from nowhere to nowhere and everywhere between
Mapping The Transitway in Ottawa: a Manifesto
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The transit station is an artificial destination.It is not the intended destination of the traveler but one that he must pass through to continue on towards his goal. However, it becomes part of the local vocabulary of landmarks and directions.
The transit station is the city's vestibule. The demand on these spaces is to reorient the travelers, giving reference to their location in relation to the rest of the city and initiate them into the new district they are about to enter. It connects the transit network to the urban network and directs the flow between the two, the termination of one and beginning of the next. The characteristic of any junction is one of potential collision, overlap and failure, however, these conflict present opportunities for the environs, otherwise anonymous and invisible, to express themselves.
The transit system is a secret network. It forbids traffic of pedestrians and personal vehicles and denies even its own passengers from retracing the route on their own. The knowledge of how to arrive at point B from point A does not translate into the regular city networks. It has its own set of roads, its own set of laws and permissions.
The transit system is involved in the collapsing of space and time.The experiential quality is inherently such that the moment of departure becomes the moment of arrival, in between is no-time and no-space. The commuter traverses the city displaced from context, caught in limbo until deposited at the station where they re-enter the city.
A common mode of transportation in large cities is public. In Ottawa, this mode of transmission, "conveyance from one place to another" (from the Latin transmissionem) though the most “public” is one of the most removed from the city. This is due mainly to the Transitway which is rerouted off the main streets and onto its own network in favour of efficiency. As such it is a peculiar and clear example of the transit condition; One that is more easily mapped in this light despite its elusive and secret nature. It is time to unmask, reveal and record the “other” time and space, the ether of the mysterious medium through which the traveler is conveyed. What exists between departure and arrival? In so doing, we can assist in the movement to make riding the bus an event, a spectacle of the city, fueling the urban exploration subculture. Remove the passivity of the traveller. Where the flâneur and the commuter collide let there be spectacle. “Vivez sans temps mort!” - Guy Debord
--------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes our assignments are a bit odd.
