BA Dissertation - An attempt at exhausting a commute through London
Book
132 Pages
Extract:
If you asked me to summarize the commuter experience on a harsh winter morning through London, I’d probably go for something cynical:
The reason we are commuting on this smelly old central line train, is because affording a car in London is ludicrous! Let alone having to pay for the three meters of parking space outside your home, and now ULEZ.
Would I be better off living in France in a cottage in the countryside and commuting from there?
Liminality is historically and culturally multifaceted. It is defined as “a state of transition between one stage and the next, especially between major stages in one’s life” (Dictionary) (which sounds a bit like purgatory) An example could be, between home and work. Or transitional places which are being gentrified.
Architecture and design can also be liminal. The faceless interiors of purely functional transportation, have repetitive patterns, with no personal characteristics. However - understanding the processes leading to this metaphorical liminal state in London, could be the beginning point for regaining agency and clarity over inertia that has us trapped in ‘the rat race’.
This autoethnographic observation of shared fears and anxieties, documents the time lost commuting. Transitional places, simultaneously inert and in motion, can be used to analyse and understand social frameworks, cultural constructs, and their consequences for daily practices, values and beliefs. Michael Crowes pastiche text: An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in GTA Online’ surveys how the game world is indistinguishably blurring reality and fiction, creating hybridity. His present tense narration uncovers ‘Easter eggs’[9] in the game. Which materialize principles of capitalism resulting in real-world violence.
I’ll treat London, as an open world sandbox game. This writing is a copy of a copy, a pastiche as a piss-take. This is the third in line reframing. Spawning in a commute and then ending at work.
