has more authority than any other (Foucault 1980). What this means is that while they exist any alternative heterotopia does not matter; although ‘the Boyz’ ‘may be subjects in other people’s stories and others may be the subjects of their own and in others’ stories, it is what exists in the here and now that matters (Blackshaw 2003: 61). However, as Jenkins (1996) reminds us, creating any sense of identity as a skhol¯er not only entails knowing who you are, it also involves defining who you are not. So, while ‘the Boyz’ are able to establish a sense of ‘mythic stability’ among themselves (Ricœur 1992) which supplies them with a temporal heterotopia, what they also draw upon is what has been termed Einbildungskraft —‘the transcendental power of the imagination’—to mark ‘Others’ with identities (Taylor 2011: 108). By doing this, ‘the Boyz’ find they can assert a sense of power over anyone who is not part of their collective (ibid.). This tactic creates an imaginary divide between the unusualness of ‘Others’ and the assumed distinctiveness of themselves and, therefore, helps to reinforce the idea that the heterotopia not only exists but that it is unique, special and entirely their own. As Jacques Derrida (1973) has argued, the stranger is now an elemental feature of ‘community’ in the interregnum which means ‘communities’ rely on ‘the play of difference’ between themselves and the identification of inferior ‘Others’. Most of the time, of course, ‘Others’ can be successfully avoided, but there are occasions where efforts are frustrated (ibid.). Despite having been consigned to a field of ‘civil inattention’ (Goffman 1963: 97), where groups such as ‘the Boyz’ make every effort to steal a glimpse of what is around them while convincing themselves they are not really looking, in such an episodic world there is no assurance there will not be a breach below decks. In a world where timber reaches people half-cut and defective, vessels cannot help but leak because there is no way of ever making them completely watertight. And therein lies the central problem: heterotopias are threatened by strangeness and yet it is strangeness that surrounds us in the twenty-first century (Bauman 1995). What is interesting about the strangeness of ‘Others’, however, is that it is not necessarily their inherent difference that creates a threat to social space. Instead, strangers can often be more alike than people first expect,

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to the extent that it is their would-be commonality that threatens social space. As Simmel (1950) points out, strangers are generally viewed as being different in some way or another, but in actual fact because they are so proximal their ordinariness and similarities start to be noticed. With this in mind, it can be argued that there is something to be feared when it comes to discovering ‘Others’ who seem the same. As Simmel (1950) suggests, people suddenly run the risk of becoming that foul ‘Other’ (that is a unification of ‘Fr3e Roamer cunt’ and former ‘epicness’ of the WildBoyz) and if that is the case collective identities quickly risk losing their uniqueness and exceptionality. This is a powerful threat for ‘the Boyz’ since they would face the consequential peril of becoming nonentities inside a consequential world of nothingness. Sat in a pub one evening, getting ‘smashed’ on cheap beer and fireball whisky, Rags expressed this fear: [Slurring slightly]. The Fr3e Roamers? Who the fuck d’ these guys think they are? Tryin’ t’ fuck whit the WildBoyz. Stealin’ our identities n’ what we do. Well, they can fuck right off. [General murmur of agreement]. It’s bullshit, they might look like us, like the fuckin’ boys… Fuck, no they don’t! Twats! Stealin’ our explores n’ that. They’re different. D’ yer see what I mean? [Hiccups and looks at MKD]. They’re becomin’ us, man! Stop hangin’ round whit the bastards. Are you still a WildBoy?

What this reveals is that Simmel (1950) was onto something when he first wrote about the threat of commonality in strangeness. As the reader has seen, the Fr3e Roamers are viewed as being outsiders, but what worries ‘the Boyz’ more is that up close they look unnervingly similar. In other words, as Rags reveals, the roots of division can easily be blurred, and this corresponds to the worst kind of danger because it can exist among a group unnoticed until it is too late. The problem, as Simmel (1950) notes, is that when it is too late irreversible damage has been done. Notwithstanding the significance of commonality, it is still important to discuss the notion of difference that was briefly mentioned earlier. As Alexander (2013) argues, the idea of difference carries the understanding that the ‘Other’ is entirely different from ‘Us’. What this means is that

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there is another side to ‘the Boyz’ fear and this is their concern that something absolutely dissimilar might invade and damage their heterotopia. In other words, ‘the Boyz’ notice that the Fr3e Roamers ignore the rules of their heterotopic social space and that they dress and act differently, so they are perceived as a direct threat to their own existence. All of a sudden, it is ‘the Boyz’ cognitive space that is under risk of invasion, especially when they can see members of their own collective changing sides. And so, what ‘the Boyz’ defence comes down to is their ability to limit the rights of the ‘Other’, and their mobility (Alexander 2013). Evidence of this was revealed in the episode above as ‘the Boyz’ did not just make their belligerence obvious to the ‘Other’, they also attempted to feed false information to the Roamers to provoke chaos and disorder among their collective. With a dual sense of anxiety at the forefront of their minds, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space can begin to feel weak and on the brink of collapse. Furthermore, with the threat of the ‘Other’ ‘the Boyz’ realise they cannot remedy the problem by relying on their skhol¯er -guided strategy of close social proximity as MKD did on the ski slope, where the rich knowledge they have of one another can be used to restore the intimacy of heterotopia (Schütz and Luckmann 1973). Therefore, as the reader has seen, they are instead forced to depend on a different strategy. This is where ‘the Boyz’ employ an emic tactic which serves to polarise certain individuals and groups, condemning them as irreconcilable beings. As we left Victoria Tunnel, Mayhem’s conversation seemed to support this idea: I tried to introduce them to urbex, like my own disciples… I knew there was so much in store for them they wud jizz in their camera bags. Turns out not. I [tried showing] them good stuff, but they [haven’t] sharpen up their ways of sharin’ content n’ shit. [They’re] shittin’ all owa our rules now, they’ve made their own page filled with mistakes… I fuckin’ hate them now… They’re gettin’ more likes than us now. Like, what the fuck! They can fuck off, we’re done with em now. Cunts.

To return briefly to the idea of offensive language, what Mayhem reveals here is how certain words can be used to channel anger and hate towards

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‘an-Other’, to effectively and efficiently polarise them. The strategic use of ‘bad’ language reinforces the idea that a clear divide must exist to keep the threat at bay (McEnery 2006). Words such as ‘cunt’ are used to emphasise the point that the ‘Other’ is a serious threat that might contaminate ‘the Boyz’ world. In other words, the Roamers stir intense emotion and the only way of expressing it sufficiently is to use language that is closely bound with emotions (Byrne 2017). As Byrne argues, only the rawness of certain words, the sheer emotiveness of them, can encapsulate these feelings. With this in mind, the Fr3e Roamer’s are not just annoying or menacing, these words do not have the same power or effect. They are ‘cunts’, because this is one of the few words that reflects the degree of anger and hate ‘the Boyz’ feel towards the ‘Other’. What all of this indicates is that within the darker side of modernity there is also a ‘darker side to community’ because there are always undesirables who cause discomfort and ambivalence (Blackshaw 2010). And yet, the irony, as Simmel (1950) argues, is that the presence and uncertainty of ‘Others’ is a crucial part of any social space. This perhaps seems paradoxical, but as Bauman (1993) points out, ‘strangehood’ can reinforce and strengthen the perceived authenticity, control and power of a group. In other words, in the interregnum where heterotopias are held together by loose interests and commitment ‘Others’ are often needed to help bind collectives together more tightly (Bauman and Tester 2013). Nevertheless, as Beck (1992) points out, it is still no easy task living life in such an insecure way. Although social proximity can be used to control and take advantage of both strangers and likeminded individuals, the fact is strangers can present a greater challenge to the survival of heterotopia because they are everywhere and can be anyone. For instance, as it was revealed in the last episode, strangers can even reside among the ranks of ‘the Boyz’. It is for this reason further cognitive strategies are often necessary to oppose the ‘Other’ from upsetting the already unpredictable nature of heterotopia, to ensure the space is kept alive for as long as possible. First of all, then, it is useful to revisit Ricœur’s notion of forgiveness that was discussed in Chapter Four. This strategy allows ‘the Boyz’ to block out certain individual wrongdoings, such as MKD’s duplicity, by lifting any burden of guilt and immobilising ‘the law of the irreversibility

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of time’, by modifying the past so that it means very little in the present (Ricœur 1992: 8). However, this skhol¯erly tactic only works by means of a positive exchange of memories and the assumption that collective memory antedates individual memories. In other words, all individual memories and concerns are pushed aside for the benefit of ‘the Boyz’ and their sense of togetherness in the present. This does not mean ‘the Boyz’ condone MKD’s betrayal, only that they reconcile their differences and reaffirm trust and performativity so they may use one another in the creation of another adventure. This is why, as Ricœur (1995) reminds us, history is always imperfect and subject to manipulation. As with MKD, it is a well-constructed substitute history that confirms he is one of ‘the Boyz’. This is the true nature of history, it is, always and forever, changeable (ibid.). A second strategy ‘the Boyz’ draw on is what Kant refers to as Achtung, which means ‘attention’ (Wheeler 2008). To elaborate on this idea, from a Kantian perspective it can be argued that the difference between paying attention and ignoring is what sets respect apart from disrespect (Bauman 2012). What this means is that respect for ‘an-Other’ is found by identifying them as ‘an equal partner in dialogue, each as subjects who have something to say’ (ibid.: 73). Therefore, this means ‘the Boyz’ find there is something valuable to pay attention to when it comes to thinking about the usual members of their collective. Needless to say, the link to Schütz’s ‘system of spatial arrangement’ and close proximity is manifest here. However, it is important to note that ‘the Boyz’ entering into ‘a dialogue’ together does not mean they can only converse with specific people. As the reader saw with the inclusion of ‘the fit lass’ and the positive receipt of her comment about the Fr3e Roamers, the dialogue can become a polylogue. An especially important feature of this strategy is that it takes on a phagic form which means ‘Other’ people can be assimilated into ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia (Blackshaw 2010). Together, everyone chooses to conform, performatively, and they are prepared to play the game by ‘WildBoyz rules’ (because this heterotopia, at the time, had the greatest sense of power, intensity and superiority). In terms of individuality, all other hierarchies and appointments of ‘superiority’ and ‘inferiority’

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were adjourned while the dialogue between everyone was taking place (Bauman 2012). What should be manifest, then, is that the theme of alienation and its subsequent management or manipulation is an essential aspect of controlling the cognitive spacing of a heterotopia. Without being able to differentiate themselves from ‘Others’, ‘the Boyz’ would find it much more difficult to construct an impression of ‘communal identity’ in among the unpredictability and changeability of the interregnum (Blackshaw 2010: 154). Yet, as it has been revealed in this chapter, the way ‘the Boyz’ enter into a dialogue together is accomplished largely through despotism, subjugation and insensitivity. This is done to keep ‘Others’ such as the Fr3e Roamers at the receiving end of the other side of Achtung (disrespect) because knowing who they are not helps to reinforce who they are (Wheeler 2008); it helps them fashion their inimitability. What this tells us, in other words, is that the craved-forcosiness of belonging and the theatricality of performativity are in fact offered at ‘a price of unfreedom’ (Bauman 1995: 277). However, what this chapter also reveals, if those themes of despotism, subjugation and insensitivity are pushed aside momentarily, is that heterotopic social space seems to comprise a democratising spirit because it is where skhol¯er s come together to find something that is communitylike (Blackshaw 2017). This could be what Blackshaw (2010) refers to as ‘heavy’ commitment to performativity because, as ‘the Boyz’ demonstrate, it takes a considerable amount of conscious effort, time and skill (a strong element of craftmanship) to remain part of a heterotopia. In other words, heterotopic social spaces have certain felicity conditions that must be met; this is what keeps heterotopias alive for longer periods of time, the feeling that what has been created has with it a strong sense of companionship and solidarity (Blackshaw 2017). Moreover, what is certain is that without the investment of thought-about knowledge of one another, and the collaboration that goes on, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space would be missing something vital. Each of ‘the Boyz’ would not be skhol¯er s, they would be little more than ‘Others’ among strangers—pure khôraster s to put a label on it—and the degree to which they all feel freedom, belonging and fulfilment would certainly be very different.

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References Alexander, J. (2013). The Dark Side of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (1995). Making and Unmaking of Strangers. Thesis Eleven, 43(1), 1–16. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2001). Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World . Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (2012). This Is Not a Diary. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z., & Tester, K. (2013). Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z., & Raud, R. (2015). Practices of Selfhood . Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. Blackshaw, T. (2003). Leisure Life: Myth, Masculinity and Modernity. London: Routledge. Blackshaw, T. (2010). Key Concepts in Community Studies. London: Sage. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-Imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Byrne, E. (2017). Swearing Is Good For You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language. London: Profile Books. Derrida, J. (1973). Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs. Evanston: North Western University Press. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings (C. Gordon, Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1), 22–27. Garrett, B. (2013). Explore Everything: Place-Hacking the City. London: Verso. Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in Public Places. New York: The Free Press. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). San Francisco: Harper & Row. Jenkins, K. (1996). Social Identity. London: Routledge. McEnery, T. (2006). Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present. Oxon: Routledge. Ricœur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ricœur, P. (1995). Reflections on a New Ethos for Europe. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 21(5/6), 3–13. Schütz, A., & Luckmann, T. (1973). Structures of the Life World . Evanston: North-western University Press.

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Simmel, G. (1950). The Stranger. In K. Wolff (Ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel (pp. 402–408). New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Taylor, M. (2011). Infinite Restlessness. In S. Žižek, C. Crockett, & C. Davis (Eds.), Hegel & the Infinite: Religion, Politics and Dialectic (pp. 91–114). New York: Columbia University Press. Tönnies, F. (1963). Community and Society (C. P. Loomis, Trans.). New York: Harper. Ussher, A. (1955). Journey Through Dread . New York: Devin-Adair. Wheeler, R. C. (2008). Kantian Imperatives and Phenomenology’s Original Forces. Washington: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.

7 Aesthetic Social Spacing: Altogether Now with the Khôrasters

Introduction As noted in Chapter 6, beneath the techniques and tools of cognitive spacing, which are needed to control heterotopic social space and ensure everyone who is connected in some way or another has a role to play in keeping it alive, there is aesthetic space. As Bauman puts it, aesthetic spacing which emerges affectively involves ‘curiosity and the search for experiential intensity’ (1993: 146). What this means, as Blackshaw (2013) argues, is that this process allows people to turn the outside world on its head and view everything around them as a source of possibility, sensuality and entertainment. ‘The Boyz’ heterotopia, then, also allows them to view the world as a spectacle, a spectacle in which aesthetic enjoyment value supersedes all other considerations. According to Bauman (1993), the crucial advantage of aesthetic control is that contingency of life is made possible; it is not subject to the same restrictions as it is under cognitive control. The only limits to aesthetic spacing are down to the power of the imagination and the convincingness of created fantasies (ibid.). With these ideas in mind, what this chapter explores is the suggestion that a sense of homeliness © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_7

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is not the only thing to be desired by ‘the Boyz’. What they also desire, because they are khôrasters as well as skhol¯ers, are opportunities to transform the world around them into an assortment of episodes that are equivocal, inimitable and reversible. As Johan Huizinga (1971) argues, the joy of being in control of aesthetic space is found in being able to seek pleasures and satisfy desires by experimenting with space and by experimenting in it. —

Admission to the Attractions of the Underground All seven of us were sat in the Queen’s Head Inn, sipping our first pints of the evening. We were attending an ‘official urbex meetup’ which had been organised by a ‘bunch of randomers’ through an online forum. Everyone had been told to congregate here before heading down a nearby mine together. It wasn’t common for ‘the Boyz’ to want to mix with strangers, but after much persuasion Mayhem had finally convinced everyone to come along. They had, after all, heard some good things about these kind of events. However, at this moment in time ‘the Boyz’ seemed both tense and bored; they were unsure quite how the craic was going to play out and most of them weren’t very fond of traditional pubs. MKD would mutter to himself every few minutes, commenting on the antwacky furniture and the lack of ‘tuneage’. He was joined by the others who would intermittently nod in agreement and chip in with remarks of their own: ‘It’s fuckin’ bollocks in ere, like, everyone’s about seventy-five’; ‘I think the bog is outside, these sorts of places don’t have indoor shitters yet’; ‘the only action in ‘ere is inside that jar of pickled eggs behind the fuckin’ bar’. An hour later, having already sunk back a couple of pints each, the ‘Others’ began to arrive. Slowly, they began to congregate within the vicinity of our table. The cluster that was beginning to form was made up of individuals who, en masse, looked fucking weird. Rizla compared them to ‘hipsters’ and the sort of characters you would expect to find

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in a dystopian film such as Mad Max or Blade Runner. I found myself agreeing with him; in comparison, ‘the Boyz’ seemed fairly ‘normal’ looking. We proceeded to finish our pints without engaging with any of the newcomers. Instead, we pretended to ignore them and made a point of sticking to our own craic. This continued for another fifteen minutes, until a bloke dressed in a long trench coat and knee-high leather boots announced we were all leaving. To find out the mine’s location we were to follow him and his pals in our cars for a few miles. Happy to get moving, ‘the Boyz’ cheered and joined the throng of people attempting to exit the pub. Once outside, in their eagerness to get ‘smashed’ in the mine, ‘the Boyz’ wasted no time flinging themselves inside Rags’ shitty Corsa Hatchback. While we were all still piling in, the car roared to life. With the back doors wide open and legs still touching the ground, the wheels spun wildly against the gravel surface of the car park. The engine screamed and we bolted forwards before turning sharply to join the end of the growing convoy of cars. We abandoned Mayhem in the car park, scrambling to put on his biker gear. Despite his cries of protest calling for us to wait, ‘the Boyz’ decided there was no time to spare. He would have to catch up on his own; ‘it was his own fuckin’ fault for bringin’ the bike’. It was an interesting scene as a train of ancient Austin Metros, Ford Cortinas and Vauxhall Novas joined the heavily pot-holed road running south of the pub. Some of the cars, including ours, were flying flags. Others had people hanging out of windows waving beer cans in the air. Spurred on by the intensity of the moment, Rizla yelled, ‘Fuck me, guys, this is absolutely mint!’ Music started to blast from the car in front and this reminded MKD who was in the front passenger seat that we too had some tunes to play. Turning the dials up as far as they would go, the pulsating drumming began… ‘the wild boys are calling, on their way back from the fire…’ Captivated by the pure ecstasy of the moment, MKD wound down his window to join the other can bearers who were pumping their tins to the various beats of music blasting from their cars. It didn’t take long to reach the mine entrance. The convoy we’d followed had filled a long layby no more than two miles away from the pub and from there ‘the Boyz’ had followed the crowd up a narrow

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trail running through a patch of woodland. The guy in the trench coat and boots had led the way, clutching a portable speaker in one hand and a can of Dragon Soop in the other. Once we reached an adit that seemed to be sealed by a large metal door, the convoy stopped. We waited for a moment or two before the heavy door swung open. One by one we filed inside, congregating in the entranceway where there were two ‘urbexers’, a male and a female, each perched on small scrambler motorbikes. They told us the party was a five-minute walk away, and that after we’d dropped our gear off we could do whatever the fuck we wanted: ‘explore, get high, toss somebody off ’. The pair then started up their engines and after revving the fuck out of them for several seconds took off down the mine. We started walking again, heading in the direction of the energetic, bassy sound of psychedelic trance music. Only as we continued further into the mine did we realise its true scale. There were off shooting passageways every few hundred metres and more than enough space to drive a large truck around. According to Box, this particular mine was supposed to cover a distance of over twenty odd miles. With everyone stunned into silence by the sheer size of the place, the entire group continued to wander further and further into the mine. The air was thick with dust, but only because several more motorbikes had passed us as we’d been walking. Much to our surprise (because his bike was one of his most prized possessions), Mayhem happened to be one of those riders. He made of point of giving us the finger as he passed us, and of revving his engine loudly. There was no doubt he was hoping the sound echoing off the walls would be deafening for us. ‘The Boyz’ called him a ‘dickhead’, but I guess it was no more than we deserved for leaving him behind. After walking for ten minutes or so, we seemed to stop in a large cavernous space. There were several gigantic stone pillars supporting the ceiling, and a large pit to the left that looked deep when you tried to shine a torch in it. Noticing a large speaker system setup, along with a couple of diesel generators, we guessed this was where the party was going to be. Some bassy music was echoing throughout the chamber, but it wasn’t so loud we couldn’t hear one another. Noticing Mayhem was over in a corner struggling to pull his helmet off, we decided to join him. He gave us a thumbs up as we approached and suggested we set up

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the tents before the party really got underway. It wasn’t a bad idea by any means. Looking around at the ‘Others’ who were setting up around us it was clear it was going to be a wild one, so it was better to do it now. Everyone started to unpack and as we did a big grin spread across Box’s face. He paused for a moment as ‘the Boyz’ stopped to find out what he was grinning about. ‘Check this out’. It turned out he’d brought a ‘fuck load’ of fireworks with him. MKD, Rizla and Mayhem all paused very briefly, before they erupted into laughter. —

The Playful Ingeniousness of Urban Exploration Unlike the techniques of cognitive spacing which are intended to support an idea of spatial arrangement and keep ‘Others’ at bay, aesthetic spacing is about how to live and find pleasure under the circumstances of the interregnum (Bauman 1993). While the tactics of cognitive spacing are for the most part insular, those of aesthetic spacing are outward-looking. They ensure the imagination and bodily senses are used to arouse enjoyment, interest and curiosity. ‘Others’, therefore become objects of spectator pleasure ‘with their kaleidoscopic variety of appearances and actions’, and physical spaces become important sources of entertainment (ibid.: 168). What this means is that the outcomes of cognitive and aesthetic spacings are in many ways paradoxical because concern for aesthetics can redesign the rules and techniques formed by cognitive spacing. This, though, is the brilliance of aesthetic control, it is resistant to fears, guilt or apprehension because it is driven by playfulness and the art of living life to its fullest (Sloterdijk 2017). As it is intimated in the episode above, it is the experience of play that is significant when thinking about aesthetic control because during play opportunities for individualisation are realised (Sloterdijk 2017). It is on this basis—the basis that play has the power to enrich people beyond anything else (in an idiosyncratic sense)—that Johan Huizinga (1971) argues human beings are rapidly transforming into homo ludens. What

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this suggests is that play is becoming more deep-rooted than culture in present modernity because its ecstatic function and natural spontaneity carries more power than the mundane traditions of culture (Bauman 1993). The irony, of course, is that play is older than culture and that it is the very thing that has helped mould many traditions, which means there is something about the rudimentary idea of play that retains its appeal (Huizinga 1971). After all, ‘authentic’ play is not about self-preservation, rational or functional purpose, health, or even freedom, it is about experiencing the promise of a dream order: ‘an order than enables, empowers, [and] comes complete with that knowledge of how to go on’ (Bauman 1993: 172). As Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed, there is little else against the certain nothingness of our world which serves such an important purpose as play (Deleuze 2006). As Huizinga explains, the enjoyment and satisfaction found in play is pure. In many ways, what these ideas seem to point to is Charles Baudelaire’s figure of the flâneur. As Walter Benjamin (1999) argues, to flâner is to play as a passionate wanderer, strolling through custom-made spaces that offer pleasurable displays and seductive shapes and colours. What Benjamin essentially had in mind when he wrote about the flâneur was what it was like to saunter through those nineteenth-century Parisian glass covered arcades which were otherwise known as the passages couverts de Paris. As Benjamin (1999) observed, there are certain places within cities where ‘Others’ suddenly seem a lot less threatening, where they can be gazed at alongside the aesthetic surface of the physical space for being interesting, fascinating, revolting or beautiful. In this sense, it might be argued that heterotopic social space can function as a safe refuge for flâneurs, allowing them to pick and choose between which of the fantasies around them should be spectated, and which of them should be ignored. However, there are two crucial problems with this interpretation. First, based on their actions in the above episode, it should be evident that ‘the Boyz’ are not content living life as spectators. In a world that is constantly changing and overflowing with interesting sights and possibilities, the rhythm of a flâneur’s life is not fast paced enough for twenty-firstcentury individuals (Bauman 2000). People such as ‘the Boyz’ want to

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be involved in the action, because being involved is so much more satisfying than observing. As Mayhem pointed after we had set up camp in the mine, ‘Right, boys, fuck watchin’ like a bunch of muppets, let’s go get fuckin’ smashed with some of these cunts’. In other words, action is about experimentation and bringing the heated imagination to life. It is about becoming one of the watchables (more on this point will be discussed later in Chapter 9). The second problem concerns the playing grounds of the flâneur. For Benjamin (1999), as for Baudelaire, only certain spaces could function as grazing grounds for flâneurs and these tended to be found directly in the streets of the metropolis. As Bauman (1993) notes, it was essential the pavements were wide enough to linger on, passageways needed to be lined with tasteful façades, and the shops had to contain luxury goods. Nevertheless, in the twenty-first-century interregnum the grazing grounds for flâneurs have changed. Imaginative stimulation and action can be found in all kinds of spaces and places, regardless of their location or elegance. As Bauman puts it, ‘the urban flâneur is [now] the travelling player’ who has transcended those playhouses where mere pleasurable views sufficed (1993: 172). What this tells us, then, is that the way aesthetic spacing is perceived and controlled in present modernity needs to be thought about differently. With this in mind, another way of thinking about aesthetic spacing and the significance of play in the interregnum might be to draw on the ideas of Jean Baudrillard (1994) for he has argued that all-powerful simulacra effectively controls freedom and imagination across society. After all, as Bauman would point out, this is a world where ‘the Boyz’ are ‘consumers first, and all the rest after’, where aesthetics are served readymade (2004: 66). According to Baudrillard (1994), this is the nature of seeking aesthetic space in present modernity; no matter where people go or what they do, there are ready-made scripts showing how lives should be lived. Indeed, in many ways this might seem like an appealing way to live because people know the things around them have been designed to keep them happy; it is guaranteed that forms of play will provide enjoyment and temporary satisfaction when you are an actor of the staged spectacle (Baudrillard 1994). It can also be suggested that there is a sense of safety in following scripted but flexible forms of play (ibid.).

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In reflecting on Baudrillard’s arguments vis-à-vis the episode above then, it is important to mention that Mayhem decided it would be perfectly reasonable to ride his bike through the mine because he had seen other people do it on YouTube. He told us later in the evening, after some of ‘the Boyz’ questioned whether his bike would be fucked now it had been ‘ragged’ through a dusty mine, how he had watched a documentary about people riding motorcycles through the Sahakorn Nikorn Mines in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, and how it was becoming a popular ‘touristy thing’. What this tells us is that Mayhem found it possible to justify his decision by falling back on the idea that the spectacle has made riding through mines both a rational and normal thing to do. Likewise, it was Box who decided to bring, and of course later set off, fireworks inside the mine, but only because he had seen several video reports of other people doing it on a forum he was part of. As he pointed out when Rizla questioned his logic, ‘it’s fine, dude, cos everyone sets ‘em off underground these days, it’s how they’re meant to be used these days, man’. Hence, as these examples illustrate, it seems reasonable to suggest that the windows the flâneur s once gazed through have been replaced in the twenty-first century by High Definition screens that contain everything imaginable (Baudrillard 1994). From general documentaries about abandoned underground spaces to more remarkable productions about what people do in abandoned underground spaces, the spectacle comprises it all. The only thing actors must decide are which elements of the spectacle interest them the most. However, and this last observation notwithstanding, it is important to bear in mind that it would be iniquitous to agree with the suggestion that ‘the Boyz’ have entered a mindless world of fast flowing signs and images which are consumed for convenience and quick-fix pleasures without considering the degree of imagination and creativity that goes into the making of aesthetic spacing. In fact, to suggest that ‘the Boyz’ are mechanical products of the spectacle would be to agree with a younger Foucault (1977) that they are ‘docile bodies’ rather than people with the capacity for agency. What this means it that the idea of social control via mechanicalisation and complacency needs to be challenged. By doing this, it is possible to go up against Baudrillard’s nihilistic outlook of life

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in present modernity to open discussions to the idea that aesthetic space in heterotopia is about personal expression and the vita performativa— the ‘art of living’ (Sloterdijk 2013). In other words, while Baudrillard may be correct in that it is impossible to escape consumer capitalism, it is arguable that it is still possible for people such as ‘the Boyz’ to live for the moment by embracing performative strategies as khôrasters.

