  We suggest that the extrinsic curvature and torsion of a bosonic string can
be employed as variables in a two dimensional Landau-Ginzburg gauge field
theory. Their interpretation in terms of the abelian Higgs multiplet leads to
two different phases. In the phase with unbroken gauge symmetry the ground
state describes open strings while in the phase with broken gauge symmetry the
ground state involves closed strings. When we allow for an additional abelian
gauge structure along the string, we arrive at an interpretation in terms of
the two dimensional SU(2) Yang-Mills theory.
