Mini-Project 2 - What Lies Beneath

Duration: 25th Oct - 5th November (Ongoing)

Most lies hurt. They are an attack on one individual's trust by another, and so leave us wounded. What if this attack was turned into a positive feeling, leaving the wounded with a sense of joy? Over this time I will be exploring ways to lie to instill a positive feeling in others.

I don't necessarily mean lying to cover up a negative point, i.e. 'Your new haircut really suits you' when you really don't like it, but more a lie of the Father Christmas variety: A lie which creates excitement and wonder.

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This Mini-Project is taking a new shape: That of a semi-guided tour around the sights of Taunton (Think Wrights & Sites, but more tongue-in-cheek) A guidebook placed in Taunton Library leads the tourist on a farcical tour of Taunton, pointing out places of interest. Whilst still lying, I am allowing participants to see through the lies, hopefully in a humorous way. Here are some examples of the text for certain sites:

Library

We start at the library, a building built to house knowledge, but ironically little is known about its origins. Some say it has been here since the beginning of time, hovering in space until the Earth was made, at which point gravity pulled it in and stuck it to the ground. Others say this site was a simple multi-storey car park until late November 1959, when nearby residents were awoken one night to the sound of struggling. They looked out to see what was happening, and saw about a dozen men squeezing the library into its current position with giant shoehorns. It reportedly took them quite a while.
Archaeological digs in the early 1970s found the ‘Children’s section’ of the library now stands directly on top of what is believed to be the village crèche of an ancient settlement, where the women would care for the young while the men were out hunting.
Subsequent digs uncovered the remains of an ancient version of a video games console, along with a 14” television. It is still unclear as to how the devices were powered however, but many have linked these finds to the discovery of a child-sized hamster wheel found nearby.

The High Street

The High Street is so named, quite simply, because it used to be a lot higher up. The street level was once 6 feet above its current level, due to fears of flooding. Town planners built the street on pillars, allowing excess water to flow freely underneath, whilst keeping the shoes of residents dry. This understandably caused great irritation to the shop owners, as no one could enter their stores, and so, following a series of complaints and petitions, along with the fact that the street had never actually been flooded, thus negating its purpose, the High Street was lowered to the level it is now in 2005.

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The booklets are now in place in Taunton's Tourist Information, ready to lead you. Any feedback on the walk would be greatly appreciated, just post a comment below.