Psychogeography: the word conjures for me. I came across it a scant few weeks ago, and immediately it brought some coherence to many thoughts that have clattered around my mind for a while. It was like finding the framing for a photograph that brings the picture elements into good relationship.
There is, in fact, a book called Psychogeography, written by Will Self, whom I watched (via YouTube) give a lecture at Google. I was struck not only by what concerns we shared, but by how very differently we have lived in the world. Self, before his now common walking projects, tended to experience his world (an international yet largely urban one) as a series of what he called microenvironments, cocoons like hotels or taxis in which he had no sense of relationship to the larger environment. Although this is understandable, and may be the common condition, it is radically unlike my own sense of place. I always know where North is (or think I do; I sometimes get this wrong, but eventually I nail it). A plane or taxi is no enclosure, but another meams of viewing regions and directions and relationships. Visiting another city, I always go running in the mornings to see as much of it as I can. At home, I know the mountains and rivers within a day’s drive, and if I haven’t been on every road in the county, I know where they are.
For a definition with a historical perspective, Wikipedia gives us the following:
Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as the “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”
I’m not so sure about laws, but I like the idea of being conscious of one’s state of mind in relation to place. And I also like the body-based technique elaborated to expose that relation, namely the dérive. This drift or stroll comes in various flavors. One can wander aimlessly, driven by whim (or anti-whim), or follow an algorithmic path (e.g. first left, second right, second right; repeat), or let coin flips determine choice of direction.
So I want to investigate this notion, or my interpretation of it. I’d like to try being a psychogeographer in a new setting, and immersively over several days. I think the ideal location would have a mix of inhabited, domesticated (e.g. fields) and more wild areas. My plan would be to stop occasionally, making a photograph and writing about that particular spot and my thoughts of the moment as they relate to it.
I haven’t decided how my “drift” should be determined. It would be fun to experiment with different methods. One I’m curious to try is picture-driven; from each spot I simply go to the next place I feel like making a photograph. Perhaps I’ll gain some insight into how I choose the things to photograph that I do. But equally appealing is either a random or algorithmic method that forces me to make photographs in places I’m not “naturally” drawn to. I’d probably learn even more that way.
The combination of photography and writing is important. I’m sure many others have done similar projects, but I haven’t seen good examples where the photographs are much more than record snapshots, or the writing more than captions to the images. If anyone knows of some good work along these lines, please let me know.
If you were to do a spot of psychogeography, where would it take place? What strikes you as an interesting or productive approach? In the end, will you have learned more about your place or your self?
Steve,
What immediately came to my mind was my initial view of Manhattan, experiencing the microenvironments of Columbia University and NYU that, in my mind, were only connected by underground subway tracks until I put on my sneakers and explored the streets above.
Much food for thought, perhaps, more later.
Steve —
Fascinating ideas and questions.
I happened yesterday onto a relevant photography exhibit through an art blog:
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=23161
It seems to be precisely in line with what you are speaking of, and this photographer has worked out a scheme (an algorithm?) for avoiding the “indissoluble connection to the factual.” The review is a bit art-speak (perhaps poorly translated) but interesting nevertheless.
I hadn’t heard the term “derive” (drift or stroll?) before, but in context I like the notion — like a “flanneur?”
and the photos you have chosen are evocative — can you talk more about your choices?
More later, if the crick don’t rise.
June, actually, the photography you linked to looks quite different. Though the photographer takes pictures at a prescribed set of locations, the goal is to generate a huge composite, not to respond to place in any individualistic way. There is also no writing involved. Although, in general, the photographs one makes are affected by the thoughts and emotions of the moment, that seems too vague a connection for what I would like to do. Having both a photograph and writing from each node enables comparisons that I hope will be interesting. On the other hand, writing or photos or both could be rot. Or maybe they’ll start out good and turn to rot. I won’t know until I try…
Steve, you have given us a lot of homework. I only just got through reading Wikipedia on psychogeography and listening to the lecture by Self on Google.
Birgit, you are so studious! I did not think Self’s lecture was great, but it was interesting and prompted thought. It’s almost an hour long. There are a number of resources out there if you search. In a few large cities–including Amsterdam–there are groups that meet semi-regularly to walk, which I think could be fun. My project would be done alone; my conversation with my notebook. Anyway, I haven’t looked much at what others have done, just let my own mind take off from the basic concept.
