presentation about psychogeography

1. Psychogeography?
Tim Waters
tim.waters@geoiq.com

3. Psychogeography
What's it all about?

4. Quick Definitions
Its the effect of place on the brain.
It is the poetry of places.
The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment,
consciously organised or not on the emotions and behaviour of
individuals.
Ley lines, folklore, biography of people in place.
Techniques to explore and extend the imaginative, experiential
qualities of urban and other landscapes, as part of a wider attempt to
achieve a revolutionary transformation of everyday life, the
emotional and behavioural effects of the environment, and its
ambience;
'cognitive mapping' (the city in our heads, with the places that have
specia lmeaning for us); and what might more prosaically called 'local
history'.

5. Experienced / Practiced
Get outside – exploration
Derive – rapid passage, drifting. Strolling
To transform a place, our perception
of a place, and therefore the world.
Experiencing place not in the
same way as everyone else.
Unique perspectives.
Drunken Situationists in Paris

6. Here be tortoises

7. Debord

8. The Theory of the Derive
One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”],
a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances.
Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of
psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic
notions of journey or stroll.
In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their
relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives
for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the
attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.
Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think:
from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with
constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry
into or exit from certain zones.

10. Cindi Katz: the Hidden Consequences
What does it mean for space to hide consequences?
What are the politics of either living with or
confronting this condition? If one of the tasks of
critical geography is to analyze the historical
geographies of capitalist development, it is important
to examine the historical geographies of
contemporary capitalism as part of this project. Just
as radical histories engage with standard histories to
exhume forgotten and erased histories and social
actors, radical geographers confront the power of
geography to eclipse particular people and material
social practices.

11. Practices Modern
Resurgence of interest

12. New Breed
groups
London Psycho Association
Manchester Area
Psychogeographic
Stewart Home
Ian Sinclair
J G BallardPatrick Keiller
London Calling
Richard Long

13. Current Breed
Will self
London
perambulator

14. We define ourselves by our surroundings and our situations.
If you are brought up in a neighborhood that resembles a rat trap, pretty soon you are going to
come to the conclusion that you are probably a rat. If on the other hand you have got to the tool
of psychogeography — or poetry, then you can look at the ordinary world around you
with the eye of a poet. If you have that kind of insight into the tawdry and debased streets in
which most of us spend our lives, then instead of walking down a rat trap you are walking
through cataclysmic history, from your personal memories to the local legends then the rat trap
becomes a fable, a mythological landscape. And just as living in rat trap will give you the
impression you live in a rat trap, then l suspect that living in a mythological landscape might
after a while give you the subliminal impression that you are at least a mythological figure. A
heroic character in your own narrative

15. Some Examples.......

16. To remap the area of High Wycombe - a psychogeograpical event, a walk, a ‘derive‘ within the boundary of the
re-development area, the results of which will be used to animate the town centre with a temporary art installation.
The aim of the LunchTime Dérive was to study how, by following a simple instruction, a
group of workers could re-experience thae town during their Lunch Break. The daily hun
for a prawn sandwich or ChickenTikka Masala Ready Meal will be replaced with a drift
motivated by following a basic algorithm Left left right

17. Mapping Weird Stuff is a course offered as part of the OWjL
summer camp at Ohio Wesleyan.

19. Biomapping
Christian Nold

20. Unconscious & reflection

22. On the Internets!

23. Platial R.I.P (but it lives on in GeoCommons.com!
Story telling

24. We Feel Fine
LiveJournal,
MSN Spaces,
MySpace,
Blogger, We feel fine
Flickr,
Technorati,
Feedster,
Ice Rocket,

26. Smell map http://www.nioibu.com/smell/map
The scents listed range from "a toasty odour of cow dung" to
"used socks in the summer" Soundmaps too!

27. For discussion later...:
Mobile Apps with GPS and Mobile Mapping
Foursquare? Mayors Chickens
Sold on basis of “serendipity” - chance meetings. Really experiencing city in
new ways? Transformation tool for life?
Happyness app
Nottingham
BlockChalk etc
Mobile extension of the mashup – storytelling, about place
Games
Pacmanhatten

28. Leeds

29. Make Pla(y)ce – Leeds
http://my.parkingday.org
Parking Day

31. Mayke Pla(y)ce – Light Night 2010
Insert picture of fine dining in the subway

33. Leeds Derives

34. Leeds Derives

36. Beating the bounds
Bring booze!

38. Time to go outside.
Groups of 2 or max. 3
It is practice based! so......
Get into groups of 3.
Each group take a piece of paper from me.
Go outside and follow whats on the paper
for 10 mins (or longer) then come back.
Using the space differently.
Discover reality bout a place, or yourself
Synchronistities, coincidences.