The feeling of walking in the tunnels is very much that you shouldn’t be there. Not from a permission perspective but rather that walking in the spaces I’ve previously watched thousands of cars zipping through just plain feels dangerous.

Even Christopher Columbus landing on and ‘discovering’ the Americas, which he mistook for Japan and China, was not completely lost. He knew he was five weeks sail west of Europe.

Finally we see our river named in the Neckinger Estate where an archway into a tenements complex seems to deliberately straddle the underground river, according to Tom Bolton’s map. We’d have missed all of these delightful moments in our usual movements through this city,

It’s hard to pin a definition to loitering, but it’s often seen as spending at least fifteen minutes in the same place without commercial intention, according to officials.

Francis Lowe got in touch during the last Still Walking festival to tell me about his notion of ‘found places’ – to be regarded in the same vein as Duchamp’s found objects. Both the objects and the places were of course already there but the creative activity is announcing that there’s something further to be known about them, without actually altering anything.

The theme of Beat Freeks event is ‘freedom’: what that actually means and whether you yourself have it in an ethical, political, cultural, legal, mental or environmental sense. So freedom is what we’ve given them, to create a roving theatre performance on their own terms…

A first sense of the exhibition is of an overwhelming, incomprehensible and uncontrollable Ultrametropolis that leaves its citizens baffled, blitzed and bamboozled, spluttering in its own dust cloud.

The walk is prefaced by a split stance / eyes closed exercise which allows us to become gently aware of our own body sense. Not easy on the cobbled slope: I sense a few people other than myself tipping or wobbling. Vanessa invites us to become aware of a space a metre – or just over a metre – above our heads. Specifics like this subtly suggest there’s a precision to her invisible art that we should take seriously.

I’d rearrange found materials in situ, then vex my tutors by announcing that my work for the term was located beside a disused M&B pub six miles away. I was encouraged to instead photograph my sculptures or recreate them the studio. To my regret, I took their advice and it would be ten years or more before my efforts to guide people through these zones would naturally resurface.

I’ve long been aware of London’s well-known forgotten rivers and have walked their above ground routes. SW’s suggestion that this was possible in Birmingham was initially to tantalise people about their understanding of the city and what was possible. Eventually I realised that Birmingham did indeed have lost rivers…

There is a spirit of irony in choosing to walk the ring road: this route is all about the car and the marginalisation of everything else. Certainly that means the pedestrian but also the environment, the local economy and ultimately the city itself.

Here we were going to see hidden art, take in panoramic views, get some exercise, and observe the city around us. There would be exploration, and darkness and possible danger. The programme advised that this walk may not be suitable for those of a nervous disposition.