WEEK 6 - THE LONDON UNDERGROUND - A GRAPHICAL INTERIOR; ANTHONY FRYATT

GRAPHICAL INTERIOR. DIMENSIONAL SPACE. SYSTEMS. FANTASY

A picture i snuck of my commuter buddies on my way home. 

The London underground allows for mass transportation of commuters through the city whilst simultaneously disconnecting any real sense of geographical location. The system effects how one experiences the city as a whole; skewing time and space; zooming through tubes underneath the city, popping up at random points for travellers to resume their day using preconceived perceptions of time and space. Within these systems space becomes length and time, the train lines portals.

Henry Becks mapping of the system distorts geography to explore connections, creating a graphical diagram for commuters. The traditional map has been dramatically re-figured in order to simplify the system whilst creating its own identity of design. 

'Flatland: A romance of many dimensions’ explores the possibilities of new dimensions beyond our perception. The 2d protagonist finds himself in a one-dimensional world, and finds describing the second dimension difficult. Further in, 2D meets 3D and has just as much trouble comprehending this.

In the next reading ‘Italo Calvino ‘Invisible Cities’  explores the city of Leonia through personification. where the dump becomes an invisible mechanism or backbone of the city. "The boundaries between the alien, hostile cities are infected ramparts where the detritus of both support each other, overlap, mingle"1 This creates an interesting dynamic between the interior and exterior of the city, blurring this boundary, without the dump the city couldn't function, and it is to expel of it also creates it. 

The Melbourne city loop and Campbell arcade share a similar fantastical interior, with comparable mapping systems, visualising the transit as movement across a flat plane in-between dots and lines as in Flatland. In Campbell Arcade you feel disconnected from the city; it’s grungy and fantastical, with its art exhibitions and cafes. After Fryatt's lecture I see it as a portal connecting the fantasy transit system to the real world, but being neither.

I played with the distortion of space and time in regards to mapping or diagramming. Instead of using a transport system I mapped transitory stages of my life, purely as a way of coming at the mapping process in a fresh experimental way, without as many preconceived norms of process.  The first map portrays the world of line land, and is in 2d, with lines and circles without thought for time. The second I played with the new dimension of time, shortening and lengthening the transitory stages. This map also begins to become 3d. In the third I played with distance, and the 3d. And in the 4^th I tried to play with a more realistic portrayal of the transitory periods of my life. I then reflected on which map was the most successful in producing an understandable and navigational map.

I tried immolating the graphic feeling of typical transport companies. The weird upholstery design, not seen anywhere but bus, train and tram seats. The ugly diagrams, that make me think 'who would design that?". I see now that this relates to creating a new graphical language of the underground systems.

1 Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (Vintage: New Ed edition, 1997).