Chaos: On Exploiting the ‘Telecity’ To understand the aesthetic space of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia more accurately, and in a way that views them as beings who are capable of thinking for themselves, it might be helpful to turn our attention to the work of Henning Bech. Keeping in mind the idea that the old hunting grounds of the flâneur have evolved, what has come to replace them is what might be referred to as the easiness of ‘teleshopping’. What this means is that the world around us has effectively transformed into what has been described as the telecity, a screen mediated world of surfaces that are meant to be gazed at interminably (Bech 1992). However, and this is a crucial point, while Baudrillard (2005) interprets this condition as the end of history because people have become regulated by images and subsequently lost sight of what is real, what I want to argue is that there is perhaps a different way of thinking about the world that should be considered, one that is much less fatalistic. In other words, it is arguable that Bech’s notion of the telecity can be extended to suggest that while ‘the Boyz’ still reside in an incurable world that is ‘telemediated’ they do not unwittingly ‘abandon themselves to munching images’ (Bauman 1992: 155). Instead, as the episodes throughout this book reveal, ‘the Boyz’ can be witnessed using the images and signs around them as inspiration to mould their own ideas of amusement and pleasure. The fact they borrow and steal elements of the original signs and images initially to construct their aesthetic space is irrelevant. After all, it is Bech who reminds us that that ‘television is totally non-committal’ (1992: 22). In one sense, it can be argued that this is precisely the behaviour modernity encourages because modernity is all about progress. It is

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said that modernity is about having ambition, it is about wanting to improve through trying and about having a strong willingness to experiment (Wagner 2012). Yet, as it has been suggested in the paragraph above, there is something unique about ‘the Boyz’ because they are more than complacent actors of modernity who feel the pressure to keep moving towards progress. To explain what I mean here, it is important to stress the point that although modernity might encourage people to live creatively by offering them opportunities to explore and invent new ideas, those same people quickly gather under banners of collective culture which cannot help but comprise shared philosophies and aesthetics (Sloterdijk 2017). Before long, preoccupation with a particular type of aesthetic space, regardless of how inimitable it might have seemed to begin with, becomes unadventurous, rational and unprovocative. As Baudrillard (2005) argues, aesthetics become stagnant, lost in among the simulation and simulacra of capitalist culture. In other words, it is all too easy for those who enter the aesthetically spaced world of the spectacle to inadvertently become part and parcel of conventionality and the destruction of ‘chaos inside people’ (Sloterdijk 2017). Yet, in being able to manipulate and direct components of the telecity, what the ‘the Boyz’ reveal is that they have not lost the chaos inside themselves. They demonstrate an ability to be part of modernity, but in a way that does not extinguish the fire within. It was Nietzsche who suggested that ‘one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star’ (2006: 9). What he means by this is that it is only by disturbing stasis of life or the status quo that people can inspire creativity to explore and invent new ideas, things and perceptions. For Sloterdijk (2017), this is the true voice of aesthetics, it is the discovery of ‘sublime chaos’ within that tears people open. Viewed in this way, chaos is not an everyday event around us, it has nothing to do with the unpredictability and uncertainty of living in the interregnum, it is an internal resource found within human beings (Sloterdijk 2017). What this means is that when it comes to crafting the aesthetic space of their heterotopia there is something different about the creativity ‘the Boyz’ are concerned with. Normally, the term ‘creation’ implies something good and that something productive will result. Yet, as Sloterdijk argues, the point of discovering chaos inside is that inventors

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move beyond such ideas of creation and progress—ideas that are happy, logical and full of expectation. To be a genuine architect in the telecity is to rethink creation and move towards ‘a little bit of evil and a little bit of untidy, a little bit unpredictable’ because this is ‘capital composed of chances that can lead to further chances’ (ibid.: 251). This is what it means to be in control of aesthetic space; it is to be a khôraster , an individual who seeks to explore the messiness of chaos within. The aesthetic space of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia is, essentially, a solitaire (Bauman 1993); it is made for individuals whose inner chaos gives birth to a dancing star. By standing shoulder to shoulder with likeminded people who have found it as well, ‘the Boyz’ not only show willingness to touch and experiment with space, they also show they are willing to experiment with their identities in ways that are not possible outside the guarded walls of heterotopic social space. This is, after all, the point of aesthetic space, as things can be rewired and their functions altered it ‘seeks fuzziness and moveable partitions, the shocking value of novelty… the surprising and the unexpected, expectations that always move faster and stay ahead of fulfilment’ (Bauman 1993: 179). There is no time for predictability, expectations that are guaranteed to be fulfilled, stability or repetitiveness in the aesthetic space of heterotopia. As far as khôrasters are concerned aesthetic space is about episodic togetherness, the erosion of guiding criterion and the realisation that stirring inner chaos is to live without strings attached. Indeed, ‘the Boyz’ demonstrated this in several ways inside the mine mentioned above: Music: As the reader saw, ‘the Boyz’ use of Duran Duran’s song Wild Boys is a good example of aesthetic manipulation and control. Using the song as they made their way towards the mine, ‘the Boyz’ were able to assume the performative role of dramatised characters. The music worked to transform the space by making it more heterotopic, and by bringing characters such as MKD and Rizla to life in all their unpredictable splendour and magnificence. In other words, the chosen music temporarily awakened the chaos inside each of ‘the Boyz’ and served to intensify and exaggerate their performances. The music does not produce the same identity each time, though, it merely ignites the multifaceted, multifaced characters of WildBoyz who adapt well to whatever setting they find themselves part of. In the instance above, as MKD pointed

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out at the time, with the energising beat of their music and the thundering sounds of revving engines they felt like War Boys from the latest Mad Max film, wildly following a cult of urbexers into the wasteland. However, this was a one-time production of aesthetics because when ‘the Boyz’ play the same music again in another setting or another space it is guaranteed to inspire an entirely different, unrepeatable and slightly borrowed version of aesthetic space. Sex: What seemed to be an ordinary mine at first in fact turned out to be something that could be manipulated, re-imagined and experienced differently. For a while, ‘the Boyz’ had remained gathered together, content with their own craic, beer and bourbon, until a ‘grubby-looking lass’ came over to chat. Box had been talking about ‘abandoned building porn’, because it was ‘a thing’, apparently, and with an obvious interest in the topic the lass decided to chip in. As it turned out, she knew a lot more about abandoned building porn than most of ‘the Boyz’. We continued to chat about it for a while, until the conversation gradually drifted off onto other topics. However, the topic was not over for Box and the lass. Spurred on to try some of the things they had both discovered online, they disappeared behind a nearby pile of rubble. As Box reported back later that evening, as the pair had been removing each other’s trousers he’d had the revelation that he could not only try out some of the stuff he had watched and talked about, but that he could try it unscripted, with improvisation. As the chaos inside him stirred, he found himself being transported all the way into that ‘shadowy realm called khôra’. The pair had acted on images and simulacra, taking them to invent something of their own, and in doing so found the ultimate aesthetic space. Together, as they rolled around in among dusty debris and the broken ventilation ducting of the mine, they established a shared space of interest that could be played with using their own methods and ideas of exchanging bodily fluids. Motorcycling: Mayhem entering the mine on his motorbike was a prelude to the inner chaos awakening inside him; its dramatic core was yet to be realised. After ‘bombing about’ like a maniac to reach the party, Mayhem decided later on in the evening that he wanted to venture further into the mine to find ‘maximum thrills’, and he was going to do it with a bit of mechanical assistance. It took several moments to tease

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the engine back to life, but the powerful beast eventually roared into action. Invigorated by the sound, Mayhem yelled at ‘the Boyz’, spurring any one of us to join him on his crusade. Captivated by the spectacular ity of the moment, I decided to join him. Armed with a bottle of whisky in one hand, I clutched onto the bike as tightly as possible with the other. Mayhem revved the bike until its screams were deafening, until finally he released the clutch and we were sent rocketing forwards. The bike swayed for the first few metres, threatening to fling us off, but Mayhem managed to straighten it up. It was time to discover what inner chaos he had inside himself. Shifting from first gear to fifth in a matter of seconds, the speed quickly became unpleasantly intense. The white limestone walls on either side of us became blurred and the passageway ahead seemed to reach us before we had time to gauge what was coming. Whenever we hit a dip in the ground the impact was brutal, and the shock would send sharp tremors coursing through our bodies. Despite this, the world continued to whizz by faster and faster as the bike gained more speed. I risked one last glance ahead and at that moment realised Mayhem was riding blindly. There was no way the mad cunt could sense where we were going. If there was a turn ahead or a large drop that would be the end of us. I yelled for Mayhem to slow down, trying to get through to him that this probably was not how they did it in the mines in Kanchanaburi. But, consumed by his inner sublime chaos, Mayhem ignored me. Resigning myself to the terrifying knowledge that chaos had eroded all rules, norms and expectations, I tucked my head in close to my chest and gritted my teeth. The true, unmediated voice of aesthetics had been found and I expected to crash and erupt into a ball of fire at any moment.

The Ephemeral Ecstasy of Aesthetic Space What this chapter reinforces is that the physical places and the identities that become part of heterotopic social space are things that are both groundless and performative (Butler 1990). In other words, the aesthetics involved are believed in only temporarily before they swiftly lose their appeal, fall out of fashion, or something better comes along. What the

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chapter also reveals is that the aesthetics ‘the Boyz’ create for themselves have their roots in the images and simulacra that surround them in an everyday sense (Baudrillard 1994). However, as the reader has seen, in reality there is little about ‘the Boyz’ world that is universal. They simply find themselves part of a societal condition where the ‘real world and its other are hard to prise apart’, where one feeds off the other to form an unstable ‘ground of unassailable truth on which khôra rests’ (Blackshaw 2017: 150). What this means, therefore, is that heterotopic social space derives its power directly from the ability of its architects to imagine, create and control their own aesthetic space as khôrasters. This is the type of aesthetic space people such as ‘the Boyz’ seek because for many people it is performativity that has become the ‘real’, a ‘real’ that is borrowed and yet at the same time fantastically unique and filled with chaos. What all of this tells us is that life experienced as Bech’s ‘telecity’ is the quintessential aesthetic space; just as the television is entirely noncommittal, so are people’s lives (Tester 1998). In many ways what is being described here is not unlike Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) world of rhizomatic surfaces for khôrasters have effectively become ‘bodies without organs’. Indeed, when it comes to aesthetic space ‘the Boyz’ only concern is with desire and freedom rather than forms of hegemonic control. In this sense, ‘the Boyz’ togetherness and heterotopic social space can be described as being entirely fortuitous, episodic and all about having the power to feel in control of amusement and pleasure. In other words, in the hands of ‘the Boyz’ aesthetic space (and even cognitive space) can be changed as if it were by the flick of a remote. It was Mayhem who reminded us of this as we left the mine the next day and he set about creating his own ‘urbex plans’: Mayhem: Well, that was fuckin’ epic. Rizla: Yea, man. It was mint. Rags: Guys, can someone help carry some of this shit? Mayhem: I’ve got a mate down South who wants to explore this underground folly he found. I’m gunna suggest we do sumthin’ like this down there. Get a sesh on the go n’ get fuckin’ trollied, you get me? MKD: What about us, man. Are we not invited, like? Rags: Guys, fucking hell, I’m gonna ditch your crap. Who the fuck brought potatoes? Rizla: [Laughs]. Did someone bring potatoes?

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Mayhem: It’s not like we ‘av to do everythin’ togetha is it? I mean, we’ve all got our own lives n’ that. Box: All right then, knobhead. MKD: What the fuck man, we’re supposed to do stuff togetha’. Mayhem: Are we? You go off all the time with the Fr3e Roamer cunts. Where’s our invites? Lost in the fuckin’ post? MKD: That’s different, though, isn’t it? Mayhem: Is it?

As Blackshaw (2010) points out, notions of ‘community’ are likely to ‘self-destruct’ in the interregnum as soon as they have been satisfactorily consumed. And once they have, it is time to abandoned imagined games, identities and spaces, indeed the very heterotopia itself, so that the continued search for pleasure and enjoyment may go on. As Bauman (1993) reminds us, in contemporary homes there is no need to gather around the one TV set or stereo with families mutually agreeing on which channel to watch or listen to when a device is likely to exist in every room of the house. In the ‘telecity’ lives are utterly episodic which means there is little room for compassion, time-honoured marriage to loved ones, or the idea of comradeship among friends (Bauman 2000). The mechanisms of aesthetic space, therefore, are about nothing more than ensuring heterotopias offer khôrasters a sense of belonging that feels different to anything they can find in their everyday lives. This is a sense of belonging that is performative, imaginative and based on fundamental desire, and people make certain that they find it by occasionally going ‘on a spree on an escapade’ for this is where ‘one frolics and rollicks, one revels – one plays, one plays in playing’ (Bauman 1993: 179). Khôrasters are not the type of people who share the burden of carrying each other’s gear, they are people with freedom and chaos on their minds, freedom and chaos that allows them to ‘drift from one performative status to the next’ as they focus on living for the moment (Blackshaw 2017: 150).

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References Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Baudrillard, J. (2005). The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (L. Turner, Trans.). Oxford: Berg. Bauman, Z. (1992). Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Bauman, Z. (2004). Identity: Conversations with Bendetto Vecchi. Cambridge: Polity. Bech, H. (1992). Living together in the (post)modern world. Paper presented at the session on Changing Family Structure and the New Forms of Living Together, European Conference of Sociology, Vienna, 22–28. Benjamin, W. (1999). The Arcades Project (H. Eiland & K. McLaughlin, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Blackshaw, T. (2010). Key Concepts in Community Studies. Sage: London. Blackshaw, T. (2013). Working-Class Life in Northern England, 1945–2010: The Pre-history and After-Life of the Inbetweener Generation. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Oxon: Routledge. Deleuze, G. (2006). Nietzsche and Philosophy (H. Tomlinson, Trans.). London: Continuum. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (pp. 3–28). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Huizinga, J. (1971). Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: The Beacon Press. Nietzsche, F. (2006). Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (A. D. Caro, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sloterdijk, P. (2013). You Must Change Your Life (W. Hoban, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity. Sloterdijk, P. (2017). The Aesthetic Imperative: Writings on Art (K. Margolis, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity.

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Tester, K. (1998). Bored and blasé: Television, the Emotions and Georg Simmel. In G. Bendelow & S. J. Williams (Eds.), Emotions in Social Life: Critical Themes and Contemporary Issues (pp. 83–96). London: Routledge. Wagner, P. (2012). Modernity: Understanding the Present. Cambridge: Polity.

8 Being with and Being for: Moral Social Spacing in Action

Introduction So far in this book there is one aspect of heterotopic social space that has not yet been discussed and this is what Bauman (1993) refers to as moral spacing . In contrast to cognitive spacing which is based on rules, reasons and the acquisition of shared knowledge, moral spacing is contingent because it effectively breaks down those rules, reasons and shared understandings. Likewise, moral spacing can be juxtaposed against aesthetic spacing because it can suspend a person’s freedom to experiment by bringing responsibility and attachment into the equation. For the khôraster who likes to drift a moral stance might seem uncharacteristic or out of place, but moral stances often defy logic and in doing so they can keep a khôraster ’s attention tied to something for longer than it would perhaps originally have been. However, and the above points notwithstanding, before the chapter continues any further it is important to note that while it might seem that moral space does not overlap with the other aspects of social spacing this is not what is being suggested. As the reader will see, although the three aspects of social spacing are each © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_8

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distinct processes in and of themselves, they are, as Bauman reminds us, all interweaving. Nevertheless, there is one noteworthy dissimilarity between moral spacing and the other processes that should be highlighted from the offset. According to Tim Dant (2012), unlike the other two aspects of social spacing moral spacing is only really something that became significant after the period known as the Enlightenment. With the exception of the rich and powerful, before the Age of Enlightenment people tended to participate in the same kind of moral space which was created and reinforced first by nature and later by religion. Yet, the onset of modernity changed things dramatically and in endowing people with greater freedom it gave birth to different competing moral principles and ethical systems (Dant 2012). As modernity has rapidly transformed and evolved to the point of reaching a crucial interregnum, those moral principles and ethical systems have become more diverse and varied than ever before. What this means is that when it comes to understanding the moral spacing of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia it should be anticipated that moral control is likely to be a chaotic and disordered thing to try and comprehend. As Bauman (1993) argues, in present modernity people of the same cultures or social groups are likely to find different things morally relevant to the extent that moral processes are often at cross-purposes and in states of constant conflict. It is precisely this struggle that this chapter attempts to examine so that the reader, as a spectator of a strange new world, can gain a better understanding of what it means to be involved in a heterotopia, in a moral sense. Needless to say, if the messiness of ‘the Boyz’ moral spacing is not attended to and appropriately unravelled there is the risk that the other two processes of heterotopic social spacing will become less understandable and seem all the more complicated and perplexing. What follows, then, is a new episode that has been selected because it reveals the complexity of ‘the Boyz’ control of moral space very well. The episode is set in Leicester, a city ‘the Boyz’ decided to visit because at the time it had become something of a magnet for urban explorers because of the large number of abandoned buildings it had to offer. On this occasion, though, as with most exploring trips together, some of ‘the Boyz’ had been unable to make it; they either could not get time off work,

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or they had just not been interested in coming. Therefore, to make up numbers and cut the cost of fuel down ‘the Boyz’ had decided to invite along another urban explorer named Soul. Mayhem and I had met Soul through the climbing world and as we grew to know him better he started to explore with us from time to time. In the end, because he started to explore with us on such a regular basis, he became known as an ‘honoury member’ of WildBoyz. —

A Night on the Town After three days of exploring, it was our final night in Leicester. There had been plenty of abandoned factories for us to explore, many of them remnants of the Victorian era that had helped Leicester grow into an industrial city, but now we were down to the last site we felt was worth a visit. There was nothing particularly special about this last structure in terms of its physical appearance; if anything, it was actually quite plainlooking. Constructed in the early 1970s, it was a typical example of a modern, concrete hotel that ended up closing at some point in 2009 due to its declining reputation and failing structural integrity. From that point onwards the building had rapidly spiralled into a state of decay, so it looked like a ‘proper shithole’ from the outside. Nevertheless, ‘the Boyz’ had been itching to see what Leicester looked like from somewhere high and this seemed to be one of the best vantage points in the city. Of course, what made the prospect of exploring it all the more interesting was that Forty-Seven had learned there was an especially interesting way of accessing the building. This involved jumping across from the roof of a neighbouring residential tower block. From the top floor of the adjacent building, ‘the Boyz’ climbed out of a window to reach the outside part of the roof. From there we followed a walkway that took us to an edge overlooking the old hotel we wanted to access. The problem, though, as we quickly discovered, was that we were uncomfortably visible. I had Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon on my mind the entire time as I could feel the eyes of the city watching us from

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different apartment blocks and offices over the road. I could certainly see people inside those buildings, pottering around in their kitchens and shuffling papers on desks, so I was quite certain they could also see us. Yet, we were very naïve in that we continued to listen to Forty-Seven who insisted no one would see us. As he pointed out, ‘it’s dark isn’t it’. Even so, each of us knew we shouldn’t have been up there, ‘mincing about’ on someone else’s rooftop. A couple of ‘the Boyz’ were on the verge of turning back, worried that the police might be called to investigate what we were up to. However, Mayhem helped to endorse our actions enough to persuade everyone to keep going. With visible anger in his tone he exclaimed, ‘fuck them and fuck the police. Motherfuckin’ capitalists, thinkin’ they own the city cos they own a bit of land that was actually no-one’s in the fuckin’ first place. Cunts’. All six of us lined up along the edge of the residential building to weigh up the distance of the gap between us and the hotel opposite. Rags reckoned it was over a metre, but definitely less than two. Mayhem thought it was precisely a metre. However, despite all our attempts to convince ourselves it wasn’t very far, MKD confirmed what we were all secretly thinking, it looked ‘far as fuck’. The hotel opposite was slightly raised too, by at least half a metre at its lowest point. If anything, this was the most disconcerting factor because it wasn’t just a case of jumping horizontally, we would have to make sure we jumped high enough as well. Before doubt could set in any further, Forty-Seven decided to seize the opportunity to play the role of the ‘ballsy fucker’ and he jumped first without any indication he was about to do it. He landed awkwardly on the other side, slipping on the loose gravel, but he was well clear of the edge. He quickly composed himself to preserve his daring performative semblance and shouted across that it was ‘a piece of piss’. Mayhem jumped next, more gracefully than Forty-Seven. This sort of shit didn’t scare him, that’s what he wanted us to know. Next, MKD and Rags leapt over, one after the other, followed by the bags and cameras which I threw over individually. ‘The Boyz’ told me to toss them all over, including Soul’s since he looked as though he might back out. They could see he was unsure about jumping because he’d decided to sit down on the roof, far away from the edge. He was sat in silence, staring at the daunting gap while gnawing at the dead skin on the tips of his fingers.

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It looked as though there was a part of him trying to persuade himself to do the jump, but also another side trying to think of an excuse to get out of doing it. Feeling the pressure of ‘the Boyz’ watching me, I jumped next, leaving Soul alone with his thoughts. Images of myself falling to the ground whirred around in my head as I took a run up, but I ended up clearing it easily. And so, finally, there was just Soul left to go. At first, Soul began by expressing his concern that this was a bad idea. He was right, of course, it really was a bad idea and things could’ve ended terribly, but ‘the Boyz’ ignored his protests. Instead, Rags told him to ‘stop being a fanny’, and Mayhem taunted him by pointing out that his gear was already safely across. After these tactics failed to persuade him to jump, Soul pleaded with ‘the Boyz’, trying to convince them to leave and that there were better explores to be done. However, ‘the Boyz’ chose to dismiss everything he was saying and gave him an ultimatum: he was free to leave if he wanted, ‘if [he] want[ed] to be a pussy boy’, but he would have to leave by himself because the rest of us were going to finish the explore. Not wanting to be singled out as the ‘pussy boy’, Soul decided to follow us the rest of the way, albeit reluctantly, and he made MKD and Mayhem both stand next to the edge to catch him just in case he didn’t quite make it. Everyone knew he would, but they stood there anyway to spur him on. After he jumped ‘the Boyz’ shook their heads and laughed. Soul’s cheeks flushed red for a moment as he quickly tried to change the topic of conversation by remarking on the state of the hotel roof. That being said, the roof of the hotel was, as Soul described it, ‘shit’. There were several broken air conditioning units to our left, and some kind of outbuilding with a wooden door hanging off its hinges in front of us. We attempted to make our way towards it, hoping it would provide access to the hotel so we wouldn’t have to jump the gap again when we left. Reaching it was a challenge, though, for nature had taken complete control of the roof with a variety of bushes, nettles and different grasses. Eventually, after being stung repeatedly, we made it across to the broken door and discovered it offered a way into the hotel. Satisfied we had another potential escape route, ‘the Boyz’ separated as everyone chose to enjoy the rooftop splendour in their own inimitable way. Mayhem decided to do nothing more than smoke. After fumbling around in his pocket for a minute or so trying to find his lighter, he

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pulled out two large spliffs he’d rolled earlier. His plan was simple, he was going to ‘get baked’ with Rags. As for Forty-Seven, the ‘mad bastard’ was already sat down with his legs dangling over the edge of the hotel. There was no doubt that people on the street below could probably see him, and we all called him a ‘fucking idiot’ for doing it, but it wasn’t long before Mayhem and Rags joined him. By this point, they were beginning to feel ‘baked’, so they didn’t seem to care as much about being seen anymore. Looking across at MKD and Soul, I could see that MKD was carefully examining a rusty fire extinguisher he’d found in among the foliage, and Soul was busying himself with setting up his camera to grab a few shots of the night-time cityscape. After a while, once I’d grabbed some photos myself, I decided to join ‘the Boyz’ who were sat, shrouded by a hazy cloud of pungent smoke, on the edge of the building. As we sat there gazing out across Leicester, there was a moment of quietude and passivity. It was nice to not have a care in the world for a short time. However, the peacefulness ended much sooner than we’d hoped. Half an hour later we were leaving in haste, discussing how ‘shit’ the hotel had been as a kind of diversionary tactic to take our minds off the fact that the police were hunting for us. We knew they were coming; not only had we seen their trail of blazing sirens heading in our direction, MKD had heard their radio chatter getting closer as they ascended one of the main stairwells inside the hotel. Back at the window of the residential building, it seemed almost believable that we’d successfully escaped undetected, especially since we knew health and safety regulations would forbid the police from jumping the gap. Unfortunately, though, we were wrong. A second team had entered the residential building and they appeared just as Soul was halfway through the window. Caught in the act and unsure what to do next, Soul froze. Forty-Seven, being the usual dramatic bastard, raised his arms to signal his surrender. Rags and MKD panicked because of the implications this incident could have on their jobs, and while he was still slightly out of sight Mayhem hurriedly stuffed any evidence of drugs down his trousers. Still outside on the roof, I ducked behind some rooftop machinery, hoping the others wouldn’t ‘grass’ on me. Bad Cop: What do you think you’re doing? Soul : Oh, Jesus. Fucking hell. MKD: Boobs.

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Good Cop: Are you supposed to be doing that? Everyone: [General murmur]. Dunno. Bad Cop: Right. Get down from the window, now! [Brief pause as Soul climbs back into the building]. Bad Cop: Is there anyone else? [A moment of silence, broken only by police radio chatter]. Forty-Seven and Soul : Yeah, someone’s still outside. Kev: [Whispering to myself ]. Fucks sake, bastards! Good Cop: Come on then, come here. Bad Cop: [Shouts]. Show yourself! Where are you!? Get back in this building, right now. [The police speak through the radio, confirming they’ve found us as I emerge and climb back into the building]. Bad Cop: Okay. Are you breaking the law here, pissing about on someone’s roof? Mayhem: No, it’s trespass. Bad Cop: If you’re going to start that one, we’ll take you all right now and we can sort this down the station. Do you want to start again? Mayhem: Yes. Bad Cop: Is what you’re doing here morally and ethically justified? Who said you could climb out there? What happens if you’d fallen off? That hotel you were messing around on has been condemned. It’s structurally unsound. Explain to me, what were you doing? MKD: Just taking photos. Bad Cop: Taking photos… Good Cop: [Curiously]. Of the city? Soul : Yea, man. Forty-Seven: It wasn’t my idea, like. I was just following these really. I think everyone just got a bit excited about taking photos. Mayhem: [Shifting uncomfortably]. Can we go downstairs? I’m really hot up here. Bad Cop: No. How do you think I feel? I’m standing here in all this clobber, all because of you. Mayhem: Alright then. Forty-Seven: I tried to say I didn’t think we should be doing it, but I don’t think anyone was listening to me.

