ダイヤ乱れ (Schedule Disruption) , 2022
w = 165, d = 1.5 cm
Digital photomedia

The train ride between Kita-Senju and Tsukuba stations is 35 minutes (Rapid train) or 47 minutes (Local train). This difference of 12 minutes can mean much to passengers. Getting caught up in a ‘need’ to arrive quicker is easy. Two-and-a-half years into this commute, I began photographing it. I have vague memories of how it started, but in seeing fellow commuters tapping away at laptops, I recognized frustration: to whom did that time belong? Glimpses of a receding Mt. Fuji and approaching Mt. Tsukuba, and the morning light pinging through the six train cars all dissolved into reflections of passengers, re-framing of advertisements, cropped signage, blurred platforms, as well as the streaking landscape. Rephotographic gestures (rarely done at 132kph) then traced previous thoughts, specific commutes, and construction emerging around and between stations.

Photographs are a way to connect with/through surroundings (Gómez Cruz 2016) or propositions determined by their futures (Wooldridge 2021), but they are also by-products of situations where conversation isn’t possible or wanted. Drawn from thousands of photographs over nine months, these visual notes became (in Flusserian terms) a means of making creative sense of surroundings: transforming information ‘into meaningful messages, to make it liveable’ (Flusser 2002: 104). Daily reviewing found new strength in these images (e.g. humour, joy, confidence), but there remains scope for betrayal when presenting them. Here, images passing at speed may invite a second look, but that second look becomes about trust.

My apologies to those with whom I crossed paths without crossing worlds.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Gary McLeod (pronounced ‘Macloud’) is an assistant professor in the department of Visual Design at the University of Tsukuba, Japan where he teaches photomedia. He holds degrees in Fine Art (Wimbledon School of Art), Digital Arts (Camberwell College of Art), and received a Ph.D. from London College of Communication in 2016 for practice-led research into photographs made during the Challenger Expedition (1872–1876). Trained in commercial photography, much of his practice is concerned with everyday camera use in terms of time, image, and responsibility. His forthcoming book ‘Rephotography: expanding conversations about place over time’, part of the ‘Photography, Place, Environment’ series edited by Liz Wells, takes a critical look at common practices of revisiting locations in previously made photographs. He has also recently completed a rephotographic study of tsunami-affected areas in the build-up to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games, funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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