Ruins of the Twentieth Century

《二十世纪的废墟》是对过去一百年来建造和废弃的地方的调查和欣赏，其中大部分在英国和爱尔兰，但也在更远的地方。它们包括废弃的工厂、过时的军事设施、废弃的度假胜地和被忽视的现代主义建筑：我们都知道但习惯性地忽视的那种结构。这些都不是浪漫的废墟，像遗产组织所珍视的那样，每年都有成千上万的人参观。但有时候，这些不受欢迎的网站告诉我们的，比我们愿意承认的更多，关于我们自己最近的过去的品味、文化和历史。在它们腐朽的状态下，它们提醒我们进步的脆弱本质，并让我们想起现在已成为过去的未来梦想。我对待这些建筑和场所的方式首先是一个有创造力的作家，其次是一个文化历史学家。许多诗人和小说家（从威廉·华兹华斯和约翰·罗斯金到塞缪尔·贝克特和j·g·巴拉德）都写过古代和现代的废墟。废墟已成为隐喻个人悲伤、文明消亡和普遍衰败的忧郁事实的丰富来源。我特别感兴趣的是，当写作/我自己的写作/与最近的过去的残余面对面时，会发生什么，这些残余不那么容易被托付给风景如画的领域。该项目旨在发现一种新的景观和建筑写作方式，以公正地对待上个世纪废墟的陌生感。写作本身在很大程度上是我研究的基础。我将出版一本书和一篇文章，将历史和回忆录、诗歌描述和建筑欣赏结合在一起。整个过程中，我的重点将放在我作为一个作家的技能如何发展，以应对所讨论的废墟的物理现实。然而，在这个生产性和反思性的层面背后，将开启另外两个探究领域。首先，我将对遗址本身进行广泛的实地考察，然后在周围社区进行档案研究和调查。其次，我需要研究废墟鉴赏本身的历史，因为它已经在文学、建筑史和视觉艺术中发展起来了。最后一类至关重要，因为几十年来，20世纪的废墟一直是艺术家们永恒的主题：罗伯特·史密森（Robert Smithson）、戈登·马塔-克拉克（Gordon Matta-Clark）、苏珊·希勒（Susan Hiller）和塔西塔·迪恩（Tacita Dean）都围绕这个主题创作了作品。在某种程度上，我的项目是一种发现这些艺术家在面对这样的地方时所使用的想法和方法，如何为创造性作家的工作提供信息的方式。我打算扩大我的写作和研究范围，超越文学世界，参与当代艺术，并与艺术家和摄影师合作，以我自己的方式展示我所选择的废墟。换句话说，这项研究将不断跨学科，并质疑我自己的专业知识，询问试图描述像废墟这样神秘而多方面的东西意味着什么。这个项目的主要成果将是一本名为《二十世纪的废墟》（Ruins of The Twentieth Century）的书，这是一本“创造性的非小说”作品，它让人联想到这些地方的氛围，解释了它们被遗弃的原因，并试图想象它们未来的用途。我还将写一篇较短的文章，针对更多的学术读者，讨论毁灭主题的哲学方面。我研究的其他分支将以散文和文章的形式出现在文学期刊、艺术杂志和报纸上，以及以博物馆和画廊的演讲形式出现。我希望这些出版物和活动将鼓励公众就如何处理二十世纪的废墟展开更广泛的辩论。

Ruins of the Twentieth Century is an investigation and appreciation of places built and abandoned in the last hundred years / most of them in the UK and Ireland, but also further afield. They include derelict factories, outmoded military installations, defunct holiday resorts and neglected Modernist buildings: the kinds of structures that we all know and habitually ignore. These are not romantic ruins, such as are prized by heritage organizations and visited by thousands of people each year. But these unloved sites tell us more, sometimes, than we care to acknowledge about the taste, culture and history of our own recent past. In their decayed state, they remind us of the fragile nature of progress and recall futuristic dreams that are now consigned to the past.My approach to such buildings and places is first of all that of a creative writer, and second that of a cultural historian. Many poets and novelists (from William Wordsworth and John Ruskin to Samuel Beckett and J. G. Ballard) have written about ruins, both ancient and modern. The ruin has been a rich source of metaphors for personal grief, the passing away of civilizations and the melancholy fact of universal decay. I am interested particularly in what happens to writing / to my own writing / when it comes face to face with the remnants of the recent past, which are not so easily consigned to the realm of the picturesque. This project aims to discover a new way of writing about landscape and architecture that will do justice to the strangeness of the ruins of the last century.The writing itself is to a large degree the basis of my research. I will produce a book and essays that mix history and memoir, poetic description and architectural appreciation. My focus throughout will be on how my own skills as a writer can develop in response to the physical reality of the ruins in question. Behind this productive and reflective level, however, two other fields of inquiry will open up. First, I will make extensive field visits to the ruins themselves, and follow those up with archival research and investigations in the surrounding communities. Second, I will need to study the history of ruin appreciation itself, as it has developed in literature, architectural history and the visual arts.This last category is crucial, because for some decades now the ruins of the twentieth century have been an abiding theme for artists: Robert Smithson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Susan Hiller and Tacita Dean have all made works that circle around this subject. To some extent, my project is a way of discovering how the ideas and methods used by these artists, when confronting such places, might inform the work of a creative writer. I intend to widen the scope of my writing and research beyond the literary world to engage with contemporary art and to collaborate, in my own presentation of my chosen ruins, with artists and photographers. The research, in other words, will constantly cross disciplines and question my own expertise, asking what it means to try to describe something as enigmatic and multifaceted as a ruin.The main result of this project will be a book entitled Ruins of the Twentieth Century / a work of 'creative non-fiction' that conjures up the atmosphere of these places, accounts for their dereliction and tries to imagine what future use they might have. I will also write a shorter volume, aimed at a more academic audience, that addresses the philosophical aspects of the subject of ruination. Other offshoots of my research will appear in the form of essays and articles in literary journals, art magazines and newspapers, as well as in the form of talks at museums and galleries. I hope that such publications and events will encourage a wider public debate about what is to be done with the ruins of the twentieth century.