MEMORY MACHINE

Etoile Metro Station in Paris (1895)

Commute, work, sleep. This triad can be seen as the symbol of contemporary alienation.

The idea of individual life is ultimately born from the constraints that apply to all social life. Every day, everywhere, individual itineraries are imposed to everyone. Each person distinctively experiences how to relate their paths and to each other.

If we consider metro stations, the physical dislocation to the subterranean realm immediately inserts an additional layer of estrangement. However, simply revisiting certain specific itineraries can evoke names and sensations that are good enough for distracted travelers suddenly to realize that their inner geology and subterranean geography converges at certain points.

Certain stations and tunnels are so associated with exact moments, that the metro map functions as an individual memory machine, a foldable mirror on which we can find reflections of the past and recall intimate shivers in the accumulated stratums of our memories.

Then, it is necessary to identify of what is comprehended here through the concept of place. On one hand, there is the idea of a place endowed with different values by people, in opposition to a space unprovided of any meaning. On the other, the concept seems to attract the idea of occupation by the people as opposed to the image of an inhospitable place without human activity.

As a consequence of historical neglect with the space qualification of urban infrastructure, these portions of the territory have eventually magnified their negative characteristics as the lack of identity and value.

The infrastructures of mobility are characterized by transient passage, being initially devoid of any sentimental or historical value. However, is it possible to awaken a desire to actually be in an infrastructural space, not only go through it? Which relations can infrastructure establish with individuals, to ultimately catalyze its urban potential?