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On Free Floating Responsibility Before this chapter goes on to unpack the moral space of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia, it is important to reiterate that the advent of modernity has caused the world to become much more chaotic and unsystematic. What this means is that it is impossible to find a set of universal values or a collective sense of morality in the interregnum because there are no longer any clear forms of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ (Bordoni 2016a). Instead, as Ellul reminds us, there is much more contingency and ambivalence when it comes to thinking about morality in present modernity inasmuch as we could regard it as the ‘plasticity of the social milieu’ (1967: 47). The world of khôrasters is, in other words, one that is pitted with mines, boreholes and the scattered pieces of moral principles, responsibilities and obligations. With these ideas in mind, then, it might be suggested that residing in such a chaotic world has resulted in ‘the Boyz’ becoming adiaphorous (indifferent or neutral) when it comes to their moral awareness and commitment. Some observers might go so far as to argue that ‘the Boyz’ appear inherently immoral in their activities and actions. For example, if we reflect back on ‘the Boyz’ moral responsibility for one another in connection with Soul in Leicester, or back on the ski slope with MKD, it is apparent that the group forced certain members of the collective to commit to certain acts which not only felt dangerous and uncomfortable they had unpredictable outcomes as well, and this behaviour in itself seems morally wrong. Equally, it might be suggested that ‘the Boyz’ are also immoral in the way they tend to use a lot of misogynist language, and in their treatment of females in general. As the reader has witnessed, parts of the female body are often used with offensive intent in mind (for example: the words ‘cunt’, ‘boob’, ‘pussy’ and ‘fanny’), and when females are invited along on an explore it seems evident that they are only welcome if they are perceived to be idyllically ‘fit’ or ‘fuckable’. However, what I want to argue is that ‘the Boyz’ have not become morally blind, and nor do they intentionally seek to engage in pursuits and deeds for the sake of being immoral (Bauman, in Bauman and Donskis 2013). On the contrary, while they have certainly become

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adiaphorous to an extent, because ‘natural’ moral impulses of individuals can be neutralised in heterotopic social space, they do still remain morally aware (Bauman 1989). In other words, it is the heterotopia that provides ‘the Boyz’ with their own shared world and an accompanying sense of moral understanding that is unique. Yet, what is different about this moral spacing is that it emerges out of that ‘shadowy realm called khôra’ and this means new moral obligations are likely to appear, new obligations that break from previously traditional values as new loyalties and desires are discovered (Caputo 1997: 93). As Castoriadis (1987) points out, this demonstrates the power of self-evidential performative realities, but it is important to bear in mind that it is only the creators of a performative reality, those who produced it together, who truly understand its discourse and moral impulses (ibid.). To this extent, what these arguments point to is Ricœur’s (1992) suggestion that all stories and forms of discourse of and about the world are fashioned using a sense of symbolic-mythic language which creates a kind of ‘mythic stability’. It is this perceived stability that not only verifies moral space, it justifies it as being logical and true (ibid.). Thus, while this explains how moral spacing can differ between different social formations and heterotopias, it also clearly accentuates the problematic juxtaposition of limitation and freedom when it comes to interpreting the boundaries of moral concern (Ricœur 1992). In view of the discussion so far, then, ‘the Boyz’ appear to be morally guided by their desire to be part of a heterotopia which, as the episodes have revealed, is quite different and at odds with how the everyday world works. By this understanding, therefore, as Lachs (1981) would likely suggest, Mayhem and the rest of ‘the Boyz’ are merely ‘intermediary men’ involved in the process of keeping their heterotopic social space alive and well. What this means, following Stanley Milgram’s (1974) idea of an ‘agentic state’, is that none of ‘the Boyz’ can be held personally responsible for whatever happens because they each have a floating moral responsibility that is the concern of no one in particular. It was Rags who emphasised this point extremely well after our encounter with the police as we sat chatting about the events that had occurred over a few beers and a dirty takeaway:

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… [Laughter]. You were really shittin’ yerself on that rooftop. But, you wanted to be there, right? [Soul nods in agreement while chewing on a greasy slice of grey kebab meat]. I was feelin’ a bit dodgy myself at first, like. Not so much the danger of it or owt, just at first I felt like we were doin’ somethin’ we shouldn’t be doin’. [Soul and MKD agree with him]. But, then, seeing you guys do the jump, I just thought, yeah, fuck it! This is what we do isn’t it, and if the group is doin’ it it’s alright. It’s like the point of WildBoyz, exploring shit. There’s nothin’ wrong with that if we’re all doin’ it togetha, like. Like, a common purpose an that. Yer know what I mean? [‘The Boyz’ all nod in agreement].

The condition being described by Rags is essentially what Hannah Arendt (1968) has termed the ‘rule by Nobody’. In other words, what happens is that ‘the Boyz’ find themselves in a position where they can consider their own individual moral roles in activities which are aligned with urban exploration, including all potential consequences, as being too small or limited to be of any significance. To this extent, then, this condition emphasises ‘the Boyz’ compliance and submission to the performativity and rules of the shared heterotopia they are all part of. Through the production of ‘some sort of communistic fiction’ which is ruled by an ‘invisible hand’, ‘the Boyz’ find themselves able to push aside all moral concerns and impulses that apply in day-to-day life and, of course, their own moral judgements (Arendt 1998: 44). As FortySeven demonstrated in the conversation with the police, despite having been one of the main protagonists at the beginning of the explore he attempted to use the condition to his advantage to explain away his personal responsibility for the incident by making the group accountable for the event rather than himself. That being said, what Forty-Seven also reinforces in the same instance is the point that ‘the Boyz’ are not governed by a strict set of discursive rules. This is manifest in the way he began to shift blame onto the rest of ‘the Boyz’ as he attempted to mitigate himself away from the situation as an innocent individual who happened to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. In other words, the ‘rule by Nobody’ should not be thought of as being some kind of ethical framework or guideline that influences freedom and choice by creating a world for ‘the Boyz’ that is epistemologically predictable and monotonous. In reality, Forty-Seven is

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no different to the rest of ‘the Boyz’ in that he is a khôraster who is not denied his own moral facility in anticipation of a ‘state-to-be-achieved’. To put it differently, if the idea of socialisation seems to serve as an exemplar for a shared performance that has a particular sense of safety, purpose and meaning, Forty-Seven reveals that the process of socialisation actually provides no more than the illusion of universality (Bauman, in Bauman and Donskis 2013). In stark contrast to what Elias (1994) termed the ‘civilising process’, a process that looked to undermine localised traditions and instil fixed configurations of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, the process of socialisation formed in heterotopic social space, along with all moral responsibilities, is purely phantasmal. Indeed, Bauman (1993) reminds us of this point when he argues that processes of socialisation are fraudulent since they are little more than short-term deformations of innate impulses. In view of the discussion so far, what is evident is that there appears to be a fundamental degree of interplay between the illusion of socialisation and what Bauman refers to as sociality (1993). What this means is that while the collective (and illusionary) moral sentiments of heterotopic social space have been highlighted, it is important not to overlook the dispersed and displaced side of moral spacing. To elaborate on what I mean here, if the reader reflects back to the explore on the hotel rooftop, it might be argued that there was no common agenda among each of ‘the Boyz’. Mayhem and Rags wanted to jump the gap to smoke a spliff. Forty-Seven felt the desire to sit on the roof with his feet dangling over the edge. MKD’s attention was occupied by an old fire extinguisher, and Soul appeared to be involved for no other reason than the photography opportunity that presented itself. What this tells us is that each of ‘the Boyz’ were capable of channelling away any emotions that may have roused concern for their moral responsibility to one another. If they had been more interested in their moral impulses, they may have considered the potential consequences of their actions and who might be affected as a result. However, there was instead a certain air of inhibition shrouding ‘the Boyz’ and, inebriated on the fumes of the ecstasy of their own individual actions, not one of them gave much of a fuck about one another.

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With this in mind, sociality is a crucial part of heterotopic social space that might be referred to as a ‘counter-structural structuration’ (Bauman 1993: 130). This is the side of moral spacing that allows moral beings to reinterpret or recalculate their moral impulses to the extent that they can interrupt the flow of history rather than concentrate on making it (ibid.). In other words, sociality signifies an aesthetic phenomenon whereby consideration for other people becomes irrelevant when there is an intoxicating desire to be satisfied (ibid.). As Bauman puts it, sociality ‘has no structure of its own; it ruminates in the debris of the structure it just exploded’ (1993: 131). According to Maffesoli (1996), this is the darker underside to society that causes people to thrive in the here and now. In this whole process, as Maffesoli reminds us, people are concerned only with the ‘re-enchantment of the world… by means of the image, myth, and the allegory’ (1996: xiv). And yet, as Bordoni (2016b) points out, it is the interregnum that creates this possibility; it enables people to come together and do almost anything they want simultaneously, whether they choose to fly through the air on a sledge or take a leap of faith between two buildings. In other words, what is being reiterated here is that in the ‘shadowy realm called khôra’ anything goes (Caputo 1997: 140). What this section tells us, then, is that when it comes to controlling the moral space of heterotopia, ‘the Boyz’ explore with one another for the sake of being part of a crowd (Canetti 1973), and they do so through the interweaving processes of sociality and the illusion of socialisation. The reason they do this is because identifying as part of a collective ultimately enables them to engage with heterotopic social space on individual terms. As Blackshaw (2017) points out, without the crowd it would be much more difficult for people to control and manipulate moral responsibilities and impulses, and it would be much more difficult to satisfy the desires they crave. The moral aspect of heterotopia is, in other words, another good example of how ‘the Boyz’ are khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire. As Canetti (1973) points out, alone individuals stand frightened, but when they find themselves in khôra where different morals apply, inside the Dionysian crowd that involves ‘being with’ likeminded others, they come alive and feel more uninhibited. It is here that concern with morality in the everyday sense can be abandoned because the crowd is ultimately undefined and faceless (Maffesoli 1996). Together, in the

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cacophonous music of the moment ‘the Boyz’ are at the same time something collective. They can feel it in the way they move to the same chorus and in the way they gesture and move like one another. Together, ‘the Boyz’ do just what everyone else does, but they are responsible for no one else in the crowd (Maffesoli 1996). Whether or not they think they should do something is irrelevant because they become blind and unable to hear in the glorious euphoric normlessness and unconstraint of the tribalistic throng. In due course this provides ‘the Boyz’ with a sense of freedom like no other. This is perhaps a taste of Maffesoli’s idea of puissance (‘the will to live’) that binds ‘the Boyz’ closer to the heterotopia, to khôra, where there is only room for being with others, as opposed to the moral alternative of being for them.

Re-examining the Moral Party In view of the discussion so far, it would appear that ‘the Boyz’ are characteristically self-seeking, perhaps even immoral. However, as noted earlier in this chapter I want to stress the point that there is more to ‘the Boyz’ moral responsibility than first meets the eye. Therefore, using Derrida’s idea of deconstruction the final part of this chapter attempts to dismantle what are arguably hierarchical systems of thought which centre their attention on quintessential forms of morality and subsequent behaviour and identity (Foucault 1980). Analogous to Derrida (1987), though, what is being argued is not that deconstruction is a superior philosophical or political concept that merely causes one form of moral authority to be substituted by another. What is being suggested is that the application of deconstruction allows us to remain faithful to the idea that identities and ideas should be viewed as being open, contingent and changeable. With this in mind, what is being challenged here are what Derrida has termed ‘violent hierarchies’ (1987) to question whether or not their professed integrity should mean anything in the interregnum. As Bauman (1993) argues, morality should not be viewed as some sort of pure action that can be followed up rationally with the question, why? Rather, it should be viewed as action that accounts for itself, action that is driven by imagination and a will to live (Sloterdijk 2013). In other

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words, morality should be understood in conjunction with what Derrida has termed différance 1 which means to find ‘absence within presentness’ (Powell 2006: 54). As Derrida argues, différance ‘governs nothing, reigns over nothing, and nowhere exercises any authority’ because ‘there is no kingdom of différance’ (1982: 22). To put it another way, différance is, purely and simply, a weave of non-binary differences, un-decidability and the displacement of all order (ibid.). Within the context of this book, this is the reason for deconstructing morality and moral space, to ensure that some effort is being made to account for the stifled differences and the heterogeneity that exists in places like heterotopias. It was Mayhem who initially made me think of this point as we left Leicester shortly after the hotel rooftop explore: Being moral in urbex is situational, dude. I may do something I usually wouldn’t, but that doesn’t make me bad. I might look at the city from a roof, maybe. Or, if I saw six abandoned bulbs for a projector in an old cinema, I’d take em. Is that immoral? Really? … Maybe it’s an individual thing and if affects you, and maybe the people yer with av n’ influence on it too. Maybe you, maybe me or you, av an influence on them? Fuck man, I’m not even high. What am I tryin’ to say?… [Pauses briefly]. Don’t always do what everyone tells you to do, do whateva you think you shud be doin’ n’ do what the boys suggest. They’re gonna be right when it comes to this sort of shit. Even if you don’t feel that way at the time, man. You get me?

Applying Derrida’s strategy of deconstruction means it is essential that we, as observers of alternative worlds and spaces, view morality as something that can simply occur, regardless of the processes of socialisation, sociality and whatever else might be at work. As Bauman reminds us, morality is not something that can be suited in ‘the stiff armour of [some] artificially constructed ethical code’ (1993: 34). From ‘the Boyz’ perspective, then, after they were caught by the police their actions were still

1 Derrida

modified the word difference by substituting the letter ‘e’ with an ‘a’ to emphasise his point that things should not be assigned a single identity or meaning. In other words, différance still signals difference, differentiation and deferral, but it is the rejection that there is only ever a single choice between one thing and another.

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perceived as being the moral ones for the simple reason that they understand that many people only do things when they are permitted to do them. ‘The Boyz’ would not necessarily use the term themselves, but they sense that many people abide by the ‘normalising gaze’ which in turn demonises them (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004). Thus, what this suggests is that ‘the Boyz’ attempts to resist the moulds which shape the everyday lives of many people, especially those lionised by the media and commercial manipulators, are a signal that real moral space can still be accessed. These are the moments when ‘the Boyz’ make use of neglected and forgotten space, and when different morals apply, because this is khôra. As Rizla pointed out to the others while we were inside Durham Palladium Theatre, ‘we remember the old stuff, we provide somethin’ back to otha people with photos n’ stories. We feel somethin’ we can’t always explain, and we choose to share it with those closest or simila to us’. What ‘the Boyz’ do, then, is certainly moral by their instinctual standards. Moral responsibility, therefore, does not automatically relate to ethics or matters of value and money, nor does it concern personal survival or that of other people, and it certainly does not include everyone’s happiness (Turner and Rojek 2001). Immediate happiness is simply what people have come to expect in a consumer society (ibid.). Hence, while the police may try to bully or cajole people such as ‘the Boyz’ into thinking and acting within certain ‘moral limits’, delineating what is deemed ‘normal’ or acceptable in society (Rojek 1995), it seems more acceptable to agree with Pritchard (1991) that there is no unbiased ground. As Turner and Rojek (2001) point out, ‘deviance’ (which does not necessarily have to be a bad thing) is hidden and lies dormant in every social relationship because our world is compatible with different layers of ‘moral chaos’, so it should not be ignored. In view of this, what may be suggested based on the episodes that have been provided so far is that what at first appear to be immoral pursuits are in fact instances where ‘the Boyz’ have had the freedom, control and autonomy to judge for themselves what is moral and how far their interests and passions can be taken. As Bauman notes:

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Moral responsibility is the most personal and inalienable of human possessions, and the most precious of human rights. It cannot be taken away, shared, ceded, pawned, or deposited for safe keeping. Moral responsibility is unconditional and infinite, and it manifests itself in the constant anguish of not manifesting itself enough. Moral responsibility does not look for reassurance for its right to be or for excuses for its right not to be… (1993: 250)

As Arendt (1968) has argued, all people are capable of discerning between right and wrong, even when they are being guided by their own judgements. Arguably, then, this is exactly what ‘the Boyz’ do in their heterotopic social space: they ignore the scrutiny and moral nihilism of everyday society and replace it for their own unreliable and erratic moral impulses. In other words, as Soul has pointed out on more than one occasion, each one of ‘the Boyz’ has ‘the balls to try something different and share that with other likeminded people’. With this in mind, although the reader knows that Soul did not want to jump the gap, from ‘the Boyz’ point of view they were moral since it turned out afterwards that he had ‘fucking loved the whole experience’ to the extent that he even thanked ‘the Boyz’ after the Leicester trip for ‘putting up with [his] whining and bitching’. In other words, what this tells us is that many of the stories which emerge after an explore, irrespective of whether people were coerced to do something or not, are valued in the same way someone might value a treasured object. As another example, we can turn our attention back to MKD who felt elated, proud and very much like a ‘fucking legend’—and indeed still does to this day—after ‘the Boyz’ ‘encouraged’ him to go sledging first. According to MKD, this is because the experience gave him a wider sense of meaning and freedom in his life. It is these very memories, then, that fuel ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia, and their sense of connectedness, freedom and their desire for identity, and they often form the first points of conversation between one another when an explore or trip is just beginning. There is of course an essential point that needs to be addressed at this juncture because what has been discussed in the latter part of this chapter might seem incongruous with what was argued in the earlier

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section. What I want to emphasise, therefore, is that what has been considered here should not be viewed as being in opposition to those previous arguments. Instead, both sides of the discussion are part and parcel of the darker side of modernity. In other words, what is being suggested is certainly not that ‘the Boyz’ (and other urban explorers) are always moral, for it remains, as it always will in the interregnum, a messy, ambiguous and conflicting task, or that they are not consumers at heart. Like everyone else, ‘the Boyz’ consume, and more often than not they are not always moral by ‘conventional’ ethical standards. Yet, heterotopic social space does offer an opening where ‘the Boyz’ are occasionally, in some small way and sometimes unwittingly, able to be for one another because they push boundaries and impel each other to do the same. This is, or so we might argue, the correct application of freedom and morality. In fact, this may be what Maffesoli means when he talks about ‘empathetic sociality’, for this is where sociality becomes ‘less about rules and more about sentiments, feelings, emotions and imaginations; [it is] less about what has been or what will become than what is – the stress is on the “right now” and the “right here”’ (Malbon 1999: 26). As Vetlesen (1993) points out, responsibility for others stems precisely from having lived with them. In this case, ‘the Boyz’ have lived together in the same heterotopia and this is where different morals apply, because this is khôra not the everyday world. From an ethical perspective, one the police would perhaps endorse because it fits with the nature and doxic beliefs of everyday society, being for one another comes before being with. However, as Bauman reminds us, ‘the only space where the moral act can be performed is the social space of being with’, where it is ‘continually buffeted by the criss-crossing pressures of cognitive, aesthetic and moral spacings’ (1993: 185). There is of course, as Bauman (1993) argues, no guarantee that people will be moral, but there is always a chance in whatever they are doing or whatever they are exploring that instances of moral responsibility will occur. These are moments that are produced in close proximity to other people, with people who are likeminded and have been chosen purposely. Only under these circumstances will instances of being for one another potentially emerge (Vetlesen 1993). As follows then, in response to ‘Bad Cop’, ‘the Boyz’ might say, ‘yes, what we were doing was entirely justified, both morally and ethically’. Then again, it

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is doubtful he would understand it because in all likelihood he had not lived as an urban explorer, or had an experience of heterotopic social space in the same way ‘the Boyz’ have.

Another Interim Summary As the critical discussions across Chapters 6, 7 and this chapter have uncovered, what each of ‘the Boyz’ seek is a form of emancipation that temporarily removes the dissatisfactions of everyday life. To achieve what they desire, ‘the Boyz’ do not merely aim to explore and control the reverse side of the urban environment but instead a reverse side to themselves, and they do this by means of ‘devotional leisure’ which can facilitate the creation of a shared space of temporary compensation. However, it was realised from the beginning that even with Bauman’s concept of social spacing trying to understand ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia, and trying to make it accessible to an outsider, was always going to be a complex task. Yet, this task was an essential one if heterotopic social space is to be explored in any level of detail. It was by drawing on the twin methods of sociological hermeneutics and hermeneutic sociology that I attempted to deconstruct the cognitive, aesthetic and moral spacings of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia. It is hoped that by doing this both the social processes that bring heterotopia to life and the rules that support its temporary existence have been unpacked and explored in some depth. As I have argued, what ‘the Boyz’ reveal is that creating and controlling a temporary home in the interregnum entails embracing a particular performative identity as a skhol¯er . What this means is that each one of ‘the Boyz’ must gain the acceptance of the group, they must actively partake in the construction of the heterotopia, and they must develop strategies that help keep it alive until further notice. In other words, there are certain felicity conditions that need to be met. Nevertheless, heterotopias also allow individuals to live as khôraster s and, therefore, they are able to express their theatricality and idiosyncrasy as they search for their own personal sense of belonging and freedom.

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With these ideas in mind, I set out in the last three chapters to dissolve the artificial split that exists between ‘devotional’ and ‘performative’ leisure. By doing this I was able to reveal that failure to get the balance just right (between forming a sense of ‘collective destiny’ and ‘personal fulfilment’) can result in the breakdown of heterotopic social space because it would lack some of the crucial elements that make it so perfect (Blackshaw 2017: 161). What this means, then, is that the cognitive, aesthetic and moral components of heterotopias are each delicate processes that require much time, effort and dedication to control them and keep them alive. From the analysis provided, it becomes clear that control and power is everything when it comes to creating and living in a heterotopia. As it has been revealed, ‘the Boyz’ have to exert their power to ensure they are the controllers of their own contingent story. It is ‘the Boyz’ who decide how things should be and who may be granted or denied entry to their special kind of world. By doing this a kind of metamorphosis takes place which begins with each of ‘the Boyz’ stepping out of their everyday bodies into another magical performative version of themselves. And what they find when this metamorphosis occurs are opportunities to experience freedom and pleasure as they enter a Dionysian paradise—a paradise that is, as we now know, far from actually ever being paradisiacal. Nevertheless, it might be argued that having power and being able to control space to live as khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire is what it takes to achieve a sense of meaning, and what it means to feel truly alive in the world. What this also means, however, as the reader has seen, is that heterotopic social space cannot help but have a different sense of morality attached to it because this reality is very different from the everyday world. After all, this is khôra where completely different ontological perspectives apply. As far as I am aware, to date no other attempt at understanding a heterotopia centred around urban exploration as a devotional form of leisure has been completed in such a fastidious way as this. As the reader will recall, Chapter 4 set out to introduce Foucault’s concept of heterotopia vis-à-vis the interregnum and it was explored in considerable detail, to the extent that there is much overlap between Part II and Part III of the book. However, Part III has dissected those initial ideas by pulling apart ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia and laying out all of its intricacies one by

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one. To this extent, it is hoped that the reader feels as though have journeyed with ‘the Boyz’ in such an intimate way as to perhaps feel conversant with them, and more informed as to how a group of urban explorers attempt to control their heterotopic social space. With this knowledge fresh in mind then, I would now like to delve a little further into ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia. So, what the next chapter goes on to unpack are the essential life strategies of ‘the Boyz’ that have been identified by me during my time spent with them. To summarise what I mean very briefly, within the context of this book life strategies are essential ‘ways of living’ in heterotopic social space. In essence, they embody what heterotopia is all about for a group of lads who call themselves urban explorers.

References Arendt, H. (1968). The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt. Arendt, H. (1998). The Human Condition (M. Canovan, Trans.). London: The University of Chicago Press. Bauman, Z. (1989). Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z., & Donskis, L. (2013). Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-Imagining Leisure Studies. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Blackshaw, T., & Crabbe, T. (2004). New Perspectives on Sport and Deviance: Consumption, Performativity and Social Control . Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Bordoni, C. (2016a). State of Fear in a Liquid World . London: Routledge. Bordoni, C. (2016b). Interregnum: Beyond Liquid Modernity. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Canetti, E. (1973). Crowds and Power (C. Stewart, Trans.). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Caputo, J. D. (1997). Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida (J. D. Caputo, Ed.). New York: Fordham University Press. Castoriadis, C. (1987). The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Dant, T. (2012). Television and the Moral Imaginary: Society Through the Small Screen. London: Palgrave. Derrida, J. (1982). The Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. (1987). Positions (A. Bass, Trans.). London: Athlone Press. Elias, N. (1994). The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and StateFormation and Civilization. Oxford: Blackwell. Ellul, J. (1967). The Technological Society (R. K. Merton, Trans.). Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings (C. Gordon, Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. Lachs, J. (1981). Responsibility and the Individual in Modern Society. Brighton: Harvester. Maffesoli, M. (1996). The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in a Mass Society. London: Sage. Malbon, B. (1999). Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstasy, Vitality. London: Routledge. Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper & Row. Pritchard, M. (1991). On Becoming Responsible. Kansas: University Press of Kansas. Powell, J. (2006). Jacques Derrida: A Biography. London: Continuum. Ricœur, P. (1992). Oneself as Another. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rojek, C. (1995). Decentring Leisure: Rethinking Leisure Theory. London: Sage. Sloterdijk, P. (2013). You Must Change Your Life (W. Hoban, Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Turner, B. S., & Rojek, C. (2001). Society and Culture: Scarcity and Solidarity. London: Sage. Vetlesen, A. J. (1993). Why Does Proximity Make a Moral Difference? Praxis International, 12, 371–386.

Part IV Heterotopic Ways of Being

9 Practised Life Strategies of WildBoyz

Introduction Now the reader has gained insight into how ‘the Boyz’ understand and control their heterotopic social space, it is important to frame the strategies they adopt for living during the time their world is in full swing. In other words, this chapter attends to the central life strategies (ways of living) that embody what heterotopic social space is all about in the interregnum. It should be noted, however, that each of the strategies are interpenetrating and intertwining so, in effect, they comprise a joint metaphor. This means each one is an integral part of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia but they never neatly merge to form a coherent life strategy. What this also means is that this chapter cannot help but be lengthier than the others. Yet, this is an effective way of reflecting the chaos and messiness of life strategies in heterotopic social space. The impetus behind this chapter stems from Zygmunt Bauman’s attempt to contrive an interconnecting metaphor for understanding the task of identity-building in ‘postmodernity’ where he discussed the idea of ‘the stroller, the vagabond, the tourist and the player’ (1996: 26). What I offer here, though, is © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_9

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different in the respect that my focus remains solely with one group of urban explorers—WildBoyz. As it has been argued hitherto, ‘the Boyz’ are faced with the problem that their lives are episodic and overwhelmingly ambivalent. What this means is that because rational life strategies are becoming less effective in the interregnum individuals are forced to develop their own. On the one hand, this condition brings people closer together, but on the other it urges them to remain open to whatever other options might be available, encouraging them not to get too comfortable or cosy (Blackshaw 2005). Indeed, this was revealed in the way ‘the Boyz’ exist together, somewhat skilfully, as khôrasters-skhol¯ers. Consequently, there is no clearcut or well-defined life strategy for people to follow. Instead, individuals must somehow establish their own way of finding meaning, pleasure and relations, and the only way to do this is by embracing the impermanence of present modernity (Dudley 2004). However, as Bauman (1996) reminds us, each strategy that is adopted by an individual is not necessarily out of choice; some, if not all, become essential to the survival of the ‘true fiction’ of heterotopic social space. What this chapter focuses on, then, is the art of living as an urban explorer (‘the Boyz’ interpretation of what it means to be one), so it is here the central ‘performative’ and ‘craftmanship contributions’ of ‘the Boyz’ are explored (Blackshaw 2017: 155). With this in mind, the chapter provides an outline of four key life strategies,1 each functioning as an intensification of a particular feature of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space. Every one of the life strategies that has been identified is underpinned by a theoretical concept to further support and strengthen the arguments being formulated. In addition, to continue making use of the method of hermeneutic sociology, and to provide the reader with a continuing intimate feel for the heterotopia, it is important to note that each strategy is discussed in relation to a specific essential character. The only exception is the final section, and this is because the Fr3e Roamers had an important role to play in that part of the story.

