Reconfiguring Ruins: Beyond Ruinenlust

Abstract

What explains the global proliferation of interest in ruins? Can ruins be understood beyond their common framing as products of European Romanticism? Might a transdisciplinary approach allow us to see ruins differently? These questions underpinned the Arts and Humanities Research Council–funded project Reconfiguring Ruins, which deployed approaches from history, literature, East Asian studies, and geography to reflect on how ruins from different historical contexts are understood by reference to different theoretical frameworks. In recognition of the value of learning from other models of knowledge production, the project also involved a successful collaboration with the Museum of London Archaeology and the artist-led community The NewBridge Project in Newcastle. By bringing these varied sets of knowledges to bear on the project’s excavations of specific sites in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan, the article argues for an understanding of ruins as thresholds, with ruin sites providing unique insights into the relationship between lived pasts, presents, and futures. It does so by developing three key themes that reflect on the process of working collaboratively across the arts, humanities, and social sciences, including professional archaeology: inter- and transdisciplinarity, the limits of cocreation, and traveling meanings and praxis. Meanings of specific ruins are constructed out of specific languages and cultural resonances and read though different disciplines, but can also be reconfigured through concepts and practices that travel beyond disciplinary, cultural, and linguistic borders. As we show here, the ruin is, and should be, a relational concept that moves beyond the romantic notion of Ruinenlust.

如何解释全球对于废墟的兴趣激增？废墟能够在其作为欧洲浪漫主义的产物之常见框架之外被理解吗？超越领域的方法，能够让我们以不同的角度看待废墟吗？这些问题，是由艺术与人文研究委员会所赞助的计画“重新组构废墟”之基础，该计画展示了来自历史学、文学、东亚研究和地理学的方法，以反思来自不同历史脉络的废墟，如何透过指涉不同的理论框架而被理解。本计画承认从其他知识生产模式中学习的价值，同时涉及与伦敦考古学博物馆和纽卡索一个由艺术家所带领的社区的“新桥计画”之成功合作。藉由连结这些不同的知识组合来引导该计画在英国、美国与日本的特定场址的挖掘，本文主张将废墟理解为门槛，而废墟遗址提供了检视过往、当下与未来间的关系之特殊洞见。本文透过发展反思由艺术、人文与社会科学共同协作的过程之三大关键主题进行——包含专业考古学：跨领域与超越领域、共同创作的限制，以及移动的意义与实践。特定废墟的意义，由特定的语言和文化共鸣进行建构，并透过不同的领域进行阅读，但同时能够透过超越领域、文化和语言疆界的概念和实践重新组构。如同我们于此所展现的，废墟是——而且应该作为——超越废墟欢愉的浪漫想法之关系性概念

¿Qué puede explicar la proliferación global del interés en las ruinas? ¿Pueden entenderse las ruinas más allá de su común enmarcación como productos del Romanticismo Europeo? ¿Podría un enfoque transdisciplinario permitirnos mirar las ruinas de manera diferente? Estos interrogantes fundamentaron el proyecto denominado Reconfiguración de las ruinas, financiado por el Consejo de Investigación en las Artes y las Humanidades, para el cual se desplegaron enfoques de la historia, la literatura, los estudios Asiáticos Orientales y la geografía para reflexionar sobre cómo las ruinas de diferentes contextos históricos se entienden con referencia a diferentes marcos teóricos. En reconocimiento al valor de aprender de otros modelos de producción de conocimiento, el proyecto involucró también una exitosa colaboración del Museo de la Arqueología de Londres y de la comunidad de manejo artístico denominada Proyecto del Nuevo Puente de Newcastle. Al aunar todo este variado conjunto de conocimientos para trabajar en las excavaciones del proyecto de sitios específicos del Reino Unido, los Estados Unidos y Japón, el artículo aboga por un entendimiento de las ruinas como umbrales, con los sitios de las ruinas proveyendo percepciones únicas en las relaciones entre pasados vividos, presentes y futuros. Eso se hace desarrollando tres temas claves que reflexionan acerca del proceso de trabajar mancomunadamente a través de las artes, las humanidades y las ciencias sociales, incluyendo la arqueología profesional: interdisciplinariedad y transdisciplinariedad, los límites de la co-creación y los significados y la praxis de viajar. Los significados de ruinas específicas se construyeron a partir de idiomas específicos y resonancias culturales, y fueron leídos a través de diferentes disciplinas, aunque también pueden reconfigurarse por medio de conceptos y prácticas que viajan más allá de los límites disciplinarios, culturales y lingüísticos. Como lo mostramos aquí, la ruina es, y debe ser, un concepto relacional que se mueve más allá de la romántica noción del Ruinenlust.

