Week 1: Choosing a site to explore and engaging with three methods of investigation
After years of living in East London, I finally moved West.
Striking stillness in the ever changing London, MV station sets itself apart. MV caught my eye the first time I went there, for the red tiles and old typeface reminded me of other stations like Covent Garden (or the old Aldwych station on Strand), which almost look out of character for the city we know today.
I wanted to capture what felt like a synergy of movement and stillness, so I started shooting it on my camera. Working and attending university means that I’m in central London 5 days a week, always leaving for the intended 9 o ’clock somewhere. Between 8:15 and 8:35, for three consecutive days, I took pictures of the same people, who were probably taking the same route as me but I had never really noticed.
Simultaneously, I started writing every time I walked to MV station, what I noticed. What it would tell me about the place but also its constituents, the people that make it and keep it the way it is. The little details which take so much space in our environment but go un-noticed.
MV despite its physical stillness felt like a never ending loop when I was there, where sounds dictated our commute. The beep of my card at the gates, the sounds of people’s heels tapping the ceramic tiles, my music in my headphones overlaid on the screeching of the train, it all felt like a buzzing place.
I am in fact incapable of taking the tube without my noise canceling headphones, for I find an accumulation of sounds deeply overwhelming. I was really surprised, when I took my headphones off and started to notice, that people (even without headphones) did not seem to pay attention to the sounds. This was deeply intriguing to me, as I could not separate Maida Vale’s visual identity, from its sonic one. I started recording MV and Bakerloo sounds.
I then superposed the music I would be listening to, on top of the tube sounds; showcasing the “sonic world of the commuter”.
It was also interesting to be in my own sonic bubble, paying attention. I took this initial video on my commute, which I thought looked like a dance of commuters.
That's all for week 1.