Going ahead with the concept of time, we decided to research how the rhythm of time changes a space (Lefebvre, 2004). Hannah was researching on the rush hour, Lili - lunch hour, Allie was supposed to do the golden hour and I decided to do the happy hour. It was interesting to see how these different zones spilled over the other, especially how the happy hour spilled into the morning hour of the meat market. During the week, an interesting finding was that people who had frequented pubs and bars at night would crowd at the morning hour where the meat market opened.
During our visits to the Smithfield rotunda in the specific time zones, we started uncovering different parts of history that co-related to the gory past of the City of London. We found the water fountain which was the first drinking fountain in London. This water fountain represented the drastic living conditions of London, where beer was preferred over the drinking water. There was also a trough for the cattle as the live meat market was close by.
These artifacts got us interested in the history of Smithfield. We discovered many historic monuments pertaining to Smithfield, like the execution memorial of Watt Tyler and William Wallace, the Golden boy of pye corner, etc. Discovering these rich historic facts, we decided to dig deeper into the area and its stories.
During one such visit, two men told Alexandra a story about the bishop’s finger. This story was a fabricated one, but it was often in the pub and we started realizing how urban legends and stories like these had seeped their way into the culture of the people of Smithfield.
This story of the bishop’s finger was humorous in spite of having a terrible gory past. This made us think about how the tragedy in history can be told in a comic way.
We decided to do an artifact analysis about all the monuments we found in and around the Smithfield rotunda. We thought this would give us a deeper insight into the stories.
We also did a historic timeline of the area to figure out the historic events happened in Smithfield. One such important piece of history was the Peasants revolt.
Feedback
During tutorials, Mor and John guided us toward transmedia storytelling and psychogeography. Our tutors also thought that finding different ways to retrieve these stories would be interesting. We also spoke about how we did not want to lose the concept of time and we realised we work through it once we gather the stories of the city of London which we wanted to tell.
Takeways
We decided to gather urban legends and stories by using the research method of storytelling. We also thought about our target audience and realized these people were always on the go. We thought about how we could deliver these stories on the go.
I learned the importance that history plays at a space.
References
BBC- In our time, peasants revolt, podcast.
Lefebvre, H., 2004. Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life. A&C Black.
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