Mark's Assignment...

Looks like I'm first....yikes.

Ok Mark's assignment was this:

your project is about the way you relate to the city. Its just the two of you, no other human beings involved. (It can also be the way the city views meghan!) What is special about this relationship? You can use any medium you like, but there should be a combination of at least two. Have fun.

So a big part of my relationship to Sydney was finding the familiar. I also really started to understand how I get to know a city, which always involves emotional mapping. I usually start to connect physical space of a city with the emotional connections I make, through relationships and experiences. For New York, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) was a conduit for these emotional ties and experiences. I took the LIRR frequently to shows where I built a community of friends, and to visit Mookie (and maybe a few others...). My time spent on the LIRR became significant and was always spent in deep personal reflection.

While I was in Sydney, Mookie had to go to the hospital. For about 24 hours I was calling him, worried, wishing I was there with him. During this exact time I rode the City Rail for the first time and was shocked at how similar it was to the LIRR. Both double decker trains, the stations were the same, the seats, the tickets, the light, the noise, the announcements, the confusion... I took photos of the familiar in between frantic calls back home, trying to get through to Mookie. I had a strange experience feeling like I was on my way to him in the same physical space all while being a world away.

This was an exploration of the physical, emotional, and spacial similarities of the two trains. I mixed photos from both journeys, created a new map with both the LIRR and City Rail maps, and continued the ticket project from the LIRR where I wrote the lyrics to whatever song was the soundtrack for that journey on the ticket.







(you can click on any image for a larger view)