The sights and sounds of Portsmouth and Southsea

The words, images and sounds on this page represent a second short exercise in attempting to gather and then map data in a way that captures the essence of an urban space during a particular, short period of time. The first activity explored the closes, squares and street furniture of Edinburgh, The Athens of the North: this second exercise offers a snapshot of everyday life within the historic seafaring city of Portsmouth.

An alternative reading of what is captured on this page however is that once a year I catch up with my friend Steve and, over a few ales, we talk about music, the football, family and old friends from school. With Steve's uncertain permission, and using my iPhone, I captured some of the sights and sounds that we encountered and experienced as we sampled pubs and other places around Portsmouth and Southsea. Compared with my previous approach to capturing Everyday Edinburgh, where the route around the city had been influenced by a specific intention to collect data, on this occasion the gathering of photos and audio clips was secondary to the major business of the day. On reflection, I wonder whether this approach - where data collection is incidental rather than the main attraction - is a more appropriate and effective way of trying to capture the everyday essence of a city? 

Having proposed that the intention of these exercises is to get a snapshot of everyday life, it strikes me that ours was only one of the many stories simultaneously unfolding across the city. For instance, a little over a mile from where we were sitting talking about the football, just over 17,000 people were watching the final game of the league season between Portsmouth FC and Plymouth Argyle FC. For the sell out crowd, the 3-3 draw being played out in the sunshine at Fratton Park would have been the only story that mattered at that particular time. Had Steve and I been more organised we would have been there too and, as I think about it, I'm certain that a matchday would lend itself really nicely to this kind of multimodal mapping [note for the future].

If there was disappointment at missing the Dockyard Derby, something that I am happy about is the way that the gathered images and sounds do a good job of presenting the fair city of Portsmouth in a positive light (even if that wasn't my intention). Since moving away from the area around twenty years ago I've politely argued with plenty of people whose understanding of Portsmouth had been incompletely built around the experience of boarding an overnight ferry to France. Again, there's more than one story to be told about a city. It's worth noting however that the mid-afternoon sunshine which broke through the clouds as my train pulled into Portsmouth Harbour Station will have influenced not only the direction and duration of our wandering, but also the selection and nature of the collected sights and sounds. The gold hued walls of Southsea Castle at sunset would have looked different under dark skies, mirroring the gunship grey of the naval fleet in the harbour of this historic, seafaring city. 

We visited these pubs: The Barley Mow (Castle Road), The Pembroke (Pembroke Road), The Dolphin (High Street), The Wellington (High Street), The Still and West (Bath Square), The Bridge Tavern (East Street) and The Pembroke (again). We bought music in Pie and Vinyl and sampled Jon Lockhart's The Revelator in Aspex gallery.

(00:00) Arriving in Portsmouth Hbr (00:49) Jon Lockhart's 'The Revelator' at Aspex (01:19) Pie & Vinyl (01:38) Cash rich in Clarence Arcade (02:29) Some mush swearing on Southsea Seafront (02:43) Bar conversation in The Wellington (03:15) Leaving Portsmouth Hbr on the 23:19.