A Form of Motion | London, England | June 2008

Jumping into the workday morning commute is an odd way to be introduced to a city. Encountering morning car traffic is one thing; trapped in a taxi you are able to figure out that many of the people around you are on some vague journey to their places of work, but the tons of metal sitting between everyone else and you has the unsurprising effect of making it a very impersonal kind of interaction.

But joining what feels like half the population of London on the tube during their morning commute feels far odder. Public transportation brings the traveler into close contact with the morning commuter, with some look into their daily concerns. And traveling is always at its oddest when you encounter regular life, your own motion, path, interests and goals out of touch with the rest of the population.

Even if you are familiar with the place and the rituals of the transportation it’s still hard to jump into the pace of the morning commute as a traveler; the rush down the stairs, the jockeying for space on the tube, the staking out of space, cramming into the tube, the sullen looks of people reading the free paper or staring into space, the nearly ubiquitous white headphones trailing down the sides of faces, wrapped into bags, jackets and hands.

Masses of lives in motion. But I wonder: how is all this motion being directed? Is this mindless ritual or conscious motion? Are choices being made today, or are all the choices for today already made?

For the traveller, everything is a choice. For the commuter, the vast majority is ritual. But why?