The Elsewheres for the Modern Soul

Through psychogeography, finding alternatives to our advertisement saturated society.

It’s everywhere - the same mass-produced artificial neon sign, OPEN. It hangs above the door to shops, an invitation to exchange work for possession. Low, on the wet and filthy street, the reflection is flipped and warped.

How many faces do we see that aren’t alive? A face promoting perfume, another, for a must-have outfit. Some have been pasted over, the old ones forgotten, weeds beginning to penetrate the raw, uncovered skin.

On the street corner a temporary scaffold has appeared to paint the façade of a commercial unit, ready for its new personality, ready to be stripped of the old one.

Relentless, endless traffic. Planned routes, always aimed at taking the least amount of time. Light change in their endless cycles, as consistent as the sun.

People swarm the pavements, never daring to allow their feet to leave the kerb side. Weaving like liquid they accept the invitation of the neon sign, of the perfume ad and of the bright lights. All mirrored on the soaking asphalt.

The constant, permanent, predictable rhythm of consumerism. The machine at play that never disappoints the factory owner.

Alas, the signs are turned off, the displays are shuttered. It’s now time for what was purchased through the day to be displayed at night, as work turns into relaxation and the product is consumables.

The flesh on display becomes the final consumer good. The crowd emerges wearing the very items bought hours before - the fast-fashion uniforms of the Instagram and Dubai dream, transforming the human body into a literal performance of the daytime billboards.

The people are exhausted from the lights, from the routes, and from the factory owner. They need to let themselves go, return to their primal selves for the night. The mating dance is about to commence, and it means I must find my own asylum.

Exiting the street, I find truth. A dangerous one, found in an alleyway, where everything is flipped, but it’s not a reflection. In this long lane, a stain on the shirt of the pristine facades of retail outlets, everything has been left behind. Each square foot has been starved of the attention and funding that comes with capitalism. The only entities here are purely utilitarian. Bins, air conditioning units, bleak, undecorated windows and shutters. All things that have existed for centuries.

The alleyway welcomes me, as if, in its stillness it knows me. Here is where I can feel. Strip away materialism, endless advertisements and falsehoods, and what is left is only reality. I live in a world where everything in an urban environment is designed to take and exploit. It wants to upsell; it wants to make you work harder for less but to consume more. Existence in its truest form doesn’t matter in the centre of the city, only an injection of what you should be thinking and how you should behave. Here, I am free from the path of the combine harvester of consumer capitalism.

Although invisible in this darkness, on each side is an opening onto which I can peer upon the happenings of the night. My own theatre box to view the accepted normal. I’m good at remaining unnoticed. Only the active participants in the daily game are noticed. I on the other hand, don’t showcase the results of adverts and therefore cannot be judged on them.

Those revellers, now totally impaired, have abandoned the drone-like routines of their daytime existence. They have temporarily escaped the artificial trap of 'succeeding' – the endless, unsatisfying desire for material wealth.

I am not always alone in the shadows. On more than one occasion I have found rough sleepers, and people injecting. It’s only fitting that they seek the same asylum, away from where they are reminded that they should be striving to achieve more. They live in a world that is constantly telling them they are not enough. No wonder it has been too much to keep up in the rat race. So far they have been of no danger to me, and I believe this is because I notice them, unlike the machine that has ground them up and discarded them in the “unsightly” elsewhere.

The simple offer of a cigarette is the only human embrace they need to stop them turning instantly self-defensive, rightly untrusting of the people out with the sanctuary of the alley.

The cigarette gesture piques curiosity – they’ll have had this before. In the form of pity. But they know me, they know I am not a simple passer by.

I, a recovering alcoholic, have been down that road and I know it’s direction. They can see it in me as much as I see it in them. Although not destitute, I have sought the sanctuary of alleyways and underpasses to consume alcohol, away from the expectations that surround me, a mere few feet away.

It’s always with my head low I depart my shelter, ready to re-join the flow of an alternate reality, routine and the scripted normalcy. Always I return, though, always in search of different areas which reflect this truth – be it underpasses, bridges, disused factories, or car parks.

These are the liminal spaces, the elsewheres shyly waiting, unpretentious and undecorated, to allow you to breathe and find yourself. These are the spaces that have been rejected, or only serve for utility, but serve as a still reminder that we can escape all expectations presented by our fast consuming society.