Diamond Line:
If the Tube had a culture, how would you describe it? If that culture could be changed, what would you want it to be? These questions were at the crux of an intermediate stage of our research process, which manifested in the imagining of a new Tube line characterised by an entirely different culture or experience: the Diamond Line. At this stage, we were investigating what we termed “borders” that are present within the Underground—qualities of its systems and spaces that could be transgressed or altered through playful interventions or actions in the space itself.
The interventions we were imagining during the Diamond Line phase of our research process were grounded in a methodology of parafiction. As described by art historian Carrie Lambert-Beatty, a parafiction is an artwork that has “one foot in the field of the real”.[1] In parafictions, which are predominantly interested in commenting on an aspect of our social or political world, “real and/or imaginary personages and stories intersect with the world as it is being lived”.[2] In this way, an essential characteristic of a parafiction is that it is experienced as truth, materialising as a fiction that viewers—to varying degrees and for varying durations—believe to be real.
The structure and potential impact of a parafiction was incredibly compelling to us. While we completely fabricated the Diamond Line as a tool to unveil the systems at play in the Underground, we felt it would be most startling and effective if it were believed to be a real line being developed and built by TfL. We created a thorough narrative for the line: materialising (in honor of the Diamond Jubilee) out of research TfL had conducted about customer satisfaction on the Tube, the Diamond Line was to embody a Tube culture that starkly contrasted to that which exists on all other lines. (This “culture” would have been enacted through our interventions.) To situate our parafiction in the realm of the real, we researched and implemented the visual language and branding used by TfL, selected a physical territory for the line, and put it on the Tube map.
The structure and potential impact of a parafiction was incredibly compelling to us. While we completely fabricated the Diamond Line as a tool to unveil the systems at play in the Underground, we felt it would be most startling and effective if it were believed to be a real line being developed and built by TfL. We created a thorough narrative for the line: materialising (in honor of the Diamond Jubilee) out of research TfL had conducted about customer satisfaction on the Tube, the Diamond Line was to embody a Tube culture that starkly contrasted to that which exists on all other lines. (This “culture” would have been enacted through our interventions.) To situate our parafiction in the realm of the real, we researched and implemented the visual language and branding used by TfL, selected a physical territory for the line, and put it on the Tube map.
In an initial playful gesture of actualising the Diamond Line, we produced a sign declaring its name and attempted to physically integrate it into the space of the Tube. Adhering to the conceptual aims of the Line, we also used the sign as a tool to initiate interaction with and puncture the alienation between typically disconnected strangers around us—from passengers to TfL station staff (who were initially reticent but ultimately incredibly friendly and happy to participate once they got the okay from the Station Manager, who brandished the Diamond Line sign for us as well). Documentation of this gesture can be found under the Diamond Line “Intervention Documentation” tab.
Ultimately, the question we were asking during the Diamond Line phase of our research process was: What happens when we try to be TfL, but with values that counter their corporate and control-oriented values?
[1] Lambert-Beatty, Carrie. “Make-Believe: Parafiction and Plausability”. October 129, Summer, 2009, 54.
[2] Ibid, 54.