Ruins can be considered to be stages which coerce our bodies into particular kinds of performance. In contrast to the often seamless movement we experience in the desensualised contemporary metropolis, where smells, noises and textures are regulated in accordance with ideas about urban order and dominant aesthetic conventions, in ruins, our senses are jolted and our composure is disrupted by unfamiliar and powerful sensations. It is difficult to maintain a straight path, fixed on the objective ahead, for ruins arrest our gaze and offer a rich diversity of aromas, sounds, tactilities and sights. Walking amongst the debris of industrial ruins stimulates a bodily awareness that is often denied by our highly regulated domestic and urban lives.
Footsteps and other sounds echo once the regular fixtures have been removed. Opened roofs and windows allow drips and eddies of winds to resound around buildings. Desolate pieces of machinery clank and doors creak, and the rustling of unseen animals, and the flurries and coos of the ubiquitous pigeons suffuse the soundscape, while noise from outside is muffled and sounds far away. This low-key atmosphere conjures up another that is no longer present: the whistling, shouts, talk and laughter, the singing, the whirr of machinery and the babble of the radio.
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 by Tim Edensor
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