1There almost certainly more than four life strategies, but due to limitations on space I have not been able to delve any more deeply.

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To provide a breakdown of its content, the chapter begins by drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of the schizophrenic . The discussion aims to reveal more about the penetrability and volatility of heterotopic social space by providing further insight into the multifaceted lives of ‘the Boyz’. I would argue that exploring the schizophrenic in the beginning sets the scene appositely, allowing other life strategies to materialise accordingly. Thereafter, the idea of the nostalgic is framed. This second section looks at nostalgia and seeks to investigate how and why ‘the Boyz’ stay together in spite of the individualising forces of the interregnum and the fact heterotopias inevitably change and evolve. Using Tony Blackshaw’s concept of the mundane and spectacular , this section attempts to understand what ‘the Boyz’ refer to as the ‘craic’. In many ways, the ‘craic’ is an imaginary antidote that opposes the changeability and fluidity of present modernity and, therefore, provides a temporary cure to the ever-growing sense of homesickness that seems to subsist in the twenty-first century. The third section draws on Jean-François Lyotard’s concept of the sublime to explore the idea that ‘the Boyz’ are parasitical beings. What this means is that ‘the Boyz’ often find themselves seeking situations that rouse the very extremes of pain and pleasure. The problem, however, as the reader will discover, is that it is difficult to do justice to something that defies description. The final section of the chapter addresses the idea that ‘the Boyz’ are controlled by synoptic forms of control. Using Thomas Mathiesen’s concept of the synopticon, I unpack how ‘the Boyz’ are part of a consumerist world that glorifies ‘celebrities’ and how they have discovered that they too can join the struggle to become ‘deviant’ celebrity figures as people consume their performativity as a source of entertainment. —

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Schizophrenia: A Polymorphic Life Strategy The Schizo Crisis It was almost midnight and we were sat in Mayhem’s SEAT Córdoba with the window wound down slightly. I was in the front passenger seat, and MKD and a lass called Deems were in the back. We were parked down a dimly lit street somewhere in Southend-on-Sea, directly in front of a rundown Victorian terraced house that had been converted into student ‘digs’. Outside the car I could hear fierce commotion. Mayhem and Forty-Seven had come to blows and a big argument was underway: Forty-Seven: Fuck off, dickhead. Mayhem: Fuck off? We were suppos’d to be stayin’ with yer. You said we cud kip in the fuckin’ loft, you fuckin’ idiot. You said there was space! Forty-Seven: Yer, well, I said two of yous cud stay, bud, not three. Mayhem: You said that’s where we were sleepin’, so we wudn’t be in the way. If you’d been arsed to clear the space it wudn’t fuckin’ matta. Where the fuck’s the others gonna kip? Forty-Seven: Not my problem, buddy. They’re not stayin’ ere though. Mayhem: Yer a fuckin’ wanker. Forty-Seven: Yer, well, you’ve changed. Sneakin’ into buildings, that’s what dickheads do, mate. [Tapping the side of his head and putting on a ‘mock-retarded’ voice]. You a fuckin’ retard or somethin’? I’ve neva liked ‘urban exploration’, it’s a waste of fucking time! Mayhem: [Laughs]. We’ve changed? Fuck you! Go look in a fuckin’ mirror, you stupid cunt. And, what do you mean you’ve neva liked urbex? You used to do it! What the fuck…? Forty-Seven: Yer, well, it’s fuckin’ stupid. I’ve neva liked yous anyway. [Rizla], what a wanker! Just fuck off. Other people live ‘ere too and they don’t want dickheads like you here. Mayhem: [Taken aback, a little lost for words]. This is you all over isn’t it, ditchin’ yer mates. You’ve always done shit like this with people who were suppos’d to be yer mates. Now it’s us is it? I’ve known you your whole life, almost. Look at you, [using a mocking tone] it’s all ‘hey, buddy, fucking, bud’ these days. Fuck off with yer new ‘buddies’ then! I’m fuckin’ done with yer, yer fuckin’ cunt.

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Half an hour later and the three of us had parked up over by Southend pier. The atmosphere was inauspicious and disheartening, but we decided we were going to try and ‘urbex’ the longest pier in the world. The plan was simple. The tide was out so we’d climb one of the supporting pillars, then we’d traverse the metal under-structure until we were far enough along to avoid being seen by the security guard. After that, we’d climb up over the railings to get onto the main platform of the pier. It was a simple plan, but it was also ambitious, and I had my doubts about Deems’ physical capability. She was keen, but she was no climber. Deems was a friend of Mayhem’s who he ‘didn’t want to fuck’. According to Mayhem, she was simply ‘a student, an underwear blogger and someone with an interest in urbexing, nothing else’. Unconvinced, myself and MKD had agreed to her coming along, but only because we both knew we’d be paying less petrol money. She seemed sound enough though, perhaps a bit talkative for MKD’s liking, but ‘alright’, and she was keen to get stuck in. Nevertheless, she was the main cause of the argument. Since the trip had been organised last minute, we’d not had time to announce that another person was coming, and Forty-Seven had been under the impression that only two of us would be dropping by. As it turned out, this wasn’t the case. By the time we reached the base of the pier I was beginning to doubt whether any of us would be capable of doing any urbex. Me and MKD had already sunk back a good few beers and Mayhem was well on his way to getting ‘baked’ since he’d been puffing away on a spliff for the past ten minutes. Mayhem didn’t seem to share my concerns, though, so he decided to go first. With his hands firmly grasping a rusted ledge, he managed to haul himself up one of the pillars. Water completely surrounded it, so he’d had to jump to reach it, but once he was safely across it didn’t take him long to climb further up onto the support beams. After that, he called down to us, as quietly as possible for fear of being heard by secca, warning us that the beams were very slippery. Taking that as a signal to go, MKD went next followed by Deems. As I waited for the others to reach the support beams above the pillars, I began to wonder for the first time whether what we were doing was actually urbex anymore. Perhaps it was the argument earlier that got me

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thinking, but I started to think about whether we were still the same WildBoyz as the ones who originally explored abandoned hospitals and decaying residential homes. Of course, there are many urban explorers who consider ‘live sites’ to be perfectly acceptable targets for exploration and that’s what we were doing, so I half justified that side of things. However, the other thing I wasn’t sure about was the increasing use of weed and alcohol on explores. In the early days we’d only ever consume things after an explore, but now it didn’t seem to matter. Perhaps this was a crucial turning point. I know the marijuana certainly caused conflict with MKD because he wasn’t keen on the idea of us carrying around illegal substances. I also knew that MKD was concerned about the increasing number of ‘fuckin’ randomers’ who were being invited along. He would often point this out to me and explain how he felt everything was changing, and not in a good way. Being the only one still on the ground led me to becoming lost in my own thoughts. In a way, I couldn’t help but think that Forty-Seven had been right, WildBoyz had changed. However, while I was in my own world, I failed to notice the slow movement of a torch beam sweeping its way across the pier’s scaffold. Fortunately, the others were quick to spot it, and everyone was efficient in scrambling back towards the first pillar they’d climbed. Much less concerned about the slipperiness this time, ‘the Boyz’ (and Deems) managed to get back in half the time it’d taken them to get up onto the support beams. Once they were all on the floor, we didn’t hang around to find out if secca was giving chase. Judging by their erratic torch movements, though, it appeared they’d already lost sight of us long before we ‘hit legs’ along the promenade. — Every single one of ‘the Boyz’ viewed Forty-Seven as a ‘dramatic bellend’. Therefore, it was perhaps no real surprise to them that he became the first ‘casualty’ of the group. Everything about Forty-Seven would scream theatricality, whether it came across in his overall demeanour, his animated character, or his intriguing polymorphic ability to be able to alter his appearance depending on the role he wanted to play. To

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this day he continues to flit between various performative identities, from being ‘Mussolini’ in the gym when he wants to appear indestructible as a bouncer on the doors of ‘rough-as-fuck’ nightclubs, to being a rugged, hairy ‘Wild Man’ when he goes back to being passionate about climbing and kayaking. For ‘the Boyz’, though, the only role they really cared about was him being one of original seven—part of the WildBoyz archetypus—especially since he had, at one time, relished the image. Playing the role of an urban explorer was something Forty-Seven was good at. He liked difficult entries and he was willing to face the consequences of his actions if any came his way—most of the time. For each explore he would dress up as an iconic urbexer, or how he imagined one should look, with dark hoodies, a bandana concealing the lower half of his face, a Canon 1100D in his bag, dusty trousers, and a headtorch strapped across his forehead. As Box often remarked, he would look ‘propa’ bad ass’. In our heads, Forty-Seven’s image summed up how an urban explorer should look. In fact, his image summed up what ‘the Boyz’ were all about. He revealed the seriousness of urbex and its subversive qualities, he exhibited the gear of a hardy photographer and demonstrated precisely what was needed to be able to pose like a great adventurer. Nonetheless, times have changed. After securing a place at university, Forty-Seven found he was able to move away from the North East and start a new chapter of his life. Away and fully emancipated from WildBoyz, he soon adopted a different sort of lifestyle as he joined new crowds that extended his choice of heterotopia. To many of ‘the Boyz’ he became ‘a bit of a fanny’, turning up his nose at certain items of clothing that were now apparently ‘too cheap and tacky’. Rather quickly, he began to look down on the likes of Mayhem, Rizla and MKD, both in terms of their dress sense and their escapades. In his new performative lifestyle, skinny jeans and flip flops were ‘happening’. Forty-Seven had transformed and now he was about dressing to impress a different kind of audience, an audience of ‘Quiffs’ as ‘the Boyz’ liked to call them (based on their pompadour Essex hairstyles), that would happily feast on avocado on toast and drink bottles of imported larger with sliced lime.

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Intoxicated by the enchantment of this new type of heterotopia, FortySeven was quick to completely distance himself from ‘the Boyz’, bidding them farewell with two fingers held aloft. In view of the discussion so far, what Forty-Seven appears to exhibit is a taste of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1983) idea of the schizophrenic. As they explain, the schizophrenic is nomadic being that lives life according to an intensive order. It is this life strategy that Forty-Seven seems to follow as he struggles to not only contend with life in the interregnum but also how to find adequate meaning. In other words, as the magic of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space steadily became more lifeless and unexciting for Forty-Seven, he decided it was time to move onto greener pastures. This is the polymorphic strategy of the ‘schizo’, he wanders deeper and deeper into ‘the realm of deterritorialization, reaching the furthest limits of the decomposition of the socius on the surface of his own body without organs’ (Deleuze and Guattari 1983: 35). Of course, everywhere he goes and in everything he does capitalism permeates the mind and behaviour of Forty-Seven, but what he demonstrates particularly well is the full potential of capitalism as he has become a corporeal multiplicity created by voluminous intersecting and contradicting desires (ibid.). Needless to say, some might argue that Forty-Seven is no more than a puppet of the ‘culture industry’, to borrow an expression coined by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, or a victim of commodity fetishism. As the two scholars have argued, culture no longer exists as a source of dreams, promises and hopes because it has been assimilated and consigned to capitalism and its market systems (Adorno and Horkheimer 1997). It was Adorno (1991) who explored passive consumption further by exploring the idea that being released of the burden of active decisionmaking makes it inevitable that people will engage in the repetitions and distractions that are part and parcel of a prescribed culture. However, although this appears to be a fatalistic outlook, Adorno (1991) does also make the point that prescribed culture is not always accepted so willingly because consumers can often find themselves creating forms of resistance. Although these acts never fully displace consumerism and commodification, they do help to bend and manipulate its influence in important ways. What this tells us, then, is that there might be no escaping the

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fact that the world is becoming ever more consumerist, but the many examples of the diversification and hybridisation of leisure should make us reconsider how passive and incapacitated consumers really are. To explain this point further, I will turn the reader’s attention to Samuel Beckett’s (2009 [1947]) novel, Molloy. In Beckett’s work, the leading protagonist, Molloy, faces a dilemma after having collected sixteen stones from a beach. To battle fierce hunger, Molloy wants to suck the stones, but he wants to ensure he sucks them all rather than a random selection. Sucking the stones randomly could result in him missing out on experiencing what they all feel and taste like. In effect, this is the same dilemma Forty-Seven faces. Of course, Forty-Seven has no interest in tasting physical pebbles, but because he has an overpowering desire to consume he is gripped by a constant urge to avoid a-lack-of . As we know, this is the interregnum’s doing and this is where Forty-Seven becomes a kind of desiring machine, which means he becomes constructive in the way he syphons pleasure (Deleuze and Guattari 1983). In other words, to avoid ever having to suppress desire the stones in Forty-Seven’s pockets are arranged in such a way that none is favoured nor used twice. Instead, Forty-Seven’s body is not unlike an unconscious factory that contains an assemblage of machines that cater to the production of original desires by utilising all of his dreams, his fantasies and his interpretations of desire (Deleuze and Guattari 1983). What this tells us, therefore, is that FortySeven is not a passive consumer because he exercises the life strategy of schizophrenia: Schizophrenia is like love: there is no specifically schizophrenic phenomenon or entity; schizophrenia is the universe of productive and reproductive desiring-machines, universal primary production as the essential reality of man and nature. (ibid.: 5)

As Deleuze and Guattari (1983) argue, capitalist flows and schizophrenic flows are not the same. Certainly, capitalism sets flows in motion, but what often happens is that they can coagulate into independently crafted forms of fantasy. In other words, present modernity produces the schizophrenic, just as it produces the cameras, clothing and equipment urban explorers use, but unlike each of these things the schizo is not

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saleable. As it was noted in Chapter 7, each one of ‘the Boyz’ may be part of the telecity, but they are able to deviate from the signs and images of capitalism, using them only as inspiration for their own fantasies, which places them at the ‘exterior limit of capitalism’ (ibid.: 246). In other words, by adopting the life strategy of the schizo ‘the Boyz’, and perhaps even the ‘Quiffs’ in their own eccentric and peculiar way, are not directly in the service of the order of capitalism. Nevertheless, even though it is possible to avoid living life as a passive consumer, as it has been argued elsewhere in this book, it should not be assumed that all forms of order and control can be manipulated, experimented with or pushed aside so easily. As Bauman (2000) points out, living and finding pleasure alone in a period of interregnum that is chaotic, unpredictable and ever-changing can be very difficult. Therefore, some kind of social order is required every time the schizo chooses to experiment, to provide those looked-for feelings of direction and stability, but of course social order cannot help but bring with it certain rules and conditions. This is where the heterotopia comes into play. Although heterotopias reinforce the idea that individuals cannot do without collectives, whether we are talking about WildBoyz, Fr3e Roamers or even the Quiffs, what they offer is the loosest and most temporary kind of collectives and so they might be described as being the perfect type of breeding ground for schizophrenics. However, as Deleuze and Guattari (1983) point out, in present modernity bodies are without organs and so identities tend to be built on unstable foundations. What this means is that the schizophrenic life strategy not only allows people to find desirable collectives, when necessary it also helps to ensure that rules and felicity conditions can be destabilised and transcended. Indeed, MKD demonstrated this well in Chapter 6. As Blackshaw (2010) reminds us, all ‘communities’ in the interregnum begin and end with individuals. What this means is that ‘the Boyz’ are still consumers first and foremost, but each of them is a reflexive agent. This reveals that Forty-Seven was correct in his suggestion that ‘the Boyz’ have changed because schizophrenics cannot help but change over time. The group will, therefore, naturally evolve and transform gradually, until the heterotopia has either fulfilled its purpose or

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changed completely. In other words, the stones have been tasted and it is time to move on. To draw on another good example of ‘the Boyz’ schizophrenic life strategy from the above episode, we might turn our attention to Mayhem lighting up a spliff before trying to climb up onto the pier. This was an instance where the use of drugs and alcohol were fast becoming a prominent characteristic of the group. When I say drugs, I am not talking about the ‘heavy stuff ’, to borrow Mayhem’s way of putting it, I mean only the use of cannabis for this was seen as being part of the ‘new cool’ among some of ‘the Boyz’. They claimed they were experimenting with life, and with how explores can be experienced differently. And so, as interest in drugs and alcohol became more of a staple part of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space it is arguable that its original form began to amalgamate with a hybrid form of the so-called ‘cannabis culture’ (Pedersen 2009). In the end, what they created was a new and ‘improved’ version of their heterotopia. To sum up the key points of this discussion about the schizophrenic life strategy, then, it is important to lay emphasis on the point that you cannot be a ‘Quiff ’ and an urban explorer, unless they somehow join together to form a new imaginary whole (a new heterotopia). It must be one or the other, or the creation of a new heterotopic social space and the identity that comes with it. Second, you cannot be a WildBoy and not expect things to change over time—the ‘ideal’ performative existence cannot help but evolve and change. As it was argued in Chapter 4, everything in the interregnum is destined to decay and crumble. However, where there is rubble usually there are seeds for something new to surface and grow. What this means is that ‘the Boyz’ are not too concerned if their heterotopic social space and interconnected identities begin to expire because as far as being a schizophrenic goes, which is a life strategy defined first and foremost on the principle of freedom, there are no concrete ties supporting them, and none that will compel them to stay together always and forever. A good example that emphasises the two key points I have highlighted lies with Deems. No longer attached to, or limited by her past, Deems became a WildBoy (therefore transforming the collective from how it was previously understood by ‘the Boyz’). Seemingly unconcerned about the

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name, since it is purely a reality rather than a gender designation (Butler 1990), Deems was suddenly living the urbexer lifestyle of ‘the Boyz’ as she had gained full access to their heterotopic social space. Once she was there, nothing else seemed to matter. In this reality she was no longer a student or an underwear blogger, she was—like a true schizophrenic— one of ‘the Boyz’ in every way, living the real fantasy with the group. As Mayhem suggested when I queried whether a female could be one of ‘the Boyz’: ‘it doesn’t matter, man. WildBoyz is about the urbex and makin’ the experience class, fuck all else. If she gave two fucks about the name, she’d go join some feminist cunts or sumthin. We could be the WildCuntz for all she’s arsed, she’d still want to be part of it, you know, to experience the real shit’. There seems to be much truth in Mayhem’s words. However, four days later and the heterotopia had run its course for Deems, until the next time. Almost as quickly as she had arrived, she had polymorphed. Thus, heterotopic social space is in every way a perfect site for schizophrenics. The life strategy requires space that is ephemeral, and because heterotopia provides this khôrasters find themselves able to express their individuality and experiment with new performative identities. In other words, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space becomes a site for polymorphing schizophrenics because of ‘its own detached existence’ (Blackshaw 2017: 142). Furthermore, as it was argued in Chapter 7, aesthetic space is what ‘the Boyz’ seek, so they can live solipsistic lives where they do not have to identify with anything or anyone for too long. The problem, though, is that aesthetic space is hard to find alone. Yet, by becoming schizophrenics ‘the Boyz’ find a way of carefully aligning desire (which is always an individual trait) with production (where other likeminded people come in handy) and this enables them to create something that can not only be consumed, but something that completely consumes them for a short period of time.

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Seeking the Craic: A Nostalgic Life Strategy Notwithstanding the benefits of being a schizophrenic, there are evident downsides to following this life strategy. One of the inevitable consequences of having erratic and insecure commitment to one another is that ‘the Boyz’ cannot help but be tormented by contingency, anxiety and feelings of homesickness. In other words, because individuals feel as though they never fully belong to a community in the interregnum they become increasingly concerned about loneliness (Bauman 2001). However, to combat such fears ‘the Boyz’ adopt another life strategy— that of being a nostalgic —and this involves turning to the past to re-imagine times that felt good and homely. By doing this ‘the Boyz’ effectively construct their own history and this provides them with a temporary sense of sanctuary (Blackshaw 2013). It is of course important to reiterate that ‘the Boyz’ do not seek permanence all the time. In point of fact, they only ever seek small doses of the elixir because living permanently in the past is not only impracticable it would also conflict with those other life strategies that are driven purely by desire for pleasure. With these ideas in mind then, what follows is a discussion and a new narrative that focuses on MKD and his deep-seated longing for the past. Although it might sound paradoxical, especially in light of his perfidious escapades with the Fr3e Roamers, it is MKD who demonstrates the greatest sense of loyalty to the WildBoyz. Unlike the rest of ‘the Boyz’ whose commitment to the heterotopia is more intermittent because of the nature of their jobs and the fact they have developed new interests over time, MKD’s life has more or less remained static. Having had the same leisure interests and job almost his entire life, MKD’s identity has for the most part remained unchanged. In view of this, MKD not only dedicates more time to the heterotopia, he also has stronger nostalgic ties to it than the others. This is not to suggest that the rest of ‘the Boyz’ are not nostalgic, it is simply to point out that MKD is the best character to draw on to unpack this section of the chapter. In other words, of all ‘the Boyz’ it is MKD who often seems the most affected by homesickness and nostalgia.

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Taking into consideration the last observation, it is important to note that MKD is not unaware that the world around him has changed while he has not. In fact, this goes some way towards explaining why he started exploring with the Fr3e Roamers, and why he continues to do so whenever ‘the Boyz’ are not around. In many ways, the Fr3e Roamers are like ‘the Boyz’. They enjoy urban exploration and since they are all from the North East they provide MKD with a similar feeling of solidarity. In reality, though, they are never quite the real thing and MKD is aware of this, but they do provide the next best solution to the problem of ‘community’ in the interregnum. This is something he pointed out as ‘the Boyz’ were making their way to a section of The Maginot Line known as Ouvrage Latiremont, after they questioned why he was ‘still fannying on with the Roamer cunts’: Ther alreet craic on an’ that. Like, when yous fuck off n’ I’m left on me fuckin’ bill as usual. Knockin’ about with em is just a way of still urbexin’. Like, it’s not as good with em n’ that. You guys are mint, n’ I don’t av stories with them like I do with yous, but it means I’m not on me own like a fuckin’ fanny when yous aren’t about. I don’t wanna be by meself fer the rest of me life, do I.

Although he would prefer to ignore it, MKD realises things have changed and that they will continue to change. However, when ‘the Boyz’ get together for another adventure their reunion brings with it the promise of renewed freedom, familiarity and a feeling of homeliness. This is why MKD is always the first to sign up for a new trip or explore, to book time of work if necessary, or to volunteer to drive ‘the Boyz’ wherever they want to be. When the WildBoyz are back, MKD feels the full intensity and power of heterotopia, and this is made all the more powerful because he adopts the life strategy of being a nostalgic. —

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Finding the Craic in France Following a week-long urbex tour of Belgium, we found ourselves parked up down a narrow dirt track somewhere in Baslieux, France. Trying to anticipate what we would need for the next explore, both cars were unpacked completely and so gear was scattered everywhere. While MKD, Rizla, Rags and myself busied ourselves trying to find things, Mayhem and Husky were sat in the front seats of Mayhem’s dirty Córdoba rolling a couple of spliffs out of a block of hashish they’d picked up in Brussels. Although Rags had asked them to save it until after the explore, they decided to ignore him. No one ‘kicked off ’ about it though, instead the rest of us chose to overlook what was going on. All of us pretended it was business as usual. Husky was the latest addition to the group. While we’d all known him since our schooldays, and he ‘couch surfed’ at Box’s house most nights, he was a new recruit to the group. We’d been desperate to fill the discernible gap that’d been created since Forty-Seven’s departure, so we’d drafted Husky in to replace him. He fit the criteria almost perfectly, so just like that he became a WildBoy. Once we’d sorted out the gear, we had to walk for twenty minutes or so to reach the entrance of a gros ouvrage named Latiremont. In that time everyone was able to reminisce about our past together. Neither the heavy summer heat, nor the fact we were uncertain whether we’d actually be able to access this section of The Maginot Line despite having driven miles to reach the fortification complex, hampered our high spirits. The ‘craic’, as ‘the Boyz’ refer to it, was in full swing. Husky was the only one who seemed as though he wasn’t enjoying himself, but that was probably because he’d been named the new ‘equipment manager’ of the group and this role involves carrying heavy objects. For the rest of us, though, nothing could upset the banter and storytelling. Each of us spoke fervently and enthusiastically, reminding one another of the time we abseiled down a lift shaft of an abandoned hotel, and the time we crossed the Firth of Forth estuary to reach the island of Inchkeith in the middle of a storm. Husky hadn’t been there for any of these adventures, but he quickly became captivated by the tales. After a short while, it was obvious he wanted in on the craic as well.