June,
The first photograph was an early one, taken while wandering around through the patches of woods between fields in the hills of southern Wisconsin. The second was looking down a spine of rock above the Madison river (longer than the Mississipi if you measure to the sea, but it flows into the Missouri and loses its name) during another off-trail ramble.
Steve, you are right — the writing and individualistic response that you envision are quite different from the exhibit works that I saw. It was just the push to turn photography away from trying to “get the best shot” to some other kind of recording that I thought similar. The photographer used a horribly methodical process (an algoritm?) to change how he worked, so that was the resonance. But you definitely are thinking about a different direction.
I like the idea of writing, too. For me, words evoke ideas which can evoke further visual processes and lines/directions to explore. I really rely on words, not to visualize with but to see where I might go with my visualizing. So your experiment resonates with me. However, I must admit to seldom going back to the words once I’ve written them down.
As you might have guessed, the Montana experience fits readily into your final questions, although I didn’t anticipate that happening when I signed on. But given the weather, the village, the studio with its front window — I was forced to deal with the place where I was located, whether I wanted to or not.
So there’s one approach — the unexpected “incarceration” in an experience for two months led me down paths I never expected. Now, I would definitely choose this mode of proceeding.
I don’t think I can learn enough about a place in two months to think I know it — what I do know is what my own reaction to the place is. After years, I might know more about the place than about myself, but it would definitely take years.
I ordered Self’s book from the library, by the way. My internet connection cuts out YouTube after a couple of minutes — I think it’s a conspiracy by Comcast. But I liked Self’s basic premise as I heard it — that we know place through physically being there and that for the last 160 years we have lost more and more that kind of “being there.” It’s probably why I don’t like the usual tourist travel — I’m never actually at the new country or city; I’m at the car-as-place, the plane-as-place, the taxi-as-place. Even in Basin, I was restricted to being the Artist-in-place which provided a different interaction and interpretation than if I had been an ordinary town resident. Only my past affiliations with small town life helped me move beyond the barriers that I might have found kept me from being physically entrenched in place.
Steve, you brought to our attention something that I like to think about. Self’s lecture was interesting.
Thoughts are rambling through my mind. As a start, I would like to remind that space in the somatosensory cortex of our brain is organized somatotopically. Which makes sense as we would like to know where our arm is in relation to our leg.
But the same is not true for the hippocampus. Ten years ago, it was suggested that hippocampus, where we respond to our location in the environment, may act as a cognitive map, but according to today’s reading of the subject in Wikipedia that idea may not hold up.
30 yrs ago, I listened to a ‘place’ cell in the rat hippocampus that fired whenever the critter ran to the right corner of a table but was silent everywhere else. Later, people found place cells that responded when a mouse was near a telephone on a desk or near a coffee machine on the kitchen table.
My half hour was up. Good, I am late for work.
Birgit,
It makes sense that immediate perceptual and motor activity should be organized in the brain by body-space, but that other relationships (e.g. co-occurrence) are more important in short- and long-term memory.
I just had an email from an unknown person in Berkeley, and it brought back an interesting stream of memories (not a flood–it was strong, but not overwhelming). Mostly visual, and of places where I spent time. A significant number were definitely related to body movement, for example the stairs to the top of the divided house I lived in, the trail up into the hills that I would run on, streets I had walked along. (Until just now, none were about my graduate career, the reason I was there!)
A connection here is that the most celebrated method of memory enhancement is the method of loci or Ars memoriae (art of memory in Latin), where loci means places, usually architectural.
The whole question of memory brings up the point that a dérive in a known place and one in an unknown place would be very different in terms of psychology.
Steve, what I like very much about the top photo has nothing to do w/ sense of place. I think what I find fascinating about it is the feeling of looking in two directions at once, and the fact that a forest is an unlikely spot to find a mirror.
Regarding your wandering project, it seems like a great thing on its own, however you approach it. But if you really want to force yourself to break habits and discover new things, your idea about employing a random external source of decisions might be useful. Like flipping a coin, or spinning a bottle (no kissing), or maybe there’s some sort of “surprise me” function you can program into a GPS unit.
Steve, another fascinating link!
