Transportation as Space and Place
Liquidated, 2009; watercolor on paper, approxamately 16 x 25 inches.
How does transportation alter human perception of the world?
How does the journey frame the destination?
Is transportation — being constantly in motion — a true place, or instead space, a home to ritual and readjusted relationship?
While transportation is often understood as a profound influencer of place, it must be remember that it in itself is also a state of existence, an unfixed but specific location. Looked at as a type of experienced space, it has significant influence over human perception.
Exploring these notions of transportation, place, and space is far more psychological and experiential. Aids to examining these ideas run more towards literature, fine art, and photography, as befits a more expressive subject matter. Although highly qualitative and subjective, a view of transportation from a spatial, experiential, perspective-making stance offers the opportunity to move closer to the underlying meanings and motives of human action.
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How close is Portland's MAX light rail to a 24 hour service? And in the short time that it isn't operating, what is going on on the system? This photo-feature, co-written with Dan Haneckow and published in TRAINS Magazine, examines these and other issues.