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Aside from the fact that Mayhem and Husky were getting ‘moderately baked’, each taking tokes on a spliff they were sharing, the heterotopia was back in full swing. Mixed feelings of excitement and anticipation flooded our imaginations. We knew what was going to happen, and we didn’t at the same time. Despite the uncertainty of having brought Husky along, what access to the fortress would be like, and what we could happen inside (that is getting lost inside the underground labyrinth without a map), there was something familiar and homely about everything that was happening. There were smiles all around as MKD shouted for someone to ‘get the fuckin’ tuneage sorted’. It didn’t take long to seek out an entrance to Ouvrage Latiremont; one of the metal panels covering a turret block had been partially removed and behind it there was a space big enough for us all to squeeze through. Once inside, the heterotopia continued to play out in the usual sort of way. Stood inside a large concrete gallery that once housed casematemounted 75 mm guns, Rizla and Rags set about covering their faces with their buffs. Mayhem began setting up his portable sound system, and myself and Rizla assembled tripods and unpacked the camera gear. It was only Husky who seemed unsure what to do, so he stood around looking awkward for a moment as he waited to see how things would pan out. He didn’t have to wait long though, for a minute later music started to fill the echoey chambers and tunnels. Visibly excited, MKD pumped his fist and yelled: ‘Yer man, this is the fuckin’ craic, like. There’s no betta craic than this’. Bobbing his head to the rapid beat of the music, he continued: ‘It sorta gives yer life meanin’ doesn’t it, doin’ this sort of shit togeta all the time. Like, propa meanin’ though. Life’s pretty shit otherwise, isn’t it?’ Five minutes after entering the fortress and we were all ready to start wandering. As none of us had explored the structure before and didn’t know what to expect or how large it would be, we stuck together. The next room we entered was damp, but our torches illuminated the grey concrete walls well and we were able to avoid the flooded areas. Our camera lenses reacted badly to the change in temperature. Outside it had been a hot summer’s day, but inside Latiremont the air was chilly. Shining his torch around the room to illuminate the old metal railings set in the floor that would have moved guns and ammunition, MKD sucked in a

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deep noisy breath through his nostrils. As he did, he growled: ‘Mmm, yer man. That’s a good fuckin’ smell. It’s always the same, I love that urbex smell’. The scent of dampness teased us, willing us on to wander further into the depths of the underground fortress. Thinking Latiremont was ‘a one level jobbie’, we continued down a narrow tunnel towards a metal cage. Rizla was convinced this is where the fortress would end because we’d already explored several different rooms, but we were wrong. As we reached the rusted cage it quickly became obvious that it was an old lift shaft, and to the right of it there was a concrete staircase descending downwards. The level of excitement of the group began to intensify. The metal cage creaked and groaned as MKD opened it to get a better look at what lay below. As he leaned over the edge, he shouted: ‘What the fuck, boys, this thing goes all the way to fuckin’ Australia! This place is fuckin’ huge!’ Before any of us could take a peek ourselves, MKD headed for the staircase. Captivated by his exhilaration, everyone decided to follow him. The chill of the air struck our skin as we descended deeper and deeper into the fortress. Every fifty or sixty steps we seemed to reach another level, each with plenty more rooms to explore. We continued to descend, passing floor after floor. Our minds were racing with even greater excitement. After descending what felt like a thousand stairs and several floors, we finally reached the bottom level. We emerged inside a tunnel that forked off in two directions to our right. A railway line was built into the floor and what looked like a very small engine was parked down to the tunnel to our left. The mood among ‘the Boyz’ was ecstatic. This amounted to the beginning of a quintessential moment that could only be felt among ‘the Boyz’. It was one of those paradisiac times; one of the times we’d returned, absolutely and completely, to the home we know as WildBoyz. This is as close as we all felt we were ever going to get to finding utopia in a world where utopia doesn’t exist. What we were experiencing was the full force of heterotopia. We had drifted deep into that magical realm of khôra. Down here, in the base of the fortress, the tunnels and rooms were filled with interesting objects and old rusting pieces of equipment. Suddenly unconcerned about getting lost or separated from one another, ‘the Boyz’ splintered off in different directions.

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Having wandered a hundred metres or so down the right-hand fork of the tunnel that had initially been to our right, myself and MKD found ourselves inside what looked a little bit like an old decaying workshop. A variety of wooden shelves and metal cabinets lined the walls of the room and there was a lathe positioned in the far left-hand corner. Some of the cabinets had been ransacked and their contents was scattered chaotically across the damp floor. A large workbench at the far end of the room immediately caught MKD’s attention so he wandered over to it. As he did, he seemed oblivious to the various metal boxes, mess canteens and other interesting things that were strewn everywhere because he decided to stomp across it all. His attention was completely set on whatever had caught his eye. Shuffling through a random assortment of tools and canisters, MKD excitedly plucked out a rusty boxed that was marked with a faded cross symbol. In his eagerness to open it he tugged a little too hard and some of the contents spilled across the workbench. A selection of brown bandages, sulfadiazine powder and what looked like a tourniquet fell out. Surprised there had been anything in the tin at all, MKD let out a ‘wooaahh’ sound. Looking completely and utterly animated, he turned to me and said: ‘Shit man, d’yer think ther’s any of that morphine shit in ere?’ Much to my dismay, he tore the box apart as he dug around for any sign there was a morphine tartrate tube lying inside. He was still halfway through searching for morphine when something else caught his attention. He shouted over to me to grab my attention: Holy shit, Kev, there’s a fuckin’ gas mask ere!’ Dropping the medical supplies, he raced over to touch the old M2 rubber mask that had been placed on a nearby shelf. —

‘Good Craic’: The Art of Reliving the Mundane and the Spectacular The term nostalgia which combines two pseudo-Greek words—nostos (to return to a native home) and algos (grief, pain and suffering)—was originally thought to be a form of sickness that affected mercenaries (Austin

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2007). In the twenty-first century, though, the meaning of the word has changed and it can be applied to much wider contexts. For example, within this book the term can be linked to wistful longing or sentimental affection for the loss of a whole socio-historical milieu and the things that are part of it, rather than the loss of a single person or a place of habitation (Fritzsche 2002). In other words, what I have observed is that what ‘the Boyz’ are nostalgic for, above all other things while they are together, is their collective social past. For instance, if we think back to Forty-Seven, I would argue that ‘the Boyz’ are less concerned about his departure than they are about the survivability of their heterotopia. However, as Blackshaw (2010) points out, it is important to make it clear that ‘the Boyz’ never seek to resurrect the past; they understand this would be an impossible task. Regardless of how much people yearn for what has been lost, it can never be restored in the same way ever again (Fritzsche 2002). What they do recognise, though, is that it is this impossibility that makes nostalgia nostalgia. This is the true source of its power. What this means is that ‘the Boyz’ do not look to relive specific explores. The way the nostalgic life strategy works is that a similar experience is desired, but it must also be different in some way. What this tells us is that the only way all ‘the Boyz’ former experiences are useful is in the way their memories are able to be transformed into a ‘collective task of interpretation which is… ineradicably yoked by a romantic sensibility that evokes feelings of nostalgia’ (Blackshaw 2013: 75). Of course, there is more to it than simply banding together to reproduce a collective task of interpretation. As Nora (1989) reminds us, there are two crucial factors involved. First, there should be ‘a will to remember’ (ibid.: 19), such as when MKD made his comment in the above episode about the group being one of the most meaningful parts of his life. As the reader observed, in his mind there is no better craic. The absence of a will to remember would in all likelihood result in ‘the Boyz’ assuming everything, or indeed absolutely nothing, located in their past is worthy of being remembered. Secondly, as Nora (1989) argues, although memories must be powerful enough to stop time and ‘establish a state of things’, they must also be transient for they need to remain transformative, recyclable and random. If memories lack ephemerality,

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they run the risk of becoming familiar and therefore insipid and characterless. In many ways, MKD’s day-to-day life reflects this idea of diminishing magic. As he repeats the same tasks and activities day in day out, few of his everyday memories ever seem exceptional enough to make him nostalgic for their regeneration. What these observations attest, particularly when we think about them in relation to heterotopia, is that history which is drawn together using memory is less about living life as an individual and more about how people become part of a shared space that is more significant (Blackshaw 2013). In other words, following a nostalgic life strategy which is imbued with reassuring and supportive semblances is all about creating a self-establishing performance that must be continually resurrected and reproduced in partnership with other people (Butler 1990). However, as Broome reminds us, nostalgia only ever has ‘an imagined referent; the lack of historical referent is concealed by the repetition of a performance in and by nostalgic cultural products’ (2007: 17). What this means, as MKD demonstrates above, is that being a nostalgic is all about the stories (what can be referred to as ‘good craic’) ‘the Boyz’ have created in their minds. Furthermore, it is all about building on those stories so that their ongoing production feels inexhaustible. As regards the explore in Ouvrage Latiremont, it did not matter that Box and Forty-Seven were absent, or that Husky and his drugs were present. For MKD, as with the rest of us, it was memory, collective history and some imagination that ensured WildBoyz were back. This is the nature of heterotopia, it comprises both the real and the imaginary. As Blackshaw (2017) argues, they are one and the same because there is no incontestable solid foundation of truth on which memories lie. The real beauty and appeal of the nostalgic life strategy, however, is not just what is described above, it is not just that it provides ‘the Boyz’ with a sense of passion, pleasure and purpose. The beauty of it also lies in the fact that ‘the Boyz’ are in control of how long their heterotopia lasts because they are able to leave whenever they desire (Blackshaw 2017). To put it another way, this way of living as a skhol¯er allows each of ‘the Boyz’ to believe sincerely that their devotion to one another is a death do us part affair, but it also comes with the freedom of being able to live together until further notice. This is the primordial attraction of

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adopting nostalgia as a life strategy. What the foregoing discussion tells us then is that there is something important about being able to drift between short-lived nostalgic worlds. However, and notwithstanding this last point, what has not been discussed explicitly so far is why ‘the Boyz’ become nostalgic for heterotopic social space and why they would choose to return to their particular version of it knowing it will always be different in some way, shape or form. Above it is indicated that the craic and its homeliness is what brings ‘the Boyz’ back together, but to substantiate this claim it is important that the reader learns specifically what it is about the ‘the Boyz’ craic that keeps their interest in the heterotopia alive. With this in mind, it is useful to turn our attention to Blackshaw’s (2003) concept of the mundane and the spectacular because it can be used to unpack the true magic of the craic. As Blackshaw (2003) argues, being nostalgic is all about being able to relive the mundane quotidian aspects of performativity which comprise a special kind of mundanity. As I noted above, ‘the Boyz’ are fully aware that it is impossible to travel back in time and relive the past in exactly the same manner, but what they can do is produce a simulacrum of those moments. By doing this ‘the Boyz’ are able to create a space that is familiar and has a warm homely feel over and over again (Blackshaw 2013). The mundane, therefore, is centred around what ‘the Boyz’ feel is commonsensical and normal when they are together, and what we might call their ‘great truths’, which, in actual fact, are not always truths at all. To provide an example, we can think about the way the Ouvrage Latiremont explore began. As the heterotopia always starts out, ‘the Boyz’ set off late. After a night of heavy drinking (which is an integral part of most of ‘the Boyz’ trips when they are away for more than a day), it took them quite some time to wake up. Of course, it is never their intention to be late, it just happens. More often than not, ‘the Boyz’ put their lateness down to the ‘fucking around’ that always seems occur whenever they are due to be somewhere. For instance, if they are not recovering from hangovers someone will have finished work late, or they will have decided to pursue an inconsequential task beforehand, and this will cause a delay. Sometimes, someone will forget something important and this will result in the whole group turning back around to

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fetch the item. Once ‘the Boyz’ do finally set off, they will usually get lost. This happened several times on the way to Ouvrage Latiremont. What is more, sooner or later ‘the Boyz’ will complain about the lack of space in whatever car they are using, and how it ‘always fucking stinks’. Heading to Ouvrage Latiremont was no different, especially when the post-drinking farts began. However, the mundanity of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia is not all as bad as it seems. In fact, ‘the Boyz’ usually reflect on the bad parts fondly because they find good humour in them. There are many enjoyable elements to the mundane side of their heterotopia as well. For most of their journey in the car together they will listen to their favourite ‘tuneage’. They will play games they have invented and take pleasure in the ‘good craic’ that goes on. For example, on their way to Ouvrage Latiremont ‘the Boyz’ played a game of ‘cabbage patch’ which involves stopping the car and being the first to bring back a vegetable from a field. Once they arrive at their chosen explore, the typically mundane situation continues further. Together, they will often ‘scout out’ the location and share ideas and thoughts on how they might gain access to the site. In this time, especially if they have not already done so in the car, ‘the Boyz’ will also often reminisce about other explores they have done together. As we approached Ouvrage Latiremont ‘the Boyz’ talked about the time they abseiled down a lift shaft of a hotel, and the time they crossed the Firth of Forth estuary in a dinghy. Although each explore is different, what they mull over are the familiar features of past explores. By drawing out similarities and comparing them to what is happening in the present, ‘the Boyz’ find they can reinforce what it is about ‘good craic’ that makes it feel so warm and homely. Another important reason why the mundane part of the craic is so important lies with the fact that when it is relived it encourages ‘the Boyz’ to follow a certain kind of ‘logic’ (Blackshaw 2003). This shared logic helps ensure that individual characteristics and idiosyncratic differences can be expressed, and that they are acknowledged and accepted while in one another’s company. By exaggerating a chosen sense of character in the company of ‘the Boyz’, each individual adds something to the collective and in turn this serves to provide everyone with a shared sense of belonging that is both unique and familiar (Blackshaw 2003).

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In other words, it might be argued that each of ‘the Boyz’ personalities are insignificant when thought about individually, but when they are brought together they strengthen the magic of the heterotopic social space. Thus, as the mundane craic is revived ‘the Boyz’ transform into their WildBoyz selves. It normally begins with Mayhem’s eccentricity and clumsiness and this serves to entertain the others. However, as a leader figure he also has a ‘no bullshit’ attitude to things and this helps motivate the others, often spurring them into action. Rags and Rizla are both twins and quasi antagonists, so when they are brought together in the same heterotopia they bicker and fight, and this is usually seen as a good form of entertainment for the rest of ‘the Boyz’. As for MKD, he is known as the ‘hard bastard’ and he likes everyone to know it. However, he is also the ‘go-along-with-the-crowd’ type of person, the conformist of the group and for an easy life will follow the majority in whatever they are doing. Box always becomes the ‘mental cunt’ because he is willing to do dangerous things. Nothing stops Box from living, except his regular bouts of ‘CBAness’ (‘cannot be arsed-ness’). Originally, Forty-Seven was the person who would be coerced into carrying things and this role came with the ‘Equipment Manager’ title, but this was never his core identity. Dramatic and theatrical sums him up succinctly. As his replacement, Husky often tries to replicate Forty-Seven’s dynamism and energy, when he is not imitating Box’s lackadaisical traits. He never quite manages to succeed with either performance, but he is known as the imitator of the group because he blends other people’s identities into something that is his own. It is perhaps more difficult to see as an outsider, but as insiders ‘the Boyz’ know it takes all of these combined traits for the WildBoyz quotidian to be brought back to life. In addition to identity, other things feed ‘the Boyz’ nostalgia for the mundane craic. As I have argued elsewhere, in a paper that unpacks the olfactory system of leisure, poignant smells often act like powerful cataracts and help to stimulate former memories (Bingham 2020). In other words, as MKD demonstrated as we entered the old underground fortress in the episode above, the stench of mustiness and mould has the power to bring ‘the Boyz’ back to ‘the good old days’. Indeed, all ‘the Boyz’ could feel it as we began wandering through the damp

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concrete chambers and tunnels of Ouvrage Latiremont. As Morris (1984) argues, this is the beauty of odours, they can stimulate imaginations and intensify the sense of unity that exists between people. From a Husserlian perspective, it might be suggested that what ‘the Boyz’ effectively perform, pre-reflectively, is what is known as an ‘exclusive disjunction’ (Husserl 1973: 57), which means they do not notice fetidity or stagnation, only that there is a smell of something familiar in the air. This, or so we might argue, is the smell that indicates ‘the Boyz’ are back together. According to Husserlian doctrine, only one or the other can be perceived, never both together. Therefore, following Husserl’s treatment of reason, it could be argued that a bad smell is not necessarily bad de facto in the interregnum. Rather, in line with the idea of ‘transcendental subjectivity’ it can be argued that ‘the Boyz’ assign some smells determinate attributes which, temporarily at least, cancel out all others (Merleau-Ponty 1989). To recap, what is being framed here is what tends to happen whenever ‘the Boyz’ enter the first phase of their heterotopic social space. By adopting a nostalgic life strategy, ‘the Boyz’ find themselves able to leave the everyday world behind as they shapeshift into identities that have no place anywhere else. Since outsiders are denied access—because they do not have the relevant and necessary credentials to join in—the heterotopia is opened up only to ‘the Boyz’ and this works well to isolate them from everything else (Foucault 1984). Pursuing their appetites for freedom and escape, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia always begins with the formation of mundane space and this provides them with a setting where they can combine make-believe with something real to achieve a special sense of freedom. In turn, the freedom found supplies ‘the Boyz’ with the temporary feeling of something that seems just as warm and comfortable as a home. Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the significance of the mundane side of nostalgia, there is also what Blackshaw (2003) refers to as the spectacular . However, the spectacular is not something that is always guaranteed to occur and sometimes ‘the Boyz’ are forced to ‘make do’ with the mundane—when they fail to gain entry to an explore for instance. Furthermore, while it is always connected with ‘the Boyz’ urbex activities, each time the spectacular happens there is something unique

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about it, and it is always exciting and extraordinary. With this in mind, the spectacular is what creates an intensity and sense of belonging that is superior to anything the mundane can produce (ibid.). As the reader observed above, suddenly the urbex experience became more powerful and penetrating in terms of the sensations everyone was feeling as ‘the Boyz’ entered the deepest level of the underground fortress. It was here they discovered a veritable time capsule filled with decaying remnants of the past. As ‘the Boyz’ touched objects around them, old tools, gas masks and medical kits, the carnivalesque began. Unlike the galleries at the beginning of the explore, at the very base of the fortress equipment still worked in part and most of the rooms had things in them waiting to be discovered. Much to everyone’s surprise, even the old trolley and rail system worked. This was craic like no other; it was the beginning of a sublime moment (more on this point will be discussed in the next section of this chapter). Upon rediscovering the spectacular side of heterotopia, ‘the Boyz’ find even greater reason to undermine and break normal social rules and etiquette. As MKD demonstrated when he started to unpack the old medical kit, and later when he climbed into a large piece of rusting ordinance and started pulling levers and turning mechanisms, universal moral principles can be pushed aside in favour of celebrating promiscuity and intoxicating feelings of pleasure. MKD did not know what any of the instruments might do, or what damage he might be causing to relics of a bygone era, but he did not care. Instead, as Blackshaw and Crabbe (2004) point out, for people in MKD’s situation it is the obvious absurdity and excitement of the spectacular that makes the heterotopia seem all the more worthwhile and warrant being pursued again and again. As hinted above, what happens is analogous to Bakhtin’s (1984) notion of the carnival. This is the epitome of heterotopia, where performativity reaches the point of being at its most powerful and compelling. With this in mind, an important observation transpires and this is that the spectacular side of the nostalgic life strategy appears to encourage people to engage in acts that are immoral or unethical, especially when urban exploration is part of that nostalgia. As the reader has seen, whether they have decided to trespass or send someone down a ski slope on a sledge, ‘the Boyz’ will do all sorts of questionable things to recreate

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their homely and exciting past and they seem to have very little regard for principles of right and wrong or safety. However, I want to echo the key point made in the previous chapter and this is that ‘the Boyz’ do not think of themselves as being immoral or unethical, especially when chasing the spectacular. In a consumerist world that often seems unfair and oppressive, what ‘the Boyz’ feel is that they are simply showing a willingness to ‘reject the authority of former modes of existence’ by testing new ontological modes of being (Blackshaw 2013: 175). The spectacular, therefore, is one of the ways ‘the Boyz’ exercise their interpretation of true moral awareness and responsibility. It is their way of finding autonomy under the hegemonic conditions of the market-mediated mode of life they must embrace on a daily basis (Bauman 2000). Instead of iniquity, then, what is being described is the increased magnetism of the nostalgic life strategy as ‘the Boyz’ shared sense of craic is revived. Although the mundane is powerful enough to produce satisfiable cravings, the spectacular is much more than a craving. Once tasted, the spectacular becomes highly addictive. However, as Jameson (2005) reminds us, while the spectacular component of nostalgia fulfils the ‘utopian’ dream temporarily (almost), it is always a dream that is placed under immense strain. Not only is the spectacular more unpredictable, destructive and potentially hazardous, it is experienced at a swifter pace and so will disappear almost as quickly as it arrived. As Lyotard (1994) argues, things that have an extreme level of intensity cannot support themselves for long periods of time because they are at the very limit of reason and representation. Although being in the spectacular moment is a reflexive way of thinking, it does not take long for incompatibilities and conflicts between intellectual and affective faculties to arise (ibid.). Yet, it is this fleetingness that makes obsession for this side of the nostalgic life strategy all the more compelling. The spectacular allows an individual to indulge, but since it is never quite enough for desire to be completely satisfied the urge to want more ensures it will be sought again. And so, in the end, it did not take long for the spectacular to fade away. Together, ‘the Boyz’ had succeeded in infiltrating the deepest levels of Ouvrage Latiremont, but they soon grew tired of the magic they had first felt. After exploring miles of tunnels and countless rooms all

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containing interesting bits and pieces, ‘the Boyz’ started to notice how cold and hungry they were. Almost as quickly as it had began, the magnificent sense of enthusiasm that had existed moments earlier seemed to evaporate. Spirits were still high, and the craic remained good and joyous, but the circumstances were no longer spectacular. Noticing the change in mood and the fact MKD, Rizla and Rags were now shivering and concerned about getting lost, Mayhem decided it was time to head back to the surface to get ‘smashed’ on our remaining bottles of strong Belgian larger. The heterotopia was far from over, but it was time to return to the familiarity of the mundane craic. To provide an intervening summary, what is being proposed is that when they are together in their heterotopic social space ‘the Boyz’ manage to fulfil their longing for both sanctuary and wanting to experience intense performativity by exploiting the nostalgic life strategy. What ‘the Boyz’ have realised is that being nostalgic and imaginative is a useful way of living because it can lead to the creation of the craic. The craic is what ‘the Boyz’ call it and they would tell you it involves calling upon memories, but what they are less likely to explain is that there are two levels to consider. Re-imagining and reliving the mundane is how their heterotopia always begins and, if they are lucky, they will rediscover the spectacular side of the craic. Of course, it is not always guaranteed that the full extent of the craic will be experienced, but when it is ‘the Boyz’ know they have reached WildBoyz ad perfectum. As far as ‘the Boyz’ are concerned this is what offers the best temporary shelter against the uncertainty of the interregnum and as far as they are concerned it is the best cure for tackling the recurring problem of homesickness. As Blackshaw would put it, the craic represents a point ‘in that shadowy realm called khôra’ where limits are completely dissolved, extremes are felt at their most intense and the experience of intimacy and closeness is at its strongest (2017: 146).

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The Differend and the Sublime: A Parasitical Life Strategy In addition to the life strategies that have already been mentioned, there is another that has been subtly lurking within this book. Like the others it is an intertwining and interpenetrating strategy and it has been adopted by ‘the Boyz’ because it can help them establish a shared sense of identity and belonging in their heterotopic social space. What I have in mind here is the lengths ‘the Boyz’ go to, and the subsequent effort they put in, to locate the differend . As ‘the Boyz’ have discovered, once they detect the differend they are able to bear witness to the extraordinary feelings of the sublime. In short, this third life strategy is all about ‘the Boyz’ becoming parasitical and, as the reader will see, there is a considerable degree of overlap between it and the nostalgic life strategy mentioned previously, especially when we think about the idea of the spectacular. However, there are many crucial differences that must be taken into account and these differences are what set the two strategies apart. To begin unpacking what it means to be parasitical , it is useful to reflect on how the term originated and what it denotes. Thus, as Cresswell (2002) suggests, it is thought the term has Greek origins because by the eighteenth century the Greek words para (alongside) and sitos (food) came to signify something that routinely feeds on something else. It is with this in mind that I take the term to refer to certain situations where the feeling of the sublime is sought in a leechlike manner. To understand what it is about the sublime that appeals to people, it is important to draw attention to the point that it is something that is yearned for because it provides a feeling like no other. As Edmund Burke (2008 [1729]) suggests, the sublime is a feeling that emerges only when the very extremes of pain and pleasure are experienced. What this indicates, then, is that nostalgia is less of a concern when the parasitical life strategy is being followed. Although ‘the Boyz’ do find themselves yearning for sublime moments, in truth it is the sheer extremity and variability of them that causes cravings rather than a sense of warm homeliness or familiarity (Burke 2008 [1829]). As Robinson (2003) argues, the sublime is allied with the prospect of being able to invent new possibilities, and with being able to understand how the body can be used as a source of

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creative pleasure as it reacts with the environment in a multiplicity of different ways. To move forward with these ideas, I attempt to unpack their significance vis-à-vis ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space, and so what follows is a scrupulous consideration of the sublime that reflects on ‘the Boyz’ close relationship with it. Nonetheless, before I do continue it should be noted that although the sublime is something that has been explored by many ancient, modern and contemporary philosophers, it is JeanFrançois Lyotard’s (1994) interpretation I draw on because his version of the concept builds on the very essential earlier work of Immanuel Kant. Lyotard’s well thought out and carefully marshalled critique allows him to emphasise the point that the sublime is an aesthetic experience isolated from practical feelings of danger. Furthermore, Lyotard’s (1988) work is important because it goes on to develop not only what happens in the sublime moment but also how it is found by arguing that it is actually the differend—the literal straining of the mind to the point that it reaches the limits of conceptuality—that is key to finding it. As I will reveal, it is these ideas that are key to understanding ‘the Boyz’ parasitical life strategy in greater depth, and also their proclivity for wanting to be khôrasters. —

A Twenty-First-Century Lesson in Sublimation It was just after ten on a blustery November evening when two cars pulled into a car park owned by Middlesbrough College. Other than a single car parked up next to the institution’s main building, the entire site seemed deserted. Beneath the powerful lights that cast an intense white light across the tarmac, the only detectible movement came from crisp packets and Subway wrappers. Knowing how cold it was outside, we sat for a while in complete silence. We could easily have sat there all night as well, just watching the litter dance in the wind, if Mayhem hadn’t cracked open a door and let the howling wind steal away the

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warmth from the car. It was only at this point, when we no longer felt comfortable and content, that we were spurred on to ‘get cracking’. After grabbing all the gear we thought we would need, we began chatting to one another as we made our way towards a semi-active port that’s occasionally used for marine decommissioning. As many conversations begin in the UK, we started off talking about the weather, but we soon found ourselves reminiscing about MKD’s ‘great escape’ on an explore we’d tried in Birmingham a few weeks earlier. While wandering around an abandoned machine tool factory, security had spotted us and as we fled the scene they’d tried to guard all the exits to prevent us from escaping. Determined not to get caught, though, we evaded them by fleeing through a bramble bush and by climbing a barbed wire fence. It was during this getaway MKD managed to tear all the ligaments in his left ankle. However, he still managed to escape and drive us away from the site ‘like a propa fuckin’ boss’. It wasn’t too long before the gigantic silhouette of a ship came into view. From a distance, the towering filthy mass looked very much like a cargo ship. However, as we got closer it was clear we were dealing with something far greater than a transport vessel. For a start, the main deck was covered almost entirely by a metal structure that was itself large enough to be a factory. There was also a massive flare tower positioned at the front of the ship. Both of these features enticed us on; they were willing us to climb them because we knew we’d be able to gaze across the stunning industrial landscape of Teesside from up high. As we moved closer still, we started to notice the worn black and red paint on the side of the metalwork. We could read the ageing letters of her name and see the build-up of grime and shit on the bulbous bow. Our excitement was building quickly. The vessel had all the markings of use, exploitation and exhaustion, everything that made it something special. It turned out the fantastic ‘beast’ we were walking towards was called the North Sea Producer. Although we could read it on the side of the vessel by this point, Box decided to fill us in on its name and some additional details he happened to have. The 99,800-ton vessel had been deployed out in the MacCulloch oil field, an area of the North Sea that is well-known for its harsh and turbulent conditions. Apparently, it had withstood eighteen years out there functioning as a Floating Production

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Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, and in that time only ever experienced one major catastrophe when a gas turbine almost exploded. It’s fair to say, then, that its history was very impressive, as was Box’s Wikipedia recitation, but in truth we were less concerned about these things. The ship was beautiful, and quite different to the average explore, but we weren’t here for these reasons. We were here because we were interested in turning the ‘beast’ into something else, something manipulated and distorted to suit our own selfish desires. — It is with the above observations in mind that we turn our attention to Lyotard. What he argues in his book The Differend: Phrases in Dispute is that there is something that can be referred to as the differend and that it can be described not only as something that is missing but also something that lies beyond description. As he puts it, the differend is ‘what is not presentable under the rules of knowledge’; it is a frantic struggle between both imagination and reason (1988: 93). In this regard, because ‘the Boyz’ are reflexive beings, and therefore capable of looking beyond everyday discourses and doxic understandings, it can be argued that they are able to locate the differend and hence bring new feelings into existence. According to Lyotard, these are feelings of the sublime and they stimulate and support the ‘beginning of the infinity of heterogeneous finalities’ (1989: 409). As he suggests, every one of the finalities that occurs should be viewed as being inimitable and it is the task of scholars to attend to them and comprehend them as best as possible. My way of doing this is to continue unpacking ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia. Of course, it should come as no surprise that revealing something about the differend is no easy task. As I noted above, the differend is little more than an unsteady state that cannot be easily, or coherently, put into language by those who have discovered it. What is more, because the differend only ever arouses emotions and unfamiliar sensations, even when we experience it ourselves it is often impossible to place those feelings into words in any precise way (Lyotard 1988). Faced with this dilemma, and the knowledge that I cannot explain how each of ‘the Boyz’

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experience the differend in their own special way, this section seeks to uncover less about what individuals feel specifically and more about the effectual forces that are at play. What is being dealt with here then is what Lyotard (1988) refers to as the concept of Silence, or as Sawyer puts it ‘the silence of Silence’ (2014: 157). As Sawyer (2014) argues, the differend effectively represents a ‘blind spot’, but although it is inexplicable it echoes loudly with a type of sound that is inaudible. In other words, when ‘the Boyz’ attend to the Silence of certain moments, what they notice is the disappearance of real silence (nothingness) and the emergence of something far more vehement. What this suggests is that the differend can be viewed as being a form of intuition, a way of knowing that the presence of Silence is ready to be heard in the sense that particular feelings are ready to erupt. As Sawyer points out, together ‘Silence, the differend and the event are entwined’ to produce intuited sensations (2014: 157). Simply put, this is the suggestion that ‘the Boyz’ have been attentive and so know something else exists beyond the apparent silence of normalcy; they know that impermanent endings to silence are out there, ready and waiting to be discovered (Bennington 1988). It is against this background that I have chosen to provide a rolling episode for the remainder of the section. Aware that what I am trying to articulate here is heavily theoretical and perhaps a little confusing, it is anticipated that intermittent sections of narrative will support the application of theory and help provide better clarity. — As the exploring began, the usual ‘bollocks’ ensued. Having managed to sneak onto the premises of the dock, we were crouching low in the shadows next to an old wooden landing stage that looked ready to collapse. We were weighing up what to do next. MKD had caught sight of a security guard doing his rounds inside the main port compound and his sweeping torchlight would be a problem if we advanced any further. Mayhem seemed convinced he would ‘fuck off ’ eventually, if we were patient enough, so we decided to try his plan of action and wait it out.

