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| Birmingham, September 2013 |
In a quest for
further visual and mental stimulation on Birmingham’s canal banks, my friend
Dave and I set off to cycle another stretch of that city’s waterways network
the other day. We started at Gas Street Basin, which is an excellent example of a once prime industrial/infrastructural
site having being designated as ‘heritage’ and re-dedicated to the demands of
the leisure, hospitality and cultural industries in the 21st century. A mere step away from Birmingham’s main
cultural attractions and baser entertainment hot spots on Broad Street, it
feels hemmed in by city centre towers and flashy, over-designed facades. The basin itself offers waterside drinking
and dining and numerous opportunities for water trips and narrow-boat
‘experiences’ of various kinds. The
renovated barges themselves, moored up in rows, resemble the quaintest of time
machines stranded in a bizarre, schizophrenic future their builders could never
have imagined.
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| Birmingham, September 2013 |
Rather than
seeking out photo opportunities here, we merely focused on pushing our bikes
through the strolling Saturday afternoon crowds and waterside drinkers before
finally mounting up to head southwest along the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. In retrospect, I wonder if this was an
opportunity missed. The experience of
such places is very different in tone from those absorbed on our previous trip,
when our ride had placed us right on the bleeding edge of the remains of
traditional workaday Birmingham or else observing its physical transformation in progress. However, it’s easy to rely too heavily on prior expectations and maybe I should be making greater attempts to account for the weird hyper-reality of such recently developed urban quarters as well as the more visually ragged and nuanced sources on which I generally rely. I’m not really sure how but finding out could be interesting. Indeed, a deeper visual interrogation of such locations might actually assuage some of the alienation I habitually feel in the face of their apparent vacuity. If this is to be increasingly the new ‘reality’ then better to explore its true Ballardian nature than merely slide over its surfaces.
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| Birmingham, September 2013 |
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| Birmingham University Station, September, 2013 |
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| Birmingham University Station, September 2013 |
This mismatch
between our expectations and the actual experience became a theme of the whole
ride. As we headed out through Edgbaston
and towards Birmingham University, we found ourselves in a world of verdant
suburbia, joggers, the middle class voices of strolling freshers and a Uni. canoe club social. Even the parallel
electrified railway, - something that would normally draw my lens, seemed too immersed
in lush foliage to really provide a subject I could respond too. We found ourselves working hard to latch onto
what fragments of graffiti we could, although there was something genuinely
interesting about the conjunction of spray paint and contemporary brushed metal
on the supports of the new University Station footbridge. This was accented by the aesthetic paradox
of a traditional cast metal bridge number plaque applied to its sleek cladding.
We came to the conclusion that, whilst perfectly pleasant for a modest ride, this stretch of canal was just too polite and lacked enough genuine edge to really excite us visually. I do, however, wonder if it might provide a different experience in winter. The structural qualities of the railway might appear starker then, and the overall visual experience become more tonal and subject to contrasts, rather than just green. It interests me that, just as I found myself short of an adequate response to the redevelopment at the start of our ride, so I struggled equally to get a handle on this terrain too. I find no shortage of stimulation in those areas that fit the criteria of 'Edgelands' but am yet to adequately assimilate what might be termed 'Complacent Suburbia'.
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| A38, Birmingham, September 2013 |
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| The Search For Sanity Goes On: A38, Birmingham, September 2013 |
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| A38, Birmingham, September 2013 |
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| A38, Birmingham, September 2013 |
We aborted our
outbound progress at the point where the canal passes over the A38 on a high aquaduct,
alongside the railway on its parallel bridge.
Here, I indulged my enthusiasm for those locations where comparative
forms of transport infrastructure meet, and to capture still shots and some
video footage of trains crossing the bridge as motor vehicles circulated
hypnotically on the roundabout junction below.
This was the first outing for my new video camera. (Dave had already shot some footage through
the windscreen on the Motorway journey from Leicester and, whilst it’s early
days, the results look encouraging).
The
civil engineering here has an intriguing banality, with clearly defined edges
and supremely characterless routes, and It felt like we had finally discovered something resembling a genuine sense of place. We
gazed down on uncannily smooth tarmac, crisp road markings and four incongruous
pedestrians crossing the carriageway like visitors to an alien planet. We also commented on the strange illusory sensation that it might be possible to stroll across the calm surface of the canal behind us in its shallow, concrete trough. I sometimes wonder if this fascination with the mundane must just look like an artistic affectation, yet the bizarre resonance of such places is something that manifests itself instantaneously, long before I've had time to analyse a situation.
Feeling slightly
underwhelmed but content to have been in the saddle, we headed back into Town. Subsequent viewings of Google Maps suggest there might be scope to extend
this ride at least as far as Bourneville, (for views of ‘Chocolate City’), on
another day. Instead, we took the
opportunity to visit Birmingham’s impressive new public library, although not before I'd paused to record the wild calligraphy of corrosion on two nearby skips.
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| Birmingham, September 2013 |
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| Birmingham, September 2013 |
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