I like your ‘thrust of life’. Juniper-like bushes cannot be held back. The blue of the shade is curious.
David,
Yes, reflections are somehow inherently interesting. This window (which I found as shown) was not far from the decrepit remains of some small habitation that had once been built in the woods there.
I think you’re right, to break habits I should have external guidance, whether random or pre-defined (algorithmic). But I think I’ll try several techniques, as I’m also interested in examining my habits.
Birgit,
Sorry about the blue, I was in a hurry and used a different program to quickly prepare the image, rather than my usual processing. The rock face is blue because it’s in the shade and lit only by the blue sky, but the shade is not right. Plus I notice it looks a lot worse (more exaggerated) on the flat-screen monitor of a different computer, which seems to render things bluer(blue-er?).
Steve,
“I’ll have what she’ll have.”
I have a friend who, when out for a drink or meal, will order whatever the person before him orders.
Our routines are interesting but breaking them even more so.
D.,
One part of my thinking about breaking routines was your comment on June’s post (also about sense of place) about the importance of representing non-“special” moments. I tend to disagree with this, so it will be a challenge for me to make some random/pre-defined images for themselves and for comparison with images I make by my usual (inscrutable) selection process.
Steve,
I would like to see a photograph of your car. And June…
Sadly, my camera is in for repair for the first time in two years. Maybe too cold… Anyway, my car is a little blue 1991 Toyota Tercel that I never wash ’cause the next dirt road is likely to undo the effort.
That is sad, fortunately I am also interested in Stand-ins:
http://thumbs.automart.com/imgs/ag/automart/cst/143/377/5/613/272/97/feed/thumb/10092007030011000.jpg
I’m back from the dead!
And I can tell you that I could formulate no mental map of the underworld, sorry to say. I have no sense of my own place in space…when I get to a new place all I try to do is solidify a few paths in my mind to get me from home to work to food. Even those are just a series of discrete turns and landmarks.
This is a great idea,Steve, and I’m really interested in what your methodology will ultimately be. “Choice repels the muse” I always say (actually I just said it now)–there’s something about limiting options and increasing restrictions that can open up your work in a new directions. (Sort of like squeezing a half-inflated balloon–parts of it will pop out in unexpected directions) But a study of your own natural methods is often worthy….I’ll be back to say more later.
D., That’s it!
McFawn,
Not a bad quote, and I’m glad you didn’t try to pass it off as Breton or whoever. I believe you’re quite right about lack of choice opening new directions. But I haven’t really tried it for myself yet.
McFawn,
Welcome back. I missed you.
Steve,
I forgot to mention that the photo of the window under the tree is a marvel of something weird and wonderful — fragile (why hasn’t it been broken by urchins?) and almost but not quite a window, more like a mirror. The photo makes me itch, slightly, like it’s nagging at me and I can’t quite reach the reason.
Also I’m trying again to wade through the Wikipedia article on psychogeography. I like their opening summary –“Psychogeography includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape.”
but I do find the French terribly terribly, well, french. I like “drift” as a synomym for derive, but when I read further into the explanation, I get bogged down. But I’m willing to keep trying.
D — I have photos of the car, particularly from its Montana adventures, where the snow and slush gave it a certain, well, Montana-ishness. But perhaps you wanted me to paint it — I’ll have to work at that. I’m having difficulty settling into painting — everything feels labored and tired. maybe I’ll have a go at the Wheeled Vehicle in the Driveway.
Re: your query about artists working along these lines, perhaps you already know well, but Richard Long is probably the primo one. I particularly like his walks/photos of Iceland. I thought also of Hamish Fulton. (books by both on amazon, e.g. Richard Long: From Time to Time). The British revolutionized the concept of garden away from formal symmetry; it does not surprise me they are really at the forefront of man’s relationship to the landscape…
I am grateful for the Will Self info; if only I did not have dial up and could see the interview…
Martha,
Thanks for the leads! It appears Richard Long’s web site is not operational, but my library has books by both him and Fulton, so I will certainly have a look.
Hi, I stumbled across this site whilst researching psychogeography and the Derive for my degree work. I myself take on the practice and also struggle to record my findings beyond ‘snapshots’. I like to take rubbings of interesting surfaces, or pick up pieces of ephemera, but any suggestions would be fab!
