Tina’s talk introduces her urban walking practice and discusses how she has developed it as a critical tool which can be used to analyse the urban spaces of postmodernity. She uses her work – which takes the form of blogs, maps and films – to illustrate how the make-up of the spaces we occupy affect us. Using the accounts of others, and her own, Tina shows how a critical form of psychogeography can not only help reveal a social history in the terrain that may otherwise remain hidden, but can also elucidate a way of responding to urban agglomerations that may be counter to their intended use.
2. Outline of Talk
What is psychogeography?
How do you undertake psychogeography?
What might you discover?
What the heck is the point of it?
3. What is psychogeography?
The study of the specific effects of the geographical environment,
consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of
individuals.
[the] active observation of present-day urban agglomerations
cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed
points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from
certain zones.
[A psychogeographer is] One who explores and reports on
psychogeographical phenomena.
(Situationist International)
4. Discovering Psychogeography
Nick
Papadimitriou
Nick Papadimitriou is drawn to the taking of
extended exploratory walks in the outer
zones of London. In the mid-1980s, he went
on to develop what he describes as ‘Deep
Topography’, a form of psychogeography.
Papadimitriou’s books are: Foul Deeds and
Suspicious Deaths in Barnet, Finchley and
Hendon (2009) and Scarp (2012). He was the
subject of The London Perambulator, a film
directed by John Rogers, with whom he has
also written and produced two radio series
for Resonance FM.
Film: Deep Topography
5. Leeds Psychogeography Group
The White Horseman Dérive
Lee Farm Drive Dérive
The Blue Fork Dérive
The Miniature Boulder Dérive
The Prozac Walk
6. Inventing Schizocartography
Schizocartography offers a method of cartography that questions
dominant power structures and at the same time enables subjective
voices to appear from underlying postmodern topography. It is the
process and output of a psychogeography of particular spaces that have
been co-opted by various capitalist-oriented operations, routines or
procedures. It attempts to reveal the aesthetic and ideological
contradictions that appear in urban space while simultaneously
reclaiming the subjectivity of individuals by enabling new modes of
creative expression. Schizocartography challenges anti-production, the
homogenizing character of overriding forms that work towards silencing
heterogeneous voices.
9. Blog: Psychogeography Outside
The Cootie Catcher Dérive
“Along with a dice, which I had made specially
for the event, that gave instructions on turning
in particular directions (e.g. first left), I also
made this device. We used to play with these
at school, but I couldn't remember the name
of them - neither could anyone else. Having
searched for it on the web, it appears to be a
Paper Fortune Teller. How dull! I thought it
was going to have a much more exciting name.
. . But then I found out it was also called a
'Cootie Catcher', which sounds a bit dodgy, yet
much more interesting!”
Blog: Particulations
10. Blog: Psychogeography Inside
The
Westin
Bonaventure
“...the Bonaventure aspires to being a total
space, a complete world, a kind of miniature
city; to this new total space meanwhile,
corresponds a new collective practice, a new
mode in which individuals move and
congregate, something like the practice of a
new and historically original kind of
hypercrowd.”
Fredric Jameson
Postmodernism or
The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Blog: Particulations
11. Film: Hello From Hunstanton!
Project: Reading the Arcades/Reading the Promenades
Film: Hello From Hunstanton! (sensecam and autographer)
12. Film: The Sound of the Sixties
Film: The Sound of the Sixties
13. Discoveries: St George’s Field
St George’s Field is at odds with itself, in being
both a cemetery and at the same time a public
park of sorts. Can it simultaneously reconcile
itself as a place of leisure and a sacred burial
space? In a way it is a cemetery of a cemetery.
The garden has become a monument (a
graveyard) to itself, to a past self.
juxtaposes in a single real place several sites
heterotopias of illusion and compensation
absolutely real and absolutely unreal
14. In Loving Memory of a Dear Sister
In memory of
Pauline Mavis White
Died 1946 ages 6 months
Will be forever in our Hearts
R.I.P
16. Discoveries: Covance
Although it remained a university
building for a while after the
Chamberlin, Powell and Bon
period of development in the
1960s, it now belongs to the
pharmaceutical and
biotechnology company Covance.
It is a clinical research unit that
has a relationship with the
university’s dental school and
carries out drug trials on campus,
recruiting volunteers in the
student population.
Springfield
House
19. Axis of Exploration and Failure
Axis of Exploration and Failure in
the Search for a Situationist
‘Great Passage’
Guy Debord 1957
Axis of Exploration and Failure in
the Search for a Situationist
‘Great Strike’
Tina Richardson 2010
Film
