Simon Jefferis

londonfunderground:

Circle Line 25/4/13 8.47am

Mid Yawn

londonfunderground:

Circle line 16/4/13 8.45am

A wise old chap is my friend David

davidclulow:

We’re not obsessed with technology, we just live with it.

Travelling into London everyday, it’s easy to believe that we’re all obsessed with technology. Train carriages filled with people gazing deeply into screens, ignoring the world outside the window, and their fellow passengers. Social situations are increasingly interrupted by smart phone interventions, and we continue to teach ‘bots’ how to perform more complex tasks. People are very rarely seen without a device of some sort, and our homes are filled with furniture that is slowly becoming connected. We’ve moved this ‘always on’ mentality forward, accepting that we will always be with our devices, through wearable tech. Products like the Nike Fuel band and Google Glass encourage us to spend all of our time with technology, as they help us perform everyday tasks. 

Despite all this, wearable technology suggests a turning point. We’ve lived with technological devices (in the modern sense) for a few decades now, our infatuation pushing research and development into rapid growth. And that’s exactly my point. We used to be obsessed with technology. We didn’t know what the internet was when it was first introduced, but a handful of people thought it could be cool and played with it for a few years. It was a time when our idea of technology was placed far into the future, when life would be different, and we would have jetpacks. 

Now, we’re comfortable with it. We accept that certain technologies are all around us and - on the whole - they make life a little bit easier. It’s easy to criticise the screen-folk and say that they’re passively staring into a glowing rectangle, but this suggests that they aren’t actually doing anything. When we’re in our techno-trance, we’re busy. We could be searching, watching, reading, talking, playing; but either way we’re doing something. We’re no longer obsessed with the technology as objects, but instead we’re constantly using them as tools to facilitate connectivity and communication. And this makes me think of Patrick Burgoyne’s talk that I mentioned previously, “Everything changes, everything stays the same”. As humans, all we’ve ever really cared about were tools and communication. They’re the things that make us different, the things that help us grow, and that has never really changed. 

Whether or not this slow acceptance of ubiquitous connectivity is a good thing is a completely different argument. Either way it seems to me that we are not just looking at screens and fetishising gadgets any more, but starting to look through them instead.

davidclulow:

I haven’t added much to the internet recently.

Simon Jefferis and I are 5 months into our internship together at Dare and are starting to think about what’s going to happen next. We’ve worked on a number of projects in the “real world” that NUA prepared us for, and Dare has certainly taken us out of our comfort zones and into some testing situations. The demands of paying clients are (obviously) very different to those of a degree course, and trying to keep a relaxed approach to new projects is more challenging when results are needed within days rather than weeks. Despite this, we’re working with a large number of very talented people that have pushed us and moved our ideas towards fruition quicker than we have ever experienced, and this has helped us push personal projects further in our spare time as well.

Commuting to London is a completely different bag of crazy. I love the Underground for what it is, but I don’t want to have to travel on that thing for the rest of my life. Perhaps we’ll move to London next, or maybe the Nor-folk were right and you don’t have to be there at all. Either way working in the city is a good experience right now and it seems to be teaching us a lot.

I thought 2012 would be a year of massive change, if only for myself. I think 2013 will be a year of big decisions, and some of them are coming up faster than expected. They probably always do that. Here’s to making the right ones.

I couldn’t have asked for a better wingman in this crazy whore that is London!

http://londonfunderground.tumblr.com/

I’ve created a new blog! And moved all my photos of people on the underground to it. They needed a place that was their own and I needed my space back. I called it London Funderground because of how much fun everybody has on the tube in rush hour!

I try to take one photo every morning through the glass when I get off my train. I think it makes people angry, because no one wants their photo taken in the early morning, especially when squashed in a metal box with loads of sweaty businessmen. Anyway, it tickles us in the early morn!

Give it a follow if you like, and in the meantime I’ll try and continue uploading my own things here. Brilliant!

Going through the hours of video footage taken in the Lake District! Hopefully should have something to show you soon.

My sister Katie on a ferry to Poole

Steph and Callaby. I’m particularly fond of these two.

Poole Harbour

This happens tomorrow