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It felt like a lifetime passed us by as we sat around on a pile of rocks that smelt extremely fishy. We were beginning to get cold, and it was at this moment the procrastination began. Although everything had been superb fifteen minutes earlier, the vessel seemed chilling now and it caused various off-putting thoughts to swirl around our minds. I glanced around at each of ‘the Boyz’ and noticed their bored-looking expressions. MKD was the first to speak. He suggested we ‘come back another night’. This set Box off and he reminded us he had to be up early for work in the morning. Feigning disappointment, Husky said he agreed and proposed we should all ‘probably head home, smoke a cheeky spliff and get some shut eye’. It was almost as if their excitement had never existed at all for ‘the Boyz’ now seemed preoccupied by a contagious mood of disinterest and indifference. Perhaps it wasn’t this at all though, because I could sense something that felt more like a mixture of anticipation, apprehension and raging terror. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. Perhaps it was the danger involved, or even the thought of getting caught by secca that was causing the unease. In truth, however, none of us knew what we were feeling, only that we wanted to be onboard the vessel and we didn’t at the same time. As we continued to wait, Mayhem who can sometimes be quite philosophical gave us something to think about. He suggested that what we were feeling was us knowing that history was about to be altered. He reported excitedly that the transformation had in fact already begun. He started by trying to explain how we were standing in front of an ordinary vessel that looked good where it was, ‘like it was supposed to be there’ as part of the general surroundings, before he went on to stress that we weren’t actually in that place anymore. Looking solemn, Husky twiddled a stick between his fingers and MKD continued to watch the security guard wave his torch around in the shadows. Noticing he hadn’t quite inspired everyone yet, Mayhem went on to suggest that ‘there’s no history on the bastard thing, not before we’ve set foot on it’. He finished by telling us anything could happen from this moment on. Feeling a little more enthused after Mayhem’s speech, I began to tell ‘the Boyz’ about Jean-François Lyotard’s notion of the sublime and explained that this is what everyone might be experiencing. They all stared at me blankly, with expressions that hinted I should probably ‘shut the fuck up’. We

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continued to watch the vessel in silence for a while as our disconcertment lingered. Although we certainly didn’t look it, together we were excited about the prospect of accessing the ship, but at the same time we were uncertain and ready to bail. — To continue from where we left off, the parasitical life strategy involves being able to find the differend in among the Silence. Once it has been found, the sublime can be revealed (Sawyer 2014). Before this is possible, though, the Silence must be identified and according to Lyotard (2011) the best way of doing this is said to be via the eye. Although I am conscious that finding sublimity does not have to be an exclusively visual phenomenon because other senses are no doubt capable of detecting it, Lyotard (2011) valorises the eye because it can capture many shades of meaning and it is not limited to a single mode of presentation or representation. Therefore, it is the eye that can be relied on to make sense of the Silence. However, as Elias (1997) points out, it is very important to take what can be seen at face value, to view it for what it is before it can be translated into word form. Following this rule brings about a spatial affirmation of things that are unfamiliar and previously unknown, and it provides the means to truly experience whatever is concealed in the Silence (ibid.). Attempting to generate words impulsively is the wrong approach to take because anything committed to language implies greater fixity and structure (ibid.). In view of this, the best way of understanding what ‘the Boyz’ were experiencing as they sat on the rocks is to show the reader what they could see (Fig. 9.1). Once they have managed to bear witness to the differend contained in the Silence, the next step for ‘the Boyz’ is to make sense of the kinds of feelings they can detect. The problem, of course, as already noted, is that they cannot easily be articulated. The only way to explicate the differend once it has been sensed is to convey it using words (Lyotard 1988). Admittedly, this may seem contradictory vis-à-vis the arguments made above because an effort is being made to force something that is unexpressed and inexpressible into words. Nevertheless, as Lyotard

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Fig. 9.1 Gazing at the North Sea Producer

(1988) argues, while language might be fated to forever struggle to reveal something about things that cannot help but be missing, it is the best method we have of detailing sensations of the sublime. I will not try to put what ‘the Boyz’ witnessed into words for fear of depicting it incorrectly, but what I can say is that the North Sea Producer was neither beautiful nor harmonious in their eyes. Nor was it even just a gigantic rusting ‘beast’ in a literal sense. As Mayhem tried to explain to the rest of us, the vessel was everything else. As a symbol of history yet to be made, impossibility and the blurring of the real and imaginary, it embodied the feeling of the sublime and so incited a much more ‘violent emotion, close to unreason, which forces thought to the extremes of pleasure and displeasure’ (Lyotard 2006: 257). To reiterate, there is no easily communicable interpretation of the feeling of the sublime that can be established. As Lyotard (2006) argues, the very idea of a concrete description is a threat to subjectivity because it would extinguish individuality and creativity, and even inhibit the differend from being identified in the first place. The feeling of the sublime can only be located at the centre of the chaos and uniqueness

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of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space, so it is far from being easily representable or replicable. What this indicates, as Trifonova reminds us, is that the task of various forms of leisure and art is not necessarily to provide the foundations for some kind of culture, it is to unveil ‘conditions of possibility’ within the surrounding Silence (2007: 129). In other words, ‘the Boyz’ are not searching for the centred roots of order. When following the parasitical life strategy, they are khôrasters who are focused on chasing the aesthetic sublime to find ‘an excess of presence’ and what they imagine is the avant-garde. — Once we were on board the vessel, MKD, Box and Husky decided to separate from myself and Mayhem. While they went to find the bridge, we headed downstairs to find the engine. As the ship was so large, we imagined it would probably be quite big, and because neither of us had ever seen an engine on such a scale before we decided it had to be our first port of call. The others went looking for the bridge for similar reasons; they had never stood on one before and they expected it would be filled with interesting control panels and machines. In other words, we were all seeking our own forms of aesthetic pleasure but because the heterotopia is not about being part of a tight-knit collective that consistently shares the same interests we had the freedom to pursue different sources of curiosity. Our footsteps clanged loudly against the near-vertical staircases that took us deeper and deeper into the bowels of the vessel. The air was heavy and pungent, thick with the satisfying aromas of oil and machine grease. We passed countless dials, switches, alarm bulbs and levers, more than I’d ever seen in one space before, and they made us excited. Everything surrounding us was ‘industrial porn’ at its finest, it was fucking spectacular. As we neared the bottom of the ship, Mayhem jumped down the last few steps. A dull thud echoed despondently throughout the metallic space. A second clang erupted as I jumped down behind him. I turned around to gather my bearings and as I did I found myself facing an engine.

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There is was, right in front of us. It was crudely painted, but it had clearly been well cared for. For a short while we stood in silence, staring at it in awe. We didn’t know what to say or do. What do you do when faced with something so remarkable? We were looking at something that for us had only ever had an imagined referent until now, and it wasn’t something we’d ever expected to see in physical form. Mayhem managed to utter something along the lines of: ‘it’s fucking huge’. But he was lost for words and couldn’t seem to expand on what else he was feeling. Neither could I, so I took a photograph instead. Being careful not to spare any detail, the pair of us were meticulous as we tried to light up every inch with our torches while the camera took several long exposure shots. This was something we wanted to remember well, so we wanted to take some time and make sure we captured every single nook and cranny. However, it turned out it was the feeling of the moment we were trying so desperately to capture and so, of course, we failed spectacularly in our task. When we looked back through our images later on, we quickly discovered that we’d only managed to capture an engine, not the incredible thing we’d be gazing at for over an hour (Fig. 9.2). — As the narrative episode reveals, the feeling of the sublime did not end with ‘the Boyz’ gazing at the vessel from the outside. The feeling continued to materialise in tandem with the intensifying pace of the heterotopia. As indicated above, once we entered the engine room myself and Mayhem experienced a great deal of pleasure and excitement, but there was also a terrific sense of pain and anguish in the air. The problem was that the differend was evoking powerful emotions and sensations and we wanted to express and verbalise them, but we found ourselves incapable. And yet, this is precisely the fantastic nature of bearing witness to the differend, it always remains perfectly balanced between the positive and negative. Whatever feelings emerge will always be powerful, stimulating and sensational, but they will remain overwhelmingly inexpressible and find themselves subject to misinterpretation (Sawyer 2014). To explain

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Fig. 9.2 Trying to capture the moment

this point, Lyotard (1988) draws on his own analogy of an earthquake. He argues that if the disaster destroyed everything, all the tools and machines used to measure the event, it would be impossible to assess it quantitatively, but the scientists would still be inspired by the idea of great seismic energy. Nevertheless, while analogous feelings might be shared among the scientists, they would remain unable to articulate them in any accurate way. Only the feeling of the sublime would remain. This is what all ‘the Boyz’ experienced, each in their own unique ways, as they wandered around different sections of the North Sea Producer. They found themselves at the heart of a situation ‘suffer[ing] [from] the wrong of not being able to be phrased’ (Lyotard 1988: 22–23). It stands to reason then that sneaking around a ghost ship in the middle of the night is something that must be experienced directly, faceto-face and in the flesh so to speak. What is more, as Lyotard (1988) points out, the sublime can only exist in the immediate present, in the ‘sensation of the instant’. Both of these points were highlighted by Mayhem, just after we left the engine behind and began exploring other levels of the ship:

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You av to be right there to understand it, don’t yer… Dude, I sort of felt euphoric and afraid at the same time. I’m stood next to this big fuckin’ machine and it’s too big to properly comprehend, like. Sort of scary, like too much to take in kinda thing. How does it feel when you stand next to a beast? I dunno. I just know I was there. But that engine was fuckin’ big, dude… It was epic, but for everyone else who wasn’t there it’s just an engine. I like that, you know, that we feel summit no one else can cos we saw it up close fur that brief moment. It’s sad like, my mind was literally blown. But anyway, I’m done neways. No need to go back… Onto summit else that’s epic, I guess.

As Mayhem reveals, the experience presented him with a short-lived, one-time feeling that only he could truly appreciate, and he found great satisfaction in this. Having said that, there is clearly part of Mayhem that wants to communicate his incredible feelings, particularly with people outside the heterotopic social space he shares with ‘the Boyz’, but he realises he is not able to. Even with ‘the Boyz’ he finds himself unable to express what he felt in any real detail. Of course, ‘the Boyz’ can comprehend what he means to some degree because they all felt something similar as well, but they must accept the pain of never being certain that they all experienced the same kinds of feelings. The best they can do, as Lyotard (1988) suggests, is use one another to clarify that they were all witnesses to the existence of something sublime in the differend. To return to the idea of the parasitical life strategy ‘the Boyz’ adopt, what is evident is that it is a strategy that enables khôrasters to reinforce the heterogeneity of heterotopic social space. As Bennington (1988) argues, the differend can be found all across society in many different forms but witnesses can only ever view it in an individual way. Hence, as Lyotard (1988) points out, there can never be a universal definition assigned to the differend because the multiplicity of other definitions will betray it. All people can do in that case is follow Mayhem’s advice which is to enjoy it, feel contented and always look forward to the next ‘epic’ thing that might be encountered. In many ways this is a khôrasters dream, and it is the parasitical life strategy that makes it come true.

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The Feeling of the Traumatic Sublime Notwithstanding the importance of the discussion hitherto, it is essential that another observation connected with the sublime is addressed. As Sawyer (2014) suggests, this observation concerns the idea of the traumatic. One of the fundamental problems with Lyotard’s concept of the sublime, as Sawyer points out, is that it is commonly used to illustrate a sort of seamless balance and this can easily be interpreted as representing a ‘safe distance’ between pleasure and pain (ibid.: 171). However, what I want to argue is that there are instances where the traumatic side of the sublime feeling can escalate intensely, to the degree that it becomes impossible to respond at all. In other words, neither excitement nor desolation is felt, only a blank void of dread develops followed by a feeling of nothingness. To unpack this idea further we will turn our attention to the moment Mayhem attempted to climb aboard the North Sea Producer. — Mayhem’s arms were trembling, pumped to the point he wasn’t sure if his hands could grip and cling on any longer. The mooring line he was clutching was damp from several days of constant rain, and it swayed gently every now and then which made getting a good grasp more difficult. He couldn’t even feel the rope, his fingers were far too cold. Nevertheless, Mayhem gritted his teeth and continued to haul himself upward. Beneath, by about seven metres or so, was a gap between the pale edge of the concrete dock and the weathered side of ship. The cold dark depths of the Tees lay in between. There was no doubt about it, it would be a nasty fall if he did let go. It was impossible to back out now, though, for he was too far up the hawser. What made matters worse was that he was still a considerable distance from reaching the top. One word floated around his head: ‘FUCK!’ There was nothing ‘the Boyz’ could do to help him either, we could only watch and hope he didn’t let go. Helpless and alone, Mayhem began to panic. On the verge of accepting defeat, his mind ‘went mental’. Mayhem was certain he would let go. Suddenly, he lost the ability to think clearly.

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Only sheer dread and hopelessness filled his imagination as he waited to fall. The last thing Mayhem remembered thinking was that he’d done similar things many times before and that he couldn’t understand what the fuck was going on. Why were things going so wrong this time? He described feeling a cruel sense of hilarity as he clung on desperately because he was gazing across at the lights of Teesside while hanging off a mooring line being used to tie up an enormous FPSO vessel. But then the terror became ‘too immense’. All of a sudden, the panic became overwhelming and the last thing Mayhem remembers about the event is his mind shutting down completely. — Similar to those incidents where Soul jumped onto the roof of a hotel and MKD and Mayhem crashed a sledge on an abandoned ski slope, the small section of episode above is an instance where ‘the most direct seeing of a violent event may occur’ and where the people involved ‘experience an absolute inability to know it’ (Caruth 1997: 208). For those theorists such as Lyng (2005) who advocate the concept of edgework, it might be argued that it is the edge that is being overstepped in these situations since a loss of control seems manifest. However, I would argue that there is a clear disconnection between what Mayhem experienced and the idea of going beyond the edge. Although Mayhem did in fact lose control, what is crucial is that he went on to live to tell the tale and, in the process, emerged from the event having experienced something significant. In view of this, it can be argued that Mayhem perhaps experienced something like the edge, something ‘perpetually incomplete’ but what he really suffered was a taste of the traumatic sublime (Sawyer 2014: 173). As Sawyer (2014) argues, the traumatic sublime is a nuanced take on the original concept presented by Lyotard. That is to say, what we are dealing with is a different sort of sublime, a derivative product that is not only unexpressed and inexpressible but absolutely unknowable at the moment it occurs because of the immense feeling of suffering it causes. According to Sawyer, this version of the sublime eludes all methods of

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representation that ‘endeavour to evoke the unpresentable in presentation itself ’ (ibid.: 172). What happens instead is that what is being felt by Mayhem ‘force[s] notice of the unpresented in the unpresentable’ (ibid.: 173). In other words, the traumatic sublime represents an entirely foreign sensation that is utterly incommensurable. What Mayhem experienced is a moment that is in large a fiercely negative experience, it is an instance of trauma that causes paralysis. Unlike Lyotard’s (1988) ordinary concept of the sublime feeling the traumatic sublime is a feeling that causes people to desperately want relief as opposed to any further stimulation. — ‘The Boyz’ were peering over the side of the vessel, searching for Mayhem in the darkness. Everyone was pushing him, telling him he could do it: ‘Come on, dude, last bit!’ Suddenly a single hand appeared, shaking violently in the air. Box jumped into action, grabbing hold of Mayhem’s arm in a tight, reassuring grip. MKD grabbed the back of the rucksack he was wearing to help haul him up over the railing, and, as he did, he greeted him with a friendly ‘alreeet, like’. As Mayhem scrambled onto the main deck a selection of obscene words escaped his lips: ‘motherfucking fucker!; ‘Jesus Christ; ‘Cunt’; ‘Holy Shieet, that was fuckin’ hard’. Once safely over the railing, he collapsed onto his knees and began shaking his arms and hands. He hadn’t noticed while climbing, but his fingers had gone from cold to hot too quickly and now they throbbed intensely. Apparently, it felt as though ‘some dickhead [had] taken an ‘amma to em’. After several moments, he stood up and started to pace back and forth across the deck. At this point, he couldn’t give a shit if secca was watching; he was feeling an intense moment of relief and it was tremendously satisfying. Despite the satisfaction, though, what was very noticeable was how intensely he was trembling. As Husky put it, the climb had ‘put the shits right up him’. —

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What this extended piece of narrative has revealed is that the dichotomy between pain and pleasure is not something that can easily be tamed or understood. Instead, it shows that the differend will always contain surprises that cannot be known. One of these surprises is the traumatic sublime and when the feeling occurs the person concerned knows immediately that they are in dangerous territory for this is when their ability to cling onto life itself is being tested. It was only as he stood aboard the tanker, wavering and breathing heavily, that such an event began to shift into Mayhem’s consciousness. A wave of relief consumed him and as it did it dawned on him how close he had been to ‘fucking himself up’. In other words, what Mayhem experienced was the differend’s demand that our ways of understanding it must be adaptable and able to adjust to new and varied conditions (Lyotard 1988), especially those conditions that seem much more deleterious, painful and unpleasurable at the time. What this tells us, then, is that the parasitical life strategy is perhaps not as straightforward as it may first have appeared. As Schmid-Hempel (1998) argues, parasites do not always develop equilibrium with whatever they have chosen as their host which means the desired outcome may not always be as expected. As Mayhem discovered, the environment was certainly very different from what he had expected and for this reason he did not know how to act or think as he normally would. What is more, parasitic control can directly influence the behaviour of hosts and this may result in unanticipated consequences (Schmid-Hempel 1998). As both MKD and Mayhem demonstrated on the ski slope, in their haste to experience a sublime feeling they were coaxed into entering an environment with no real knowledge of how to manage the situation. They also found they had no real control over the subsequent event that occurred. In short, it was their parasitical urge that caused them to sledge off a ramp that was designed with experienced skiers in mind and, as the reader observed, there were negative aftereffects that could have been more severe than they were, particularly for MKD.

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Living in a ‘Viewer Society’: The Life Strategy for Media Whores So far, this chapter has revealed three principal life strategies ‘the Boyz’ follow as they attempt to reinforce not only their individual identities as they seek personal fulfilment but also a shared sense of ‘community’ amid the turbulent conditions of the interregnum. However, there is one important life strategy that is conspicuously missing, and it is linked to the idea that life in the twenty-first century is heavily affected by the growing influence of ‘celebrities’ and the supposed significance of achieving ‘celebrity status’. With this in mind, contrary to Garrett (2013) and Mould’s (2015) assertions that urban explorers are politically minded and therefore rebellious as they endeavour to resist hegemonic control, I would argue the opposite, that many are in fact apolitical and rebellious only for the sake of being performative. In other words, although ‘the Boyz’ like to imagine they are a form of resistance opposing capitalism and consumerist ways of living, they are in fact part of it and by being performative they do more to embrace the prevailing economic and political system. In view of this, the following section unpacks the idea that ‘the Boyz’ adopt the life strategy of being ‘media whores’.2 As Bauman (2000) argues, forms of social control have evolved. Although panoptic forms of control do still exist, the world is arguably much less nightmarish and dystopian than the likes of Orwell envisaged. Instead, what controls people in the twenty-first-century interregnum is what Thomas Mathiesen (1997) refers to as the Synopticon which is based on the premise that the many watch the few. What I would add, however, is that anyone can easily be one of those few for a short time if they are willing to pursue their so-called fifteen minutes of fame (Bauman 2000). In this sense, present modernity has become ‘rather more like the world of Channel 4’s Big Brother ’ as it has transformed into something that is orientated around ‘celebrity’ figures (Blackshaw 2005: 129). In this vein, it can be argued that ‘the Boyz’, as urbexers, have discovered they can 2This derogatory and misogynistic term is not one I have coined, it is one that is used widely across the ‘urbex scene’. It is commonly used by urban explorers to refer to people who have ‘sold out’ to the media (i.e. those who have given/sold their photographs, videos and stories to media outlets).

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become ‘deviant’ sort of celebrities as the voracious masses will consume their stories, photographs and videos with a seemingly insatiable appetite. It is against this background that becoming a media whore is another important life strategy for ‘the Boyz’. The remainder of this section looks to unpack this idea further.

The Pub Brawl Three of us were sat around a computer in Box’s house making every effort possible to find the location of an interesting explore that had appeared on Facebook. It was a pub known as the Bridge House Hotel, and it was ‘the Fr3e Roamer cunts’ who had posted up the photos, which we were surprised about because the building was something special. Unlike most explores, this one was still largely intact on the inside. The bar still had working pumps and glasses, the dining room was set and ready to go with napkins and cutlery, and the beds in the hotel rooms upstairs were all neatly made. When they’d first started exploring, the Fr3e Roamers had been reluctant to post up images of certain explores, fearing they might bring them to the attention of destructive chavs and thieves, but now they didn’t seem to care. They were still unwilling to share ‘access details’ with us of course. Even though we tried to get MKD to reveal the location of the explore since he’d been with them when they’d discovered it, he claimed he couldn’t remember how they got there because he’d been asleep in the car. We knew he was bullshitting us because he never fell asleep in the car when he was with us, but his averseness to share the details seemed to give us more motivation to find the building. We searched for well over an hour until eventually Mayhem spotted something interesting in one of the Fr3e Roamers photos. In the bar area there was a leather-bound menu, and on cover there was a name printed on the front. With a sense of growing anticipation, Mayhem carefully zoomed in on the image. It was blurred slightly, but we could just about make it out. It read, ‘Bridge House Hotel’. Mayhem smashed his fists down onto the table and gave out a deep sigh before he started to laugh. The others gathered around, eager to congratulate him for having

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‘awesome attention to detail’. It didn’t take us long to find the location on Google Maps after that. The pub was a thirty-minute drive away, so in that time ‘the Boyz’ started to talk about the Fr3e Roamers, and their disappointment that MKD had betrayed them. Husky began by pointing out that the Fr3e Roamers had not only created their own Facebook page but that they were now uploading images to their personal Facebook accounts to attract more followers. Their strategy seemed to be working well because in a week they’d managed to triple their following. When we first met the group, though, they’d been reluctant to share any of their content because they felt anything uploaded to social media ‘leads to places gettin’ fuck’d up by arseholes’. They were also concerned about what other urban explorers would think of them if they ‘sold out’ and started letting the public in on what they were doing. While ‘the Boyz’ had shared similar views at first, they now had a website and an online presence to maintain and both these things had become more important than being concerned about reputation or the preservation of buildings. ‘The Boyz’ knew the only way to make a name for themselves was to turn their attention to the public. In the end, the Fr3e Roamers followed suit. They realised there were more perks to becoming ‘celebrity-like’. Posting on social media, then, was how they were going to build a reputation for being ‘epic’ urbexers. The four of us arrived at the pub with little more than an hour of daylight to spare. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to find a way inside. In their excitement to post their photos, it seemed the Fr3e Roamers had forgotten to shut the back door. Feeling cocky because we’d managed to ‘get one over’ the Fr3e Roamers, we entered the building with big grins across our faces. The tainted smell of pub was the first thing that immediately struck our nostrils as we sauntered into the taproom. The odour of beer slops was familiar, but there was something different about the smell, it was contaminated by the onset of decay. However, if it wasn’t for the strange odour the pub could very well have been in working order. Although some of the furniture was positioned untidily around the room, the setting looked fairly normal for a public house. There were beer mats on the tables, a newspaper laid open on the bar, the taps all still worked, and there was a generous selection of wines still available.

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As I continued to look around the room, Husky and Box each grabbed a seat in front of the bar while Mayhem wandered around the back to pour them pints. As he pulled the Kronenbourg 1664 tap, Box told him to get his t-shirt out for a snap. Mayhem unzipped his hoodie to reveal his heavily creased black WildBoyz t-shirt. As Box readied his camera, Mayhem carefully positioned himself so he looked like a conqueror figure pulling a ‘victory pint’. He planned to upload it to the WildBoyz Facebook page later that evening to piss off the Fr3e Roamers. Not only had their explore been found, it had been found by WildBoyz and this was something that had to be shared. After finishing our slightly vinegary pints with white globule-like things floating on the surface, we decided to explore the rest of the building. To really upset the Fr3e Roamers and, according to Box ‘teach them a lesson for being media whores’, we took photos of ourselves trying to look as ‘cool’ as possible in every room they’d been in (according to their photos). To piss them off even further, ‘the Boyz’ also decided to ‘improve’ some graffiti they’d left behind in the kitchen. Each one of the Fr3e Roamers had scrawled their names onto an old chalk board that had once presumably been a menu display board, so Box ‘fix[ed] their shit fucking mess’ by writing WildBoyz over the top. — A few days later, after having uploaded a report to the 28dayslater site, our website, and our Facebook page which had the desired effect of pissing off the Fr3e Roamers enormously, Mayhem received an unexpected email from a newspaper, Richmondshire Today. Apparently, one of their journalists had stumbled across our website and our report of the Bridge House Hotel and they wanted to run an article about it. Not quite sure what to do as we’d had limited media attention (real media attention) at this point, Mayhem decided to call a WildBoyz meeting down the pub (one that was legitimately open for business this time). The idea of ‘selling out’ and becoming ‘media whores’ was discussed over a few beers, but in truth it didn’t take very long for everyone to decide that we’d go along with it. Most of ‘the Boyz’, if not all, were

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already enjoying the feeling of being celebrity-like through social media, so in their eyes it could only get better if they appeared in newspapers. Not only did it feel ‘cool’ to be providing a window for outsiders to gaze through, it felt ‘cool’ to be able to exhibit our own interpretation of ‘deviance’ more publicly. What’s more, by agreeing to the article ‘the Boyz’ felt they were superior to their rivals, ‘the Fr3e Roamer spastics’. While they were little more than ‘social media addicts’, ‘the Boyz’ knew there was something about themselves that was worthy of being celebrated. In their own minds it was they who were superior urbexers because they had audacity, style and an ability to produce better quality photos than the shit the Fr3e Roamers churned out. In ‘the Boyz’ minds, this is why they’d been selected by Richmondshire Today and why they were being propelled into the limelight.