I love the photograph of the window by the way, it’s niggling at a memory in my mind!
Here is a suggested text: ‘Land&Scape Series: Walkscapes. Walking as an Aesthetic practice’ by Francesco Careri.
Thanks :)
Dear Steve Durbin,
Just in case this is of interest I am emailing to let you know that ‘Mythogeography’ (the book) is just emerging from the printers. All the details are here –
http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Mythogeography_Guide_to_Walking_Sideways.htm
And there’s a website too, which pushes it all a little bit further and that’s here – http://www.mythogeography.com
My name is not on the book, though I wrote it. It takes the form of a documentary-fictional collection of the internal documents, diary fragments, letters, emails, narratives, notebooks and handbooks of a loose coalition of artists, performers, ‘alternative’ walkers and pedestrian geographers. All Illustrated in full colour by Tony Weaver, who designed the Wrights & Sites’ Mis-Guide books.
It is an attempt to celebrate the practices of artists, activists, performers and walkers who have shaped a new walking culture since the collapse of the 1990s Psychogeographical Associations.
The fragmentary and slippery format recognises the disparate, loosely interwoven and rapidly evolving uses of walking today: as performance, as exploration, as urban resistance, as activism, as an ambulatory practice of geography, as meditation, as post-tourism, as dissident mapping, as subversion of and rejoicing in the everyday. ‘Mythogeography’ celebrates that interweaving, its contradictions and complementarities, and is an attempt at a handbook for those who want to be part of it.
I hope you enjoy it and find it of some use.
Best ambulatory wishes,
Phil
Thank you, Phil, the mythogeography site is intriguing and will certainly be subjected to further wandering on my part.
One of your “hoppers” on the reminded me of one Birgit used a while back. Though apparently looking out the window, I don’t see this woman as a likely flâneur.
Interestingly, I’ve felt almost liberated to wander more randomly about town since I’ve taken to listening to technical podcasts while walking. It’s a sad fact that the recommended half day of free time seems out of reach, but this way it seems like I’m getting the walking time “for free,” i.e. without giving up other activities. It’s not optimal, of course, but better than nothing.
Hey Steve,
Good to hear your voice again. I reread this post, too, and realized that my latest stuff seems to repeat, with some addenda of my own, your ideas. Round and round we go.
The podcasts reminds me of how different the verbal and visual areas of my brain work. I can’t listen to anything but non-lyriced (ie no words) music when I’m writing, even if I’m writing about art. And yet I can talk, listen to NPR, and jot notes to myself about my (vebal) thoughts while I paint or sketch. So technical podcasts and engaging in “drift” makes sense to me; sometimes it can be even be “optimal.”
I normally don’t like even music when concentrating, but there’s certainly plenty of both work and art that doesn’t require full concentration. But I don’t think I could manage your level of multi-sensory functionality, June.
Regarding optimal: That may make sense in that when I’m engaged with listening, and since I have no goal but to walk, I can end up in some place quite unexpected, without applying explicit techniques like prescribed turning patterns.
Steve, I like the functionality of your ‘getting lost’ or finding a new way – sometimes these are contrived in showy ways (as you hint), but I like the modesty of your method
hi phil,
It’s embarrassing to report that I haven’t yet carried out this project, after more than a year. It seems that getting into the right frame of mind–meaning really feeling that I can freely dedicate a full day to this–is the hardest part. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready, but I’m still very much looking forward to it.
Steve:
This discussion touches so much of importance to me. It seems that one can postulate spatial issues as central to experience.
Jay,
I quite agree with you and George Lakoff about the centrality of space in all aspects of our understanding.
It strikes me that your new compass would be an excellent one to guide a proper wandering.
there’s no need for embarrassment – not going is sometimes as good as going, a svaouring of the possibility – once you give up on the whole thing, then you’ll go
Hey Steve,
I am also interested in psychogeography..Im an art student in Limerick City Ireland! I was doing reseacch and came across your article which I found interesting..I dealt with exploring my urban landscape in a different way..See I love cycling and so I attached a HD video camera to my bike and just took off cycling..I had it taped to the bike at an awkward angel and when I looked back on it I saw things that I hadn’t noticed on my journey in the first place..Just said I drop by and leave you a comment!!
All the best,
Michelle!