Transit Figures — A Field Atlas
Patterns Module · Summer Semester 2026
On Mediated Visibility
1. Project
I started this project with a simple observation that kept repeating itself:
"Nothing becomes visible without something in between."
At first, this was just an intuition. I kept noticing situations where what I was seeing didn’t fully match what I knew was happening. Something was always shaping, filtering or redirecting what became visible. I’m not interested in objects as isolated things. What interests me is what happens between them — the structures that make perception possible in the first place. For me, visibility is not something neutral or given. It is always produced.
The starting point was a railway signal blind at a regional Deutsche-Bahn train track. Technically, it just shields and directs light so that a signal remains visible over distance. But visually, it reads as speed — as if the object itself was moving. That contradiction is where the project begins. The object is not important because of what it is, but because it creates a specific condition of visibility.
From this, I use the term Transit Figure.
A Transit Figure is not defined by its material, shape or category. It is defined by what it does. It enables a transition — of light, signal, movement or attention — while only one side of that transition is directly visible.
What interests me is exactly this asymmetry. Something passes through, but I only ever see the result.
So instead of asking "What am I looking at?" - I’m asking:
"What is being made visible here, and through which mediation?"
2. Field
As I continued working, I realised that Transit Figures are not limited to obvious technical objects. They appear across very different contexts, but they all share the same structural role.
Technical figures are the most direct examples. Antennas transmit signals, lenses focus light, power lines carry energy, traffic systems regulate flows. In these cases, the mediating function is explicit. You can point at it and describe it.
Situational figures are less obvious, but often more interesting. A person looking through a window is not just seeing something — the glass reflects, filters and frames the view. A barrier in public space does not just block movement — it structures who can pass and who cannot. Fog does not simply obscure vision — it transforms light into something spatial and diffuse. A checkpoint does not just control access — it produces a condition in which visibility and control are linked.
Embodied figures shift this even further. The body itself becomes a mediating structure. A hand shielding the eyes changes what can be seen. A pointing gesture directs attention. A voice transmitted through a microphone extends presence. The eye itself is not a neutral receiver — it is already a filter, a focus, a direction.
What connects all of these is not how they look, but what they do.
Each of them stands between something and something else:
- between light and perception
- between signal and interpretation
- between space and movement
- between information and attention
They make a transition possible, while at the same time partially hiding the process that makes it work.
3. Method
I am building this project as a field atlas.
That means I am not trying to define everything upfront. Instead, I collect cases and let structure emerge through accumulation. The idea is that meaning does not come from a single example, but from how examples relate to each other.
Each entry in the atlas is treated in the same way. It is not described by what it represents, but by what it mediates.
To keep this precise, I reduce every case to a simple structure:
Source → Transit Figure → Target
This forces a decision: What is entering the situation? What is doing the mediation? What is the result?
For example:
Sunlight → Signal Blind → Train Driver
City Scene → Sunglasses → Altered Perception
Crowd → Barrier → Restricted Movement
This reduction is important because it cuts through interpretation. It makes different situations comparable, even if they look completely unrelated. At the same time, I am building a structured image database. Each entry is defined by:
...a category (technical, situational, embodied)
...a type of mediation (filter, transmit, redirect, shield, bundle)
...a source and a target
...relations to other entries
The goal is to move from a loose collection of images to a system of connections, where each entry is linked to others through shared functions or transitions.
4. Output
The project develops in two connected directions.
The first is the atlas itself. This is a structured visual system, where Transit Figures are collected, compared and arranged in relation to each other. It can exist as a printed document, a PDF or a spatial arrangement.
The second is an interactive extension.
Here, images are no longer treated as static representations, but as interfaces. Instead of just looking at an image, it becomes possible to move through it.
I imagine a scene — for example, a person walking through a city. Within that image, certain elements can be activated. Each of these elements leads to a different layer of mediation.
- Clicking on sunglasses could shift the view into a filtered perspective
- Clicking on a brand could lead to a production context
- Clicking on the environment could reveal another spatial layer
Each interaction follows a clear principle:
Every interaction reveals a different condition of visibility.
The goal is not to create a narrative, but to make it clear that what we see is always structured by something we do not directly see.
At a certain point, the viewer should stop looking at images and start looking through them.
5. Research
I am not building this project on a single theoretical framework, but there are a few positions that help me articulate what I am doing.
Gilles Deleuze helps me think about form as something that emerges through relations and differences, rather than fixed identities. This is important because Transit Figures cannot be grouped by appearance, only by function.
Gregory Bateson shifts the focus toward patterns and connections. His idea that meaning lies in “the pattern which connects” aligns directly with the way the atlas is built — not as isolated cases, but as a network.
Gilbert Simondon is relevant because he understands technical objects as the result of ongoing processes, not as finished things. This allows me to read objects as condensations of mediation rather than static forms.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty grounds perception in the body. Seeing is never neutral — it is always situated, directed and conditioned. This is essential for understanding embodied Transit Figures.
I don’t use these references to explain the work or to justify it. They help me position it.
What matters for me is the practice itself:
to observe situations, to collect them, and to structure them in a way that makes the production of visibility readable.