Competing for Fame and Stardom in a Digital World Before the above episode can be analysed, it is worth considering Mathiesen’s (1997) suggestion that an important event was ignored by Foucault. As Mathiesen argues, although Foucault was concerned with the evolution of social control, particularly the idea that people can be encouraged to govern themselves if they think they are being observed, what he overlooked was the inauguration of the mass production process for newspapers. In essence, this development signalled the introduction of another do-it-yourself panopticon and it is one that would become supreme by the twenty-first century (Bauman, in Bauman and Lyon 2013: 69). As Mathiesen (1997) goes on to explain, the emergence of film came next, followed by radio, television and, finally, the internet. Of course, the internet was still at a stage of relative infancy when Mathiesen first explored the development of forms of media, but in present modernity it has transformed social control completely. What first began with millions of people viewing the few on social media platforms has proliferated to 4.1 billion individuals across the globe (ITU 2019). What is most crucial about this development though is that rather than there being an increased demand to view other people, the growing use of media and

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communication platforms can be attributed to people’s increasing desire to also be viewed (Giles 2018). As it is revealed in the above episode, it seems that both WildBoyz and the Fr3e Roamers have succumbed to the control of a makeshift D.I.Y. synopticon where the condition of being seen and noticed has turned into something of a temptation (Bauman 1998). What both collectives reveal is that they are more interested in parading their ‘deviant’ performativity and it is this desire that has superseded longings for such things as anonymity, reserve and escaping the hegemony of consumerism. Quite simply, for both WildBoyz and the Fr3e Roamers the life strategy of being a media whore has become an essential part of the magic and fantasy of heterotopia. It is with this in mind that the remainder of this chapter goes on to unpack not only what it means to be part of the age of so-called celebrities but also the struggles that are involved. In the first instance, then, at the beginning of the episode the reader learned that the Fr3e Roamers had initially found themselves unsure whether they should keep urbex locations a secret to help preserve them for future explorers. The alternative thought they grappled with was whether they should ‘jump on the bandwagon’ and begin posting public reports using various social media platforms. Although the Fr3e Roamers were genuinely concerned about the repercussions of uploading content to Facebook and 28dayslater, in the end, to borrow a useful phrase from Pyotr Chaadaev (1969), they chose not to look beyond the events of yesterday. In other words, they decided to follow suit and do what the vast majority of other urban explorers do and post reports in the public domain to gather the attention of ‘followers’. Like many before themselves, it seemed they wanted to feel what it was like to be known. They wanted to be recognised as being an ‘epic’ explorers. In view of this, it might be argued, in line with Chaadaev (1969) once again, that the Fr3e Roamer’s commitment to the media whore life strategy put them at risk of becoming strangers to themselves because at the first opportunity they abandoned their original principles and values. As the Fr3e Roamers reveal, part of the urbexer mentality entails competing to get noticed; whether individuals want to or not, they will enter into the contest because it is part of the performativity of being an urban explorer (Blackshaw 2017). What spurred the Fr3e Roamers on

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further was the realisation that they were gaining ‘fame and glory’ quite quickly after releasing photographs of the Bridge House Hotel (Giles 2018). After creating a Facebook page around the same time, it only took them a matter of days to gain hundreds of followers. As a result, the Fr3e Roamers could feel themselves steadily becoming more renowned across County Durham. Although they only ever explored places within the vicinity of the North East, many of which were unexceptional by normal urban explorer standards, their photographs and reports seemed to appeal to local people who knew of the sites or had previously worked or found leisure in them. At any rate, the Bridge House Hotel explore was a turning point for the Fr3e Roamer crew. While they had been vehemently opposed to posting images on social media platforms at first, after posting their hotel report they went on to discover what being in the limelight tasted like and quickly discovered how much they enjoyed it. In the weeks that followed the Fr3e Roamers first claim to fame, more and more of their photographs and reports started to emerge, not only on their Facebook page but also on their own private accounts. Subsequently, only a week after exploring Bridge House Hotel they managed to triple their number of followers to over four hundred. In the grand scheme of things this number may not seem particularly substantial when there are many online celebrities who have millions of fans, but they were enjoying their experience of increasing social visibility and the feeling of stardom that came with it. As Ferris (2010) suggests, the Fr3e Roamers were becoming what we might call ‘local celebrities’ (those who are famous in a limited geographical area) who appeal to smaller, more segmented audiences. Nevertheless, this was problematic for ‘the Boyz’. Although WildBoyz had a much larger following than the Fr3e Roamers, what really bothered ‘the Boyz’ was the fact that they felt they were losing limelight on their own the native soil. That is to say, they were worried that people in the small towns and villages of County Durham were becoming less interested in them and more interested in their rivals (Giles 2018). Of course, this might seem ludicrous to an outsider, but as Val Burns (2016) reminds us, ‘there is only room for one ego in this selfie world, and it’s me, me and more me’.

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What the discussion has revealed up to now then is that the media whore life strategy causes people to believe that becoming somebody in the interregnum is to be noticed. However, there is more to add because it is not enough to simply be seen. As Bauman (in Bauman and Lyon 2013) argues, once fame has been achieved it is crucial the person or collective concerned continues to work on their adaptability if they want to remain being seen. In other words, being a schizophrenic (being open to the idea that heterotopic social spaces transform or that they can be substituted for others) is imperative. With this in mind, what ‘the Boyz’ noticed as the Fr3e Roamers started to gain stardom is that being different or deviant is what makes you unforgettable in the longer term (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004). As they became increasingly aware of this point, ‘the Boyz’ realised they could outshine the Fr3e Roamers and get more of their material and website’s content into public view if they deviated further from the roughly drawn ‘urbex code’ many urban explorers say they follow. Their plan, therefore, was to switch to an alternative, ‘give-no-shits version’—to borrow Box’s way of putting it. The first step ‘the Boyz’ took was to respond to local newspapers that had contacted them. Replying to Richmondshire Today, a small online news service that wanted to know more about Bridge House Hotel, was one of their first liaisons as they attempted to increase their fame and outshine the Fr3e Roamers. However, this was only the beginning. In the months that followed, ‘the Boyz’ continued to ‘sell out’ to an increasing number of newspapers (many of them online), particularly any that expressed an interest in their North East reports. With these observations in mind, although ‘the Boyz’ vehemently reject the idea they are ‘media whores’, just as most urban explorers I have observed seem to do, what is manifest is that they not only enjoy every ounce of fame and recognition that comes their way but that they will compete hostilely to attain it. Both of these points were evidenced when the Bridge House Hotel article came out. For a start, as soon as he received confirmation the article had been published, Box was quick to assemble ‘the Boyz’ down at a local pub. As soon as everyone arrived, the group huddled around Box’s phone and together they cheered and laughed as the article was read out loud. What they found hilarious was the fact that the Fr3e Roamers had been the ones to bring Bridge House

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Hotel to their attention, but it was WildBoyz content that had been placed into the wider public gaze. As Box suggested, though, it was one thing to upload shit to Facebook and Twitter, but a whole different ball game getting stuff into the real media. Satisfied the Fr3e Roamers were no longer stealing the limelight from under them, and that they were the ‘real’ stars in the North East, they ended the night a few hours later convinced it was WildBoyz who were the few who mattered. As for the Fr3e Roamers, as Box put it, ‘they cud go fuck therselves’.

The Synoptic Life: The Performativity of Deviance As both ‘the Boyz’ and the Fr3e Roamers demonstrate, Mathiesen’s (1997) synopticon has a surprising degree of control over the way they behave in their heterotopic social spaces. As Bauman (2000) would argue, both groups have found there are many perks if they become media whores and so they have become proficient in snatching five minutes of fame when they can. Every time the celestial flavours of stardom are tasted, they find the dopamine rush is good and that they receive positive feelings of fulfilment and belonging, and this makes them want more (Levy 2015). To further expand on these observations, what I also noticed in the time I spent as an ethnographer is that for many urban explorers’ ‘deviance’ appears to be an important feature of living in a viewer society. As I will try to explain in this section of the chapter, ‘the Boyz’ are convinced that adopting a particular ‘deviant’ style is an integral part of being noticed and becoming celebrity figures. Moreover, it would seem that committing acts of trespass are not enough in ‘the Boyz’ eyes. What they must do, if they want to survive in a synoptic society, is exaggerate their performativity so it seems more dramatised and more noticeable than everything else around them (Blackshaw and Crabbe 2004). Therefore, in the same way Garrett (2013) likes to imagine himself as an ‘epic colonialist’, ‘the Boyz’ enjoy reinforcing their own version of ‘deviance’ by strategically accentuating the idea they are rebels or mutineers who resist rules. The dramatised performance they have created for themselves, which is shared and exaggerated by means of photographs

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and stories, is one that has been built gradually since 2012, and every time ‘the Boyz’ spend time together it becomes progressively more and more hyperbolic. For instance, one of the ways they have tried to reinforce their ‘rebellious’ performativity is through the use of a ‘Jolly Roger’ featuring the word ‘WildBoyz’ at the top as an emblem. In other words, it is the spirit of the aesthetic performance—the feeling they are emulating pirates, bootleggers and smugglers and all of their illegitimate customs— that adds to the intensity of ‘the Boyz’ collective representation. It was originally Box’s idea to fly a flag on the outside of his car whenever we were on a trip, but before long ‘the Boyz’ adopted the symbol and ‘flying the colours’ became a crucial part of the performativity of their heterotopic social space. In fact, they liked the perceived sense of ‘deviance’ so much the flag soon appeared on ‘the Boyz’ website and of course on their t-shirts as they demonstrated at Bridge House Hotel (Fig. 9.3). Essentially, what ‘the Boyz’ and ‘Others’ such as the Fr3e Roamers create for themselves is an illusionary form of ‘deviant’ unity. Together,

Fig. 9.3 Mayhem posing in his WildBoyz t-shirt, near Bridge House Hotel

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as skhol¯ers, they perform a ‘style’ and a ‘look’ that has a familiar childhood feeling of magic and warmth to it (Blackshaw 2017). However, as the reader knows lasting unity and consistency are misconceptions in the interregnum (Bordoni 2016), especially when we think about heterotopic social spaces and the media whore life strategy. After all, as Foucault (1984) reminds us, heterotopias are based on very different principles to those found in traditional communities. In other words, since all of ‘the Boyz’ are also khôrasters their lives should be thought of as being creative works of art which can be carefully experimented with before they are modified, improved or discarded. Figures 9.4 and 9.5 reveal how ‘the Boyz’ try to make fantasies and ‘styles’ come to life temporarily as they put on their ‘deviant’ attire for the cameras (and the masses who might observe them). Yet, there is nothing binding about any of their performances; to ensure they remain under the synoptic gaze for as long as possible, ‘the Boyz’ are keen to keep their ‘deviant’ performativity as exciting as they can long before onlookers lose their interest (Butler 1990).

Fig. 9.4 Box posing inside a drain, having adjusted the light to make himself appear mysterious and furtive

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Fig. 9.5 MKD revealing his ‘deviant’ flair inside an abandoned farmhouse

After all, this is something that causes ‘the Boyz’ anxiety, the threat of going unnoticed, which is somewhat ironic given that urban explorers’ style themselves around being subversive (Levy 2015). However, because ‘the Boyz’ know that the synoptic gaze of the public seeks anything that is attention-grabbing—perfect bodies, disorder, sex, violence, murder, disaster, death, risk, porn and destruction—they know how to compete to stay in the game. As Bauman (2000) would put it, they have good perceptiveness regarding what is desirable and what is not. This is why ‘the Boyz’ take stylised photographs of themselves, why they rub the names of ‘Other’ urban explorers off chalk boards, and why they ‘sell out’ to media outlets without looking back. ‘The Boyz’ want the world to know they are interesting, they want to be noticed for being ‘deviant’, but they know they must also remain interesting and ‘deviant’ enough for the public to want to watch them. As Box pointed out when I questioned whether selling out to newspapers would affect their reputation with ‘Others’ involved in the urbex scene: ‘people like the bad stuff don’t they, it’s more interesting than good shit. Like, I could take snaps of

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nature n’ shit or I could film some derpy porno. They’re gonna be more interested in the porn aren’t they. Most people anyway’. In this sense, certain behaviours exhibited by ‘the Boyz’ perhaps become more comprehensible. Certain practices such as playing music and adopting ‘Americanised’ language (for example: ‘dude’, ‘epic’, ‘bro’) are all part of the media whore life strategy because they serve to further dramatise ‘the Boyz’ performativity and attract attention. What is more, much like the ‘rockers’ described by Peter Wicke (1990), ‘the Boyz’ find ways of transgressing the original and commercial contexts of things such as music and language. Once they adopt something, they customise it by attributing their own meanings and values to it. A good example of this is the way ‘the Boyz’ use Duran Duran’s song Wild Boys to fulfil the imaginary demands of a heterotopia—when a decaying pub is suddenly reopened by WildBoyz for instance. What all of this reveals, as Karl Spracklen (2015) has pointed out, is that individuals are desperate to prove their ‘coolness’. In this sense, it could be reasoned that ‘the Boyz’ follow an instrumental form of logic which makes them believe being ‘cool’ will gain them more credibility, ‘style’, ‘likes’ and ‘thumbs’ on various social media platforms as word about them spreads far and wide. Nonetheless, while the media whore life strategy is obviously a vital component of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space a further note should be included to point out that no matter how hard WildBoyz or the Fr3e Roamers try to give the impression they are ‘cool’ and different, neither group is any different to every other ‘subculture of petrolheads… lifestyle sports or extreme sports’ (Spracklen 2013: 118). That is to say, ‘the Boyz’ and the Fr3e Roamers are deeply tangled in the same commercialised world as everybody else, a world where synoptic strategies of control reign supreme (ibid.). However, like everyone else both collectives seem either entirely oblivious to this fact, or they know but simply do not care.

Summary After unpacking some of the central interpenetrating and intertwining life strategies that have been adopted by ‘the Boyz’ when they come together in heterotopia, what transpires is that there is an important link

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that can be made to Foucault’s (1967) notion of the ‘Ship of Fools’. To explain what I mean here, it would be very easy to regard ‘the Boyz’ as being strange or perhaps even mad as they sail headlong into unusual spaces and behave very differently. However, what I want to point out is that this chapter is not about madness. Rather, it is about viewing ‘the Boyz’ as voyageurs who have the courage to venture into unfamiliar waters, and understanding not only what they gain from their heterotopic social space but how they adopt strategies to keep it alive for as long as possible. In other words, although ‘the Boyz’ might give the impression they are foolish, deranged or irrational, what their ‘Ship of Fools’ really exemplifies is an inimitable heterotopic perspective which comprises a kind of knowledge and wisdom that is unattainable to anyone who is an outsider (Foucault 1967). What this suggests is that because they have a special position in the world, ‘the Boyz’ are actually bearers of an alternative kind of truth, the kind of truth that ‘[straddles] the line between dream and reality’ (Miller 1993: 100). As this chapter has revealed, once they begin their voyage ‘the Boyz’ are liberated from everyday societal constraints (most of them at least). Yet, what also happens is that they effectively become confined to the strict conditions of the ship they share together (Foucault 1967). What this means is that ‘the Boyz’ may have found an alternative temporary way of living in the interregnum, but it must involve adhering to certain life strategies. After all, to reiterate an important point made by Foucault (1994), freedom can only be achieved if people are able to engage actively and purposefully in disciplinary regimes. The disciplinary regime of their heterotopia is of course only ever short-lived and ‘the Boyz’ can leave anytime they choose but adhering to the heterotopic system is essential so long as ‘the Boyz’ want to keep it alive. And, for the time being at least (at the time of writing these words), most of ‘the Boyz’ do want to keep their heterotopic space going because what they have created is always magical. What this tells us, then, is that the roles of the mad and the sane have been reversed, for it is the madmen—those willing to experiment and embrace difference—who have become the guardians of truth and secrets in the twenty-first century. To recapitulate, this chapter has explored four different but overlapping life strategies to highlight the ‘true fiction’ of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic

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social space. For the magic of performativity to ignite, and for meaning and pleasure to be found, ‘the Boyz’ must become ‘schizophrenics’, ‘nostalgics’, ‘parasites’ and ‘media whores’. In a world that is becoming increasingly individualised, where human relationships are fragile and lives remain uncertain, there is no rational strategy that can be reliably followed so it is important people invent their own. As the reader has seen, following the above-mentioned life strategies is what makes ‘the Boyz’ feel truly alive. They are effective in providing their lives not only with a crucial sense of belonging but also overwhelming eruptions of excitement and ecstasy that cannot be acquired elsewhere. What is more, the life strategies that have been adopted ensure ‘the Boyz’ feel connected to others in a way that feels close-knit enough to be homely, but loose enough to retain a sense of individuality and personal freedom. There are few other ways of achieving such things in the interregnum. In might be summarised, therefore, as Blackshaw (2017) has suggested, that it is only in leisure that certain life strategies can be performed in order to feel both personal fulfilment as khôrasters, and something that feels warm and homelike as skhol¯ers. This is because leisure is the home of heterotopia; the two are indelibly connected and provide near-perfect conditions for freedom, ‘community’ and imagined culture.

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Part V Restorative Dreams and Potential Futures

10 No End in Sight

There is no doubt in my mind that another researcher would interpret heterotopic social space differently; perhaps they would even have seen the same things I saw differently. Yet, this is the beauty of heterotopia, it cannot be replicated nor be seen as a way of making something so tangible as culture. In the end, like all forms of social inquiry, there is nothing about ‘the Boyz’ that is ontologically certain. What I can say, however, with sureness, is that I was careful to follow Jacques Derrida’s warning that ‘one cannot say: “here are our monsters”, without immediately turning the monsters into pets’ (1990: 80). That is to say, I have been careful to make sure that this book reveals ‘the Boyz’ fantasy with verisimilitude. I cannot ignore the fact that I have brought ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space to life in my own inimitable way, based on my own observations and the narratives that followed, but I have tried to convey everything as accurately and meticulously as possible. This is why I included details I desperately wanted to ignore, details that have caused me to feel shame and embarrassment because I know how puerile, pathetic and misogynistic they are. Yet, not all the details were shameful, there are certainly many magical aspects of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space that have excited and inspired me and indeed continue © The Author(s) 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9_10

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to do so, therefore, I have endeavoured to unveil this side of the fantasy world as well. In many respects, what has helped me write in a way that accounts for both sides of the ‘truth’ is the fact that this study has not just been about WildBoyz. The study has been much more intimate than that because it has been about a group of good friends with whom I have shared so much. With these observations in mind, what has been included in this book is a distillation of a vast amount of research material consisting of observations and direct experience. Joined together this material has been used to bring an otherwise inexplicable world to life. All that remains to do now is to draw this content to some kind of close. That is the purpose of this final chapter, it focuses on explicating what has been accomplished in this research monograph and how it contributes to original knowledge. The overarching aim of this book has been to respond to the limits of existing studies of urban exploration, and to frame this core concern with a rigorous application of Foucault’s (1984) concept of heterotopia. As it was argued in Chapter 2, the phenomenon of urban exploration is still a relatively under-researched area. Most of the research that has been compiled focuses on an arguably limited selection of themes and topics insofar as there is the danger that research relating to ‘urbex’ might become stagnant, or ‘zombified’ to borrow Ulrich Beck’s (2002) apt expression. What is more, with the exception of a limited number of scholars such as Kindynis (2017), there are few investigations of urban exploration that take into account the wider social, economic and political context in which this form of leisure takes place. By this I mean the period of interregnum we currently find ourselves in. To move away from the same recurring themes and ideas, and account for the course present modernity has taken, this book has provided the first detailed investigation of heterotopic social space vis-à-vis urban exploration. The concept of heterotopia was employed because it allowed me to explore the idea that a group of urban explorers have found a way of creating their own version of a ‘community’ in the interregnum. Finding a concept that could be used to understand ‘community’ in the twenty-first century was essential because traditional community is something that cannot help but be missing (Bauman 2000). Thus, as the reader has observed, heterotopia represents a ‘community’ that is

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not only more intense than rational or traditional communities, it allows people to engage in leisure in a way that is collectively individual. What is also important about the concept of heterotopia is that it serves as a sensitising concept. That is to say, it is a construct that derives meaning from the people under investigation in a way that is open, less structured and empirical. In other words, because the concept involves acknowledging the language, behaviours and methods of expressions used by participants, which in this case belong to ‘the Boyz’, it can be used to sensitise the reader as they are invited to come along on a special kind of journey. With this in mind, Foucault’s heterotopia has been used to analyse and develop an understanding of: the social, cultural and political climate ‘the Boyz’ encounter on a daily basis; the resultant compensatory spaces that are starkly different to everyday space; and the degree of freedom that can be felt as a result of forms of leisure such as urban exploration. What this means, then, is that I have tried to use this book as a means of suggesting some new ways of getting to grips with how people use leisure to cope with the fluidity, unpredictability and chaotic continuation of modernity. What follows in the remainder of this chapter is a summary of the book’s main findings and its theoretical implications. After that I provide an incisive overview of my interpretation of urban exploration and its inherent performativity. However, before I can go on to discuss how I have re-imagined urban exploration it is useful to first consider the methodological implications of this study, to weigh up its advantages and advocate its potential for further research in the future. Hence, this conclusion begins with a discussion about the methodology that was employed.

Some New Research Directions As I explained in Chapter 3, my intention was to bring ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia to life. Therefore, in order to immerse the reader in the heterotopic social space of WildBoyz and encourage them to empathise with this way of being-in-the-world, I knew I needed to adopt an approach that would not only provide social context but also expose the meanings people

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place on actions, objects and identity. This is why over the course of this book I employed a research process that was guided by the practice of ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1973) as I lived life as an urban explorer and a cultural intermediary. As stated previously, I hoped the reader would follow in the footsteps of Alice and leap headfirst into the rabbit hole to reach a completely different world within our world. From this unique position, I anticipated that the intimate descriptions, dialogue and imagery would progressively become more vivid and intense the longer the reader was willing to remain inside the heterotopia. However, my methodology did more than convey a world from an empathetic insider perspective. What I also took into consideration is the understanding that ‘the Boyz’ do not reside in an impenetrable vacuum. In other words, I was careful to take into account the incontrovertible truth that each of my participants (and of course their heterotopia) is bound to the wider fabric of society and twenty-first-century life which means they cannot help but be subject to its influences. Hence, as the reader knows, I operated the combined the method of sociological hermeneutics in conjunction with hermeneutic sociology to ensure ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia was also interpreted from an intuitive outsider perspective. Doing things this way has allowed me unpack the idea of heterotopia in an instrumental way that articulates its implicit and essential doxa in relation to present modernity. In short, then, the evidence gathered as a result of this methodology has enabled me to explore not only how several urban explorers understand and attempt to control heterotopic social space, but also the temporary life strategies they adopt for living while that space is active. In addition, the methods I employed allowed me to delve into Blackshaw’s (2017) concept of ‘devotional leisure’ and reveal the duality involved in being an urban explorer. In view of this, ‘the Boyz’ might be referred to as being khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire (non-absolutes who are able to find both a sense of shared belonging and personal fulfilment in the interregnum). I will detail what can be concluded from my findings in more depth in the next section of the chapter, but for now it stands that this methodology allowed me to be part of a heterotopia in such a way as to reveal the complex conditions of performativity that have been created by a group of urban explorers.

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In terms of the future utility of the methodology I am advocating, I feel there is scope to develop it further as it could be used to understand different heterotopias and other aspects of urban exploration, or even just other forms of leisure. Perhaps the most obvious use would be to analyse a different group of urban explorers and unpack their heterotopic social space to identify whether it is anything like the one created by ‘the Boyz’. I am after all acutely aware that this study revolves around a relatively small group of urban explorers and that there are many other collectives that could be investigated. For example, given there has been a rise in the number of YouTubers and Instagrammers who appear to have an ephemeral interest in urban exploration alongside other ‘deviant’ activities (for example: 24-hour overnight challenges, bus-surfing, and staging disasters such as getting lost in the Paris Catacombs), it would be interesting to examine the kind of heterotopic social space they create for themselves. My belief is that they would perhaps emerge as people who are much more khôraster than they are skhol¯er . Another potential use for the methodology I applied is that it could be used to explore more seriously the issue of gender in urban exploration research. As Mott and Roberts (2014) have argued, there is especially a lack of research when it comes to female urban explorers, and indeed any other explorers for that matter who are not predominantly white males. However, as I argued in Chapter 2, there are in fact many female explorers out there who could be involved in a future investigation. With this in mind, I should reiterate the call made by Garrett and Hawkins (2014) and Bennett (2013) for future researchers to attend to this discernible gap in the research. Sadly, few females were ever part of ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia while I conducted my investigation, and as for those who were we did not spend enough time with them to ever be able to say they were key characters.

