Life on the Line

The Life on the Line project was an observation and an experiment about the social environment of the train. Exploring the people and the reasons they take the train and the reasons they do what they do during that time. Through weeks of documentation on the AT southern line, taking photos and notes, and generally observing peoples actions reactions and extrapolating their thinking has led to my final project. The final exhibition being an interactive train simulation where I will replicate the mental isolation of being on the train with the physical boundaries in a crowded train car. I wanted to simulate the environment of the train as I live in Waiuku approximately two hours from university and I travel this distance every day I need to get to lectures and class. This commute is becoming a common reality. Many people are affected by the rising Auckland house prices and the cost of living in Auckland CBD. This is forcing people to live further out in places like Pukekohe and Waiuku making them commute for hours like myself. The reasoning behind this line of research and this whole project was Newasble’s focus on Auckland city, the trains being a vital and large part of the city. It was my task to investigate these trains, and instead of researching the data of the trains e.g. the amount of people, the frequency, the times, I chose to investigate a different path. I decided to delve into the social aspect of the trains and peoples interactions or non-interactions, what people do with their time on the train? Why?

If you look at the large picture of Auckland city you can see it’s a thriving growing multicultural city that is immense, though there are also problems that come from all of this. The main being the looming Auckland housing crisis. This was given to us at the start of the semester to give us a base for our work, somewhere to start. My part of Auckland being the public transport system mainly the trains because I represented a unique minority in CTEC, which was the rural commuter. Being a rural commuter means that I spend a very large chunk of my day traveling to and from university just to get to classes, but I also do this along with many other people who need to get into the city from the outskirts. These people live on the very outskirts of Auckland mainly because of the ever increasing housing prices, the further out you go the cheaper the houses and the better quality of life you can have and all you have to do is commute in. So this ‘Project’ was meant to show an idea of what it’s like to spend hours upon hours on these trains. The environment and how it differed from other modes of transport. The mental mind set and the physical proximity that is unique to public transport.