Keywords:

• art
• cocreation
• interdisciplinarity
• Ruinenlust
• ruins
• transdisciplinarity

• arte. co-creación
• interdisciplinariedad
• Ruinenlust
• ruinas
• transdisciplinariedad

• 艺术
• 共同创作
• 跨领域
• 废墟欢愉
• 废墟
• 超越领域

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. Also our thanks to MOLA and the NBP, especially, James Dixon and Charlotte Gregory; and the many artists, academics, archaeologists, and practitioners who took part in the two workshops and other activities related to the project.

FUNDING

The article is based on research undertaken as part of the project Reconfiguring Ruins: Materialities, Processes and Mediations, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom, grant number AH/M006255/1. We would also like to thank the OpenSpace Research Centre at the Open University for providing financial assistance for the exhibition of The Ten Commandments in The Crypt Gallery, London.

Notes

1. Submissions to take part in the workshops (50+) and the artist commission (170+) gave us an indication of this. Details of the workshops and winning commission are available at https://reconfiguringruins.blogs.sas.ac.uk (accessed 6 August 2017).

2. See also The Future of Ruins at http://www.futureofruins.org.uk (accessed 9 April 2016).

3. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the Anglo-Norman figurative use as originally referring to the Fall of the Angels (c. 1175).

4. Hearing the Voice, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is a project that ranges across the medical humanities, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, theology and beyond. See http://hearingthevoice.org (accessed 6 August 2017).

5. Quotes are taken from Brown and Robinson’s submission to the artist commission call (the deadline for applications was May 14, 2015).

6. See https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visit-the-city/attractions/Pages/Roman-Bathhouse.aspx (accessed 11 May 2016).

7. See the Billingsgate Bath House blog at https://billingsgatebathhouse.wordpress.com (accessed 11May 2016).

8. See the “Historic Environment”’ section of the planning services of the City of London at https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/environment-and-planning/planning/heritage-and-design/Pages/historic-environment.aspx (accessed 6 August 2017).

9. See, for example, the Reports of the Inspectors of Mines, to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State, For the Year 1882 (London, 1883), viii.

10. See the “Work in Progress” of the Durham volumes of the Victoria County History, especially “Economy and Society 1800–1914” at http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/counties/durham/work-in-progress/economy-and-society-1800-1914 (accessed 10 May 2016).

Additional information

Funding

The article is based on research undertaken as part of the project Reconfiguring Ruins: Materialities, Processes and Mediations, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom, grant number AH/M006255/1. We would also like to thank the OpenSpace Research Centre at the Open University for providing financial assistance for the exhibition of The Ten Commandments in The Crypt Gallery, London.

Notes on contributors

Carlos López Galviz

CARLOS LÓPEZ GALVIZ is a Lecturer in the Theories and Methods of Social Futures, Institute for Social Futures, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YW, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research explores the relationship between history and the future through the lens of cities, ruins, and infrastructure, with an emphasis on nineteenth-century London and Paris, and, more recently, twenty-first-century Shanghai.

Nadia Bartolini

NADIA BARTOLINI is an Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, Environment and Sustainability Institute, Penryn, TR10 9FE, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research areas include memory and the built environment; cultural and natural heritage; religion and society; creative research methods; and public engagement.

Mark Pendleton

MARK PENDLETON is a Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S10 2TD, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the cultural and social history of twentieth-century Japan and transnational histories of gender and sexuality.

Adam Stock

ADAM STOCK is a Lecturer in English Literature, School of Humanities, Religion and Philosophy, York St. John University, York, YO31 7EX, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include utopian studies, science fiction, and modernism.