Re-Imagining Urban Exploration What follows next are the conclusions based on what has been analysed throughout this book. To start with, the angle I took was that ‘the Boyz’ are part of a major historical phenomenon that began sometime in the

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mid-twentieth century. What I have in mind here is the interregnum which represents the ongoing shift from ‘solid’ modernity to a ‘liquid’ version that appears to be its antipode (Bordoni 2016). It is unknown when it began exactly, or when it will end, but what we can say with certainty is that we must try to get to grips with the processes of this event because it is unlikely to culminate anytime soon. I would argue that one way of doing this is to look at the forms of devotional leisure that are becoming fashionable as people try to establish a sense of purpose in their lives. As Bauman (2000) has argued, since people are no longer bound by the rules and traditions of community they are forced to find their own meaning in the world and this involves finding creative ways of surviving in among the loneliness, uncertainty and insecurity that is everywhere around us. With these points in mind, what I have argued is that urban explorers adopt the strategy of forming temporary spaces of compensation as a way of surviving, and in doing so they satisfy both their need for theatrical and intense experiences and their desire for belonging and companionship. As Foucault (1984) suggests, these spaces can be referred to as heterotopias of deviation. There is of course a crucial problem with Foucault’s original concept, and this is that he only ever mentioned it on three occasions. What this means is that he never went on to develop the idea in relation to the things going on in the world around us (Palladino and Miller 2016). This is perhaps why the concept of heterotopia has inspired so many scholars to try and expand the idea. For instance, as it was mentioned in Chapter 2, an attempt has already been made to apply the concept to urban exploration (see: Kindynis and Garrett 2015). Nevertheless, I would argue that the way it has been applied to this particular type of leisure has limitations because it does not appear to have been understood nor employed correctly. My response, therefore, was to deal with the concept more rigorously by invoking Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘complex interaction of three interwoven, yet distinct processes – those of cognitive, moral and aesthetic spacings’ (1993: 145). I also responded by drawing heavily on Jacques Derrida’s (1995) idea of khôra, which is arguably very similar to the concept of heterotopia in the way it represents the same kind of nonlocatable non-space. In any event, by unpicking each of the processes

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highlighted by Bauman I was able to argue that heterotopia is all about the need to control social space. This then enabled me to go on to suggest that being in control allows ‘the Boyz’ to occupy two different but distinct positions and for this reason we might refer to them as khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire (Blackshaw 2017). What also emerged from my critical discussion was the suggestion that neither position can be privileged over the other so long as the true magic of heterotopia is desired. In a nutshell then, reflecting on the notions of proximity and distance that all three spaces deploy has allowed me to expose a group of urban explorers as being true ‘artists of life’ as they carefully manipulate social space to find both a sense of personal fulfilment and the warmness of belonging through their choice of devotional leisure (Blackshaw 2017). However, to provide a comprehensive interpretation of heterotopia it was not enough to simply identify how ‘the Boyz’ control social space. Therefore, to delve deeper into the workings of heterotopic social space I found it important to also frame the interpenetrating and intertwining strategies they adopt for living when they are together. In effect, these ‘life strategies’, to borrow another expression employed by Bauman (1996), embody what ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia is all about and how the balance between being a skhol¯er and a khôraster is maintained. To put it another way, I coined four life strategies to frame how ‘the Boyz’ manage to find meaning and establish their own way of becoming in the interregnum. Indeed, as the reader will likely have noticed, most of them perhaps seem offensive and abhorrent; yet, this was done intentionally (and instrumentally) to remain faithful to the image a group of urban explorers try to create for themselves. In other words, they are meant to be provocative and shocking to stay true to the performativity of ‘the Boyz’ and lay bare an accurate interpretation of an inimitable heterotopia that would prefer to be seen as something that is a little bit bad and ever so slightly mad. In addition to providing a thorough analysis of the heterotopia of a group of urban explorers, viewing things in the way that I have has allowed me to advance the study of urban exploration in other ways as I have been able to attend to several underlying problems with extant research. In the first instance, I have managed to address the Situationist claim that urban exploration can be used as a means of escaping the

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consumerist foundations of present modernity. My foremost criticism of this viewpoint is that it overlooks the argument that people cannot help but be part of a consumerist society in the twenty-first century. As Baurdrillard (1994) reminds us, it is an inescapable feature of modern-day life. In response, then, I have argued that it does not matter that the likes of ‘the Boyz’ are part and parcel of the interregnum’s consumer culture. Even though their heterotopic social space is connected to the politics, aesthetics and urban infrastructure created by consumer capitalism it is still its own unique event—a fantasy that is nothing more and nothing less than the creativity and performativity that injects life into it. What this means is that heterotopias built around urban exploration should not be viewed as being limited by consumerism, instead they owe their existence to it. Therefore, to move forwards with our understandings and interpretations of heterotopia, urban exploration and indeed even leisure more broadly, what I suggest is that it might be useful to temporarily set aside any prejudices we have about consumer capitalism and stop denouncing it as something that is always inherently evil. After all, there are many individuals who are not docile beings. There are many people who have the capacity and willingness to take advantage of the present condition and manipulate it so that it suits their own needs and desires. Another problem with extant urban exploration research I have addressed is the fondness some scholars have for the concept of ‘community’. That is to say, I have responded to Bennett’s (2011) identification of the ‘bunkerologist’ and Garrett’s (2013) suggestion that urban explorers might be viewed as people who represent a ‘tightly fractured community’. As I have argued throughout, the idea of community has been transformed in the period of interregnum we currently find ourselves in. What this means is that the traditional idea of community has gradually become what Beck (2002) would refer to as a ‘zombie’ concept. Of course, this suggestion is a difficult one to receive, and it perhaps seems a little nightmarish because few people would like to admit that there is no such thing as community as sociologists have traditionally understood it. Yet, the situation we face is not a completely pessimistic one once we accept that change has taken place; all that

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is required is that we transform our ways of understanding ‘community’ in the twenty-first century. Hence, as the reader knows, this study espouses Bauman’s (2000) notion of ‘communities’ that are more fluid and neo-tribal. This is one of the reasons why the concept of heterotopia was employed, because it can be juxtaposed against the utopian dream of ‘community’ to reveal urban explorers’ showgrounds of Dionysian performativity. As ‘the Boyz have shown, when we view the concept of ‘community’ from a heterotopian context it reveals itself as an entirely different sort of beast, where irrationality takes the place of rationality. The last way this book has advanced existing studies of urban exploration is by attending to the argument that urban explorers are ‘rebels’ seeking to redemocratise and decommodify urban space. By unpacking this idea, I have revealed that the professed rebellion is more imaginative than it is real because people are more concerned about finding their fifteen minutes of fame under the limelight. Following the ideas of Mathiesen (1997), I have argued that as methods of surveillance have evolved urban explorers find themselves controlled, almost unwittingly, by makeshift synoptic strategies where the point is to see and be seen by the surrounding masses. In other words, it has been revealed that urban explorers such as ‘the Boyz’ in fact crave opportunities where they are able to display their ‘deviant’ performative selves. In this regard, it can be suggested, in something of an ironic twist, that urban explorers are effectively actors in the surveillance of themselves.

The Ongoing Myth This book concludes by offering a clear definition of a particular kind of heterotopic social space. At its most basic, it is the physical exploration of human-made structures and sites, especially those that are abandoned or remain largely unseen in ordinary day-to-day life. However, on a second and much more profound level, when it is framed through a leisure studies framework (specifically Blackshaw’s [2017] devotional leisure thesis), it is much more than this. Although urban exploration would ostensibly appear to be a rebellious form of deviant leisure, my research reveals that it is in fact an expression of performativity and theatricality.

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This is important because performativity has become the new criterion of authenticity of truth in the twenty-first century (Lyotard 1984). What this means, then, is that ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia has everything to do with emancipation, freedom and feelings of dissatisfaction with the everyday world. At the same time, though, this heterotopic social space is something that feels homely and is charged with powerful feelings of meaning and belonging. In other words, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia can be defined as a way of exploiting the darker side of modernity that leads all those who are part of it into a magical space of compensation where there is room to fulfil two essential vocations. For this reason, heterotopic social space can be defined as being the home of khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire. With that last point in mind, it should have been made clear throughout this book how much imagination and versatility goes into the invention and creation of a heterotopia. As the reader has observed, heterotopic social space is a bizarre world that is carefully positioned between both the real and imaginary and this is what makes it far superior to anything else located in the everyday. It is this unique position that provides the best of both worlds and as a result it appears to cause paroxysms of nostalgia and excitement to be more powerful and encapsulating than they would be normally or if they were merely imagined. The extraordinary position of heterotopia also means that each time it reappears it is likely to be similar to the last, but it is never quite the same either because in some way or another there is always something about it that is different. In other words, freed from the sticky tribulations of commitment, the obvious influence of consumerist strategies and the mundanity and sameness of everydayness, each time heterotopia materialises it presents itself as an opportunity to completely immerse the body in a task of self-established performativity alongside likeminded others. It is here, therefore, in khôra, where absolutely everything feels possible if the imagination permits it. In a nutshell, ‘the Boyz’ heterotopic social space might best be described as an ongoing myth that appears to have no end in sight. While every episodic chapter of the heterotopia has certain predictable qualities, observing them is rather like watching a television series unfold. What I mean by this is that there will always be unexpected twists in the

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tale that take ‘the Boyz’ by surprise as their quest for freedom, authenticity and belonging continues. And yet, at the same time many of the memories, images, emotions and fantasies created by ‘the Boyz’ serve to become progressively more meaningful as time goes on. This is why their passion and love for the heterotopia becomes more powerful and spellbinding every time they bring the world of WildBoyz back to life. In the end, what ‘the Boyz’ create is not really fantasy at all, while it is active it becomes both a cosy and exciting place that feels more real than anything else they have ever experienced. As Mayhem once put it while trying to explain the heterotopia in his own way: ‘it’s like gettin’ inter bed with four dirty sluts and fuckin’ em all at once’. In other words, it is warm and inviting but also rich with excitement and intoxicating allure. However, since heterotopic social space is a discursive event, it is inevitable that the lives of khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire must inevitably return to the task of living in the interregnum. Until the next time that is. As a way of rounding things off, then, before ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia follows its natural course and begins to lose its vigour and intensity as it recedes into non-existence once more, we shall return briefly just one last time. — It was eleven o’clock and ‘the Boyz’ were meeting on the roof of a rundown multi-story car park. With ‘Frosty Jack’s’ bottles and a few pairs of abandoned knickers strewn around the place, and the odd Tesco carrier bag fluttering in the gentle evening breeze, the site could easily have been described as a shithole. It didn’t matter though; this was just our meeting point and the most convenient place to ditch the cars. What was important was that aside from ourselves, the area was completely deserted. As they appeared, each of ‘the Boyz’ squeezed into Box’s new VW Golf to join in on the sharing of a very large ‘dirty’ chicken tikka pizza. Inside the car the smell was pungent. A rich mixture of sweaty socks, melted cheese and cheap curry powder. But, none of ‘the Boyz’ seemed to care as they devoured the pizza slices to the sound of their favourite tune: ‘Wild Boys’. It has been a few months since we’d all had a gathering like this, but already we could feel an intensifying sense of

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excitement was building. For a while we talked and laughed, but all the while we kept glancing eagerly out of the front windscreen at Newton Aycliffe’s ‘legendary’ clock tower. Our plan was simple. We were going to get inside the structure and stand among the five bells hanging at the top. As part of the town’s ongoing ‘programme of regeneration’ which has been in progress on and off ever since I can remember, the beige-coloured brick tower was finally going through the process of being ‘refurbished’ and ‘preserved’. This was something I was pleased about; it is after all one of the last remaining tokens of Lord Beveridge’s visions for the area, so you might call it iconic. However, this was not the reason we were trying to ‘urbex it’. The clock meant a great deal more to ‘the Boyz’ because we had all grown up with it constantly lurking on the horizon. We grew up hearing its chimes resound far and wide across the utopian shithole we still like to call home, and it was symblomatic of our friendship and collectiveness for this is where we would often meet on Saturday afternoons when we were teenagers. In other words, we were being enticed by a raging sense of nostalgia and our resolve to experience ‘the good old days’ once again. That was not the only thing tempting us of course, the excitement and adventure it would no doubt provide also had an important part to play. With everyone present and accounted for—Mayhem, MKD, Box, Husky and Soul—we ditched the cars and headed in the direction of the cracked concrete ramp that would take us into the town centre. Reflecting back on us here, though, I am aware how much ‘the Boyz’ had changed. Not unlike Newton Aycliffe town centre, time seemed to have taken its toll on the collective. Forty-Seven’s absence was no longer noticed. Rags had managed to get ‘a proper job’ so he became much less willing to take risks for fear of jeopardising his career. And, Rizla seemed to gradually slip away from the group after falling into the arms of a ‘crazy bitch’ who wanted his cock for two essential reasons: kids and benefits. However, while some of ‘the Boyz’ faded into the background new characters such as Husky and Soul established their places in the group and the performative fiction still carries on to this day. And so, even with some of the group missing and new people added to the mix the next few hours would still take us back and restore our heterotopia and its epic craic once more.

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I close then not with an ending but an interminable new beginning, with ‘the Boyz’ heterotopia reigniting itself in all its performativity. Even now I feel a pang of nostalgia writing these words. This new explore was going to be a fucking good one. We could already feel the magic of our special world unfurling as it permeated our bodies and minds, and we joked upon reaching the base of the clock tower that this venture might even result in us receiving the prize of making another appearance in the news. Not that this truly mattered in the end though. What really mattered was that ‘the Boyz’ were back together and the craic was ‘absolutely mint’. After all, what use is fame and freedom if you are alone? It is on this note that this book ends. But I leave the reader with one final suggestion. When heterotopia calls you must drop what you are doing and go. There is a ‘paradise’ waiting to be restored (Fig. 10.1). —

Fig. 10.1

Newton Aycliffe Clock Tower

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References Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Bauman, Z. (1993). Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell. Bauman, Z. (1996). From Pilgrim to Tourist—Or a Short History of Identity. In S. Hall & P. Du Gay (Eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 18–36). London: Sage. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck, U. (2002). ‘Zombie Categories’: Interview with Ulrich Beck. In U. Beck & E. Beck-Gernsheim (Eds.), Individualisation. London: Sage. Bennett, L. (2011). Bunkerology—A Case Study in the Theory and Practice of Urban Exploration. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29, 421–434. Bennett, L. (2013). Who Goes There? Accounting for Gender in the Urge to Explore Abandoned Military Bunkers. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 20 (5), 630–646. Blackshaw, T. (2017). Re-Imagining Leisure Studies. Oxon: Routledge. Bordoni, C. (2016). Interregnum: Beyond Liquid Modernity. Bielefeld: Verlag. Derrida, J. (1990). Some Statements etc. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Derrida, J. (1995). Khôra. In T. Dutoit (Ed.), On the Name. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Foucault, M. (1984). Of Other Spaces (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). Diacritics, 16 (1), 22–27. Garrett, B. (2013). Undertaking Recreational Trespass: Urban Exploration and Infiltration. Transactions, 39, 1–13. Garrett, B., & Hawkins, H. (2014). And Now For Something Completely Diffferent… Thinking Through Explorer Subject-Bodies: A Response to Mott and Roberts. Antipode. [online]. Available at: http://radicalantipode. files.wordpress.com/2013/11/garrett-and-hawkins-response.pdf. Accessed 24 April 2020. Geertz, C. (1973). Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. New York: Basic Books. Kindynis, T., & Garrett, B. (2015). Entering the Maze: Space, Time and Exclusion in an Abandoned Northern Ireland Prison. Crime Media Culture, 11(1), 5–20. Kindynis, T. (2017). Urban Exploration: From Subterranea to Spectacle. British Journal of Criminology, 57 (4), 982–1001.

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Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mathiesen, T. (1997). The Viewer Society. Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 215– 234. Mott, C., & Roberts, S. (2014). Not Everyone Has (the) Balls: Urban Exploration and the Persistence of Masculinist Geography. Antipode, 46 (1), 229–245. Palladino, M., & Miller, J. (2016). Introduction. In J. Miller (Ed.), The Globalization of Space: Foucault and Heterotopia. Oxon: Routledge.

Index

A

abandoned hospital 63, 64, 66 abandoned hotel 173 adiaphorous 178, 179 Adorno, Theodor 202 aestheticisation aesthetics of decay 20–22 aesthetic spacing 153, 157, 159, 160, 171 aesthetic manipulation 163 being for 34, 183, 187 being with 182, 183, 187 floating responsibility 179 air raid shelter Victoria Tunnel 141, 146 ambivalence 78, 79, 89, 104, 147, 178 Arendt, Hannah 180, 186 art of living 9, 94, 115 Austin, John 122

authenticity 27, 31, 42, 79, 123, 147, 268, 269

B

Baudrillard, Jean 26, 42, 159, 161, 166 Bauman, Zygmunt 5, 8, 11, 13, 15, 19, 22, 30–32, 34, 37, 42, 45, 54, 58, 60, 68, 71, 77–79, 82, 83, 89, 93, 96, 99, 101, 102, 114, 129, 130, 135, 136, 138, 140, 144, 147, 148, 153, 158, 159, 161, 163, 167, 171, 172, 178, 181, 183–185, 187, 195, 196, 204, 207, 220, 238, 242, 243, 245, 246, 249, 260, 264, 265, 267 Bech, Henning 58, 65, 161, 166 Beckett, Samuel

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 K. P. Bingham, An Ethnography of Urban Exploration, Leisure Studies in a Global Era, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56251-9

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Index

Molloy 203 Beck, Ulrich 5, 33, 40, 43, 56, 78, 139, 147, 260, 266 belonging 5, 9, 12, 14, 42, 58, 122, 123, 135, 136, 138, 140, 149, 167, 188, 216, 219, 222, 246, 252, 262, 264, 265, 268, 269 Benjamin, Walter 158, 159 Bennett, Luke 4, 27, 29–32, 35, 263, 266 Beveridge, William 81 the Beveridge Report 82, 270 binary opposites 59 Bingham, Kevin 217 Blackshaw, Tony 6–9, 11, 14, 15, 24, 26, 33, 34, 36, 38, 42, 43, 55–59, 61, 62, 71, 78–80, 91, 92, 94, 99, 102, 103, 110, 113, 114, 118–125, 130, 138, 139, 143, 147–149, 153, 166, 167, 182, 185, 189, 196, 197, 204, 206, 207, 213–216, 218–221, 243, 245, 246, 248, 252, 262, 265, 267 Bordoni, Carlo 5, 19, 91, 92, 178, 182, 248, 264 Bourdieu, Pierre 31, 34 Bridge House Hotel 239, 241, 244–247 Butler, Judith 32, 118, 165, 206, 214, 248

C

Caputo, John 119, 179, 182 cognitive spacing 129, 135, 140, 149, 153, 157, 171 community 5, 9, 29–34, 39, 43, 58, 94, 98, 103, 105, 113, 114,

118–122, 124, 129, 130, 135, 136, 138, 139, 144, 147, 149, 167, 208, 260, 264, 266, 267 Gemeinschaft 58, 136 Gesellschaft 138 homeliness 105, 114, 115, 118, 138, 153, 208, 215, 222 consumer capitalism consumerism 26, 36, 80, 90, 104, 202, 243, 266 craic. See the craic crowd 182, 183

D

darker side of modernity 80, 94, 104, 147, 187, 268 Debord, Guy 23–26, 38 deconstruction 183, 184, 188 Deleuze, Gilles 15, 60, 158, 166, 197, 202–204 Derrida, Jacques 8, 54, 59, 62, 118, 119, 144, 183, 184, 259, 264 différance 184 monsters and pets 54, 259 DeSilvey, Caitlin 4, 22 deviance 5–7, 26, 35, 38, 53, 57, 68, 94, 103, 104, 119, 185, 197, 239, 243, 245–249, 263, 267 devotional leisure 6, 8, 9, 14, 110, 118, 119, 122, 125, 131, 188, 262, 264, 265, 267 khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire 14, 122, 182, 189, 262, 265, 268, 269 Dionysus (performativity) 7, 45, 182, 189, 267

Index

discourse 3, 10, 22, 28, 34, 37, 43, 44, 54, 60, 114, 137, 138, 143, 179, 225 discursive formation 44, 99, 180, 269 disenchantment 77, 78, 89–94, 98, 102, 104 enchantment 8, 14, 79, 80, 90–92, 94, 96, 102, 104, 182, 202 Dobraszczyk, Paul 4, 22, 23 docile bodies 29, 35, 160, 266 doxa 33, 43, 56, 72, 135, 187, 225, 262 Durham Palladium Theatre 112, 114, 120, 185

277

Ford Mayhem 63, 217 forgiveness 100, 101, 147 Foucault, Michel 6–8, 10–12, 29, 39, 43–45, 57, 69, 80, 93, 98–103, 119, 124, 125, 129, 130, 144, 160, 173, 183, 189, 218, 242, 248, 251, 260, 261, 264 Ship of Fools 251 Freud, Sigmund 78 fulfilment 14, 103, 110, 140, 149, 163, 189, 238, 246, 252, 262, 265

G E

ecosophy. See Guattari, Félix Edensor, Tim 4, 21, 22, 35 edgework 235 episodic 8, 34, 56, 57, 93, 102, 122, 144, 163, 166, 167, 196, 268 ethnography 13, 26, 44, 55, 57, 59, 61, 68, 246 insiderness 13, 55, 56, 59, 60, 62, 71, 217, 262 experimentation 4, 21, 24, 29, 39, 139, 159, 205

Garrett, Bradley 4, 5, 11, 21, 24–30, 32–39, 43–45, 58, 135, 238, 246, 263, 264, 266 tight-fractured community 30, 32, 43, 266 Geertz, Clifford 67, 262 Giddens, Anthony 6, 78, 79, 90 Goffman, Erving 144 Guattari, Félix 15, 21, 60, 166, 197, 202–204 Guignon, Charles 42

H F

felicity conditions (Austin) 122, 124, 138, 149, 188, 204, 218 authenticity 8, 123, 124 authorisation 8, 122 sincerity 8, 123, 124, 214 flâneur 23, 25, 30, 158–161

habitat 32, 34 habitus 31, 34 Heidegger, Martin 100, 123, 136 Heller, Agnus 5, 92, 113, 123 hermeneutics hermeneutic sociology 13, 58, 59, 61, 71, 130, 188, 196, 262

278

Index

sociological hermeneutics 13, 15, 58, 59, 61, 71, 77, 130, 188, 262 heterotopia heterotopia (Foucault) 7, 8, 43 heterotopic social space 8, 9, 55, 62, 98, 104, 195, 267 Horkheimer, Max 202 Huizinga, Johan 154, 157, 158 Husserl, Edmund 218

I

illusion of socialisation 181, 182 socialisation 181, 184 imagination. See the imaginary inner chaos 161–167, 185 interregnum 13, 15, 19, 91–94, 102, 104, 120, 122, 129, 130, 132, 138, 140, 144, 147, 149, 157, 159, 162, 167, 172, 178, 182, 183, 187–189, 195–197, 202–205, 207, 208, 218, 221, 238, 245, 248, 251, 252, 260, 262, 264–266, 269 intuition 55, 58, 61, 62, 71, 262

J

Jameson, Fredric 82, 220

K

Kant, Immanuel 148, 223 khôra 8, 119, 123, 164, 166, 179, 182, 183, 185, 187, 189, 211, 221, 264, 268 khôraster 111, 115, 119, 149, 153, 154, 161, 163, 166, 167, 171,

178, 181, 188, 206, 223, 230, 233, 248, 252, 263, 265 Kindynis, Theo and Garrett, Bradley heterotopia 11, 43–45, 264

L

leisure studies 6, 12, 14, 20, 61, 110, 267 life strategies 6, 9, 14, 130, 190, 195–197, 207, 222, 238, 250–252, 262, 265 liquid modernity 19, 27, 30, 31, 33, 38, 77, 89, 93, 264 liquid modern 5, 23, 32, 39, 72 Lyotard, Jean-François 15, 41, 79, 80, 93, 100, 197, 220, 223, 225, 226, 228, 229, 232–237, 268

M

Maffesoli, Michel 111, 182, 183, 187 puissance 183 market-mediated 78, 80, 104 masculinity 28, 29 Mathiesen, Thomas 38, 197, 238, 242, 246, 267 media whores (life strategy) 238, 239, 241, 243, 245, 246, 248, 250, 252 methodology 53–57, 71, 262, 263 moral spacing 171, 172, 179, 181, 182, 187 Mott, Carrie and Roberts, Sue 5, 28–30, 34, 263 Mould, Oli 4, 24–26, 35–39, 238

Index

N

Newton Aycliffe 78, 81–83, 85, 86, 89, 91, 93, 94, 101, 103, 270 Nietzsche, Friedrich 91, 158, 162 nightmare of disenchantment. See disenchantment non-absolute. See devotional leisure, khôrasters-skhol¯ers extraordinaire North East (region) 55, 62, 201, 208, 244–246 North Sea Producer 224, 229, 232, 234 nostalgia 21, 41, 42, 131, 132, 197, 207, 212–215, 217–220, 222, 268, 270 mundane 197, 212, 215–221 spectacular 165, 197, 212, 215, 218–222 nostalgics (life strategy). See nostalgia

O

olfactory system 217 outsiders. See the Fr3e Roamers Ouvrage Latiremont 208, 210, 214–216, 218, 220

P

panopticism 5, 24, 36–39, 173, 238, 242 parasitical (life strategy) 222, 223, 228, 230, 233, 237, 252 performativity Lyotard 41, 79, 268 performative identity 6, 36, 143, 188, 201, 206 performative leisure 118, 119 photography 39

279

Pinder, David 4, 24, 27 place hacking 27, 34 polysemy 148, 198, 200, 202, 206 power and control 36, 113, 138, 140, 144, 147, 148, 153, 166, 179, 189 psychogeography 4, 23–25

Q

Queen’s Head Inn 154 Quiffs 201, 204

R

reciprocity. See spatial arrangement residential care home 87, 89, 93, 100, 102 Ricœur, Paul 100, 101, 143, 144, 147, 148, 179 Rojek, Chris 20, 40, 56, 79, 94, 113, 185 Rorty, Richard 46, 54, 57

S

Sartre, Jean-Paul 45, 46 schizophrenia schizo (life strategy) 197, 198, 202–206, 245, 252 Schütz, Alfred 55, 56, 136, 137, 140, 146, 148 Sheffield Ski Village 132, 133, 136, 139, 143, 146, 178, 235, 237 Simmel, Georg 40, 145, 147 simulacra. See Baudrillard, Jean Situationism 4, 23, 24, 26, 265 skhol¯er 111, 113–115, 129, 131, 136–138, 143, 144, 146, 148,

280

Index

149, 154, 188, 214, 248, 252, 263, 265 Sloterdijk, Peter 5, 109, 157, 161, 162, 183 sociality 181, 182, 184, 187 Southend pier 199 spatial arrangement 131, 137, 140, 148, 157 spillway 94–97, 99–103 Spracklen, Karl 94, 250 sublimation Silence 226, 228, 230 the differend 222, 223, 225, 226, 228, 229, 231, 233, 237 the sublime 197, 222, 223, 225, 227–229, 231, 232 the traumatic sublime 234–236 synoptic 38, 39, 197, 238, 243, 246, 248–250, 267 synopticon. See synoptic

T

telecity 161–163, 166, 167, 204 the craic 63, 64, 121, 132, 139, 154, 155, 164, 197, 207–210, 212–217, 219–221, 270, 271 the Fr3e Roamers 141, 145, 146, 148, 149, 196, 208, 239, 243–247, 250 the imaginary 3, 7, 34, 62, 83, 144, 197, 205, 214, 229, 250, 268 thick description 67, 262

U

urban exploration (definition) 4, 267 urbex. See urban exploration (definition) utopia 7, 13, 22, 45, 78, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 91, 93, 96, 98, 103–105, 211, 220, 267, 270

V

value-sphere (Weber) 113, 114, 118, 119, 137, 138 visual phenomena 228

W

Wagner, Peter 77, 79, 89, 162 Weber, Max 67, 77–79, 90, 92, 113, 118 WildBoyz 6, 14, 55, 62, 63, 68, 105, 122, 124, 129, 131, 135, 137, 139, 145, 148, 163, 173, 180, 195, 196, 201, 204, 206–208, 211, 214, 217, 221, 243, 244, 246, 247, 250, 260, 261, 269 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 90

Z

Žižek, Slavoj 82, 90, 124 zombie categories zombie 5, 33, 43, 56, 266