Interviews
Invested in collecting the opinions and experiences of a cross-section of London Underground users as an integral part of our research, we conducted and video recorded several on-site interviews (the recordings serving both as documentation and potential material to adapt and integrate into the project in other ways). To ensure a large flow of passers-by who we could ask to participate, we held the interviews outside of five of London’s busiest stations, ultimately engaging with a diversity of people including city workers, students and tourists.
In conducting the interviews, we were particularly interested in learning about people’s experience when using the Tube—spatially, socially, and mentally/emotionally (as opposed to their opinions about how the service is run). Additionally, as researchers and artists who are invested in reimagining the space and systems enacted in the Underground, we were curious to know how Tube users (aside from ourselves) would envision the space differently. While we received both positive and negative anecdotes from interviewees, there was a startling consistency among the majority of our subjects’ perception of the Underground, who described an oppressive and suppressive experience. This demonstrated that the Tube users with whom we spoke largely perceived the Underground as an insular, anxious, rushed, unfriendly and ultimately inhuman environment.
These interviews were one strand of our multi-faceted methodology of artistic research, grounded in the importance of being physically situated within the Underground space and hearing from a range of people who inhabit it. We recognise that the way in which we conducted the interviews and collected this data was far from scientific or sociologically sound. Our interviewee sample was not representative of the user population nor concertedly constructed (aside from traveling to multiple stations in an attempt to obtain a more diverse pool of interviewees). The questions we asked, while written in advance and developed to address issues of user experience, were not completely rigid, as our interviews unfolded rather conversationally. Nevertheless, we strongly felt that talking to people outside of ourselves who feel the effects of the Underground systems we are continuously unpacking was essential to our research.
In conducting the interviews, we were particularly interested in learning about people’s experience when using the Tube—spatially, socially, and mentally/emotionally (as opposed to their opinions about how the service is run). Additionally, as researchers and artists who are invested in reimagining the space and systems enacted in the Underground, we were curious to know how Tube users (aside from ourselves) would envision the space differently. While we received both positive and negative anecdotes from interviewees, there was a startling consistency among the majority of our subjects’ perception of the Underground, who described an oppressive and suppressive experience. This demonstrated that the Tube users with whom we spoke largely perceived the Underground as an insular, anxious, rushed, unfriendly and ultimately inhuman environment.
These interviews were one strand of our multi-faceted methodology of artistic research, grounded in the importance of being physically situated within the Underground space and hearing from a range of people who inhabit it. We recognise that the way in which we conducted the interviews and collected this data was far from scientific or sociologically sound. Our interviewee sample was not representative of the user population nor concertedly constructed (aside from traveling to multiple stations in an attempt to obtain a more diverse pool of interviewees). The questions we asked, while written in advance and developed to address issues of user experience, were not completely rigid, as our interviews unfolded rather conversationally. Nevertheless, we strongly felt that talking to people outside of ourselves who feel the effects of the Underground systems we are continuously unpacking was essential to our research.
"In your wildest dreams, what would you change about the Tube?"
Interviewees respond to the questions,
"Can you describe your experience while using the Tube?"
"How does the space of the Underground make you feel?"
"In your wildest dreams, what would you change about the Tube?"
"Can you describe your experience while using the Tube?"
"How does the space of the Underground make you feel?"
"In your wildest dreams, what would you change about the Tube?"
A few of the laughs we had whilst interviewing