www.pablojonessoler.tumblr.com's photostream

website: www.pablojonessoler.co.uk
blog: www.pablojonessoler.tumblr.com

collaboration with Rachel Treliving for college live brief.

p.s i have moved to tumblr: pablojonessoler.tumblr.com/

p.s i have moved to tumblr: pablojonessoler.tumblr.com/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPdrK9cH-7o

this is my first go at film.

too big to upload onto flickr so its on you tube let me now what you this

read the description or it wont make any sense .

cycling campaign

p.s i have moved to tumblr: pablojonessoler.tumblr.com/

Sweltering bankers thunder grotesquely towards the urgently beeping doors and thrust their bodies onto the pile of flesh and impatience. I can feel the warm breath, from a couple whispering sweet nothings into each others’ ear, ooze down my collar as the closing doors almost decapitate the embarrassingly tall man who awkwardly towers above everybody casting a shadow over the whole carriage. Once the fluster and flurry is over, I find myself, head nestled in the armpit of an angry looking skinhead and a grey old man’s grotesquely gentle fingers wrapped loosely around mine whilst he tries to steady himself. Somehow I manage to isolate myself from this and cut myself off from what is going on around me and this way I manage to feel comfortable with these things happening.

This specific set of rules is quintessentially English and must be closely observed.
••Conversations must not be started with strangers, unless of course something has gone wrong and you want to whinge because that is one of the things the English do best.
••Make sure you are careful when offering your seat to people, you must not offer it to someone who considers themselves still young
••Avoid eye contact at all cost.
••You can tut-tut about rucksacks taking up valuable space, but you are not allowed to do the same for fat people
••Don’t read other people’s literature, but if you must, be sneaky.
••Don’t talk too loudly (unless of course you are a banker, have a 3-G phone, and need to SELL SELL SELL (but only around the City or Westminster))
••STAND ON THE RIGHT WHEN ON THE ESCALATORS.
••Don’t be over-ambitious with closing doors.
••Don’t persist with a faulty ticket in the barriers.

This set of rules however is not a new one. In 1944 a series of posters, designed by Fougasse (Cryil Kenneth Bird), where released presenting on them some of the tube etiquette rules i have previously mentioned for example they urged people to have their tickets ready for the barriers and reminded passengers to stand on the right of the escalators. That is not to say that preceding the 1940’s people where rude and obnoxious and had a total disregard for these rules, because they are a result of a sort of common knowledge and are ingrained into our minds, well at least most peoples.

After investigating the subject of tube etiquette and human behaviour on the tube I decided I wanted to explore and comment on the positions and the proximity in which we stand on the underground.
The cramped and crowded environment dictates the movements you make and places you in awkward and intimate positions. The general rules of personal space in Britain vary substantially as they do for different nations/ cultures. In the UK we are generally quite conservative with casual space being 4 feet and intimate being within one and a half feet from you. But as soon as you take those first few steps down below ground level the story starts to change, as journeys, for the main part, in the western world tend to be measured in time/ distance this means that people are willing to disregard usual rules of social etiquette in order to get on the tube against all costs, to get somewhere quicker.
Intimate space is usually reserved for affection and comforting from partners, pets and close friends and family. The only strangers who are willingly let into this space are health care professionals and prostitutes. However on the tube we seem to be able to share this space with about six other people we don't know - from tourists rushing frantically between London "landmarks" to tick them off their list of what London is meant to be, to blank faced commuters, to vagabonds spreading their story up and down the carriage, and to anxious mothers buying Christmas presents in the late summer sales.
With this set of images I wanted to look at the absurdity of the uncomfortable and awkward positions in which people stand in the tube and the isolation you experience regardless of the crammed carriage and the abundance of life surrounding you. This is exaggerated by de-contextualising the intricately choreographed positions which are suggested by their invisible companions and enclosure. By removing the passengers from where you would usually see them, it helps you understand the underlying humour and oddness of the situation. Its is harder to notice these things when you are cough up in the event itself as we become disconnected in the transient atmosphere of this non-place, voluntarily or non-voluntarily noticing virtually nothing between home and our destination. The dead-pan, and emotionless atmosphere reflects the numbed mind of the commuter, and the cold and lonely feel of the images also reflect that melancholy, and monotonous isolation.
”The English social disease is a congenital disorder, bordering on a sort of sub-clinical combination of autism and agoraphobia (the politically correct euphemism would be ‘socially challenged’).” It is our awkwardness, insularity, obliqueness and “emotional constipation”, which generally make it quite hard to partake in any sort of straight forward communication with another human being without becoming on the over-polite, awkwardly introverted, or sticking our heads into the sand, or the complete opposite and become loutish, obnoxious, crude and rowdy.
This to me is what makes the whole underground phenomenon so amusing in England as opposed to other countries where complete strangers will happily act as flesh pillows for their fellow weary traveller. Sharing such intimate space with strangers is not programmed into “the English way” this can be backed up by a few of these key English phrases: “Oi-what you looking at”; “mind your own business”; “keep yourself to yourself”.
As there train penetrates through the tunnel into the station people make futile efforts to get closer to the door. Suddenly the doors start beeping and jerk open, a slimy mob erupts onto the platform devouring it. As people alight they share not a glance or a word between them. They got what they wanted, now they can leave, no pleasantries expected, they probably wont see each other again, as you shuffle up the stairs feeling damp with sweat and anxious to leave, like some sort of sordid, grimy one night stand.