Psychogeography!

[popjellyfish]

Psychogeography is a notion that is near and dear to my heart, but it's kind of an elusive term, with varying definitions. What started as mostly the poetic drunken ramblings within Situationism, has ballooned into many things. And it has a strong resonance with me that I sometimes can't define as well as I'd like to. But the core concept revolves around the idea of environment being more [alive/aware/conscious] than is taken at face value. Ideas of the Dérive, where one takes a walk with no particular aim, trusting that the city will "tell you" where to turn and where not to. Trusting that it will take you somewhere that will impress upon the memory, somewhere beautiful and meaningful. Ideas of areas of land or neighborhoods that develop distinct "personalities", like an individual that grows and changes from the experience of the elements living and traveling through it's system. And that every element is part of the whole. That our environment interacts and changes the elements within it(i.e. us), as much as those elements change the environment. I equate it a lot with some core principles of Shinto. Their usage of Torri Gates to create a boundary line between divine and profane spaces... building temples to venerate a patch of forest, thinking it must be inhabited by the gods just because it is particularly beautiful to them.

Do I think places are literally alive? Probably not. Do I think it's a romantic notion? OF COURSE. Do I find this way of thinking to be a more accurate map to describe the territory? For me, certainly. I guess I'm posting just to start the back and forth on the topic, since I found nothing in a search. I'm wondering if there are other, completely different outlooks on this barely defined term. And in general, what others think on the subject. Recommendations for reading/watching/etc. would be muchly liked[one of my favorites being Passages: Explorations of the Contemporary City by Graham Livesey].

[Honey]

I like this notion but I'm too sleepy to think right now so I'll just say g'night.   

[LMNO]

Sounds a bit like the idea of "psychotecture" I use in LMNO-PI.

[Cramulus]

I like it too. I was just thinking about memetic geography yesterday telling Dalekk about sniffing out "good spots" for posters.

[Novatore]

Hey popjellyfish:
I would like to direct you to the Idea of New Babylon very interesting situationist city idea (the nomadic city)

blog bout it
hSIp://www.uni-weimar.de/projekte/isp-gjk/index.php?id=118

Actual Essay
hSIp://www.notbored.org/new-babylon.html

[popjellyfish]

I like it too. I was just thinking about memetic geography yesterday telling Dalekk about sniffing out "good spots" for posters.

I do the same with stickers and stencils. I like the feeling of walking around for a long enough period of time that I'll start to get impulses to place them in certain areas, like they're sweet spots that get noticed by the most amount of passers by. Not that there's much I can do to test how successful these placements are. It feels more like I'm reciprocating the affect I get when I'm outside and stumble upon some little patch of creativity that some one put there for me to see. There's an unspoken dialogue going all the time with graffiti, and it's fun watching a patch of wall grow as it attracts more and more of it after I've put something there. It feels similar to smoking at a party. Everyone's around in a circle, and one person pulls a cigarette out of their pack only to have everyone else follow suit.

[Cramulus]

[Honey]

I think some places are metaphorically alive which, at times, seems to me, as if they are literally alive, that is, you can feel them.

I started to take a look at that book, Passages: Explorations of the Contemporary City by Graham Livesey, just the beginning.

So far I like what Michel de Certeau wrote, "space occurs as the effect produced by the operations that orient it, situate it, temporalize it & make it function in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programs or contractual proximities."

Or as he put it more simply, "Space is a practiced place." 

[Triple Zero]

honey, I'll add that to the memebomb list if you dont mind

It's a funny thing, I read about psychogeography first on the Generative Art mailinglist, but the project explained there was obviously just a small aspect or part of psychogeography. it was about people playing a game with cards that had directions on then "second road on the right", "third left","look for a traffic light", etc. you'd shuffle the cards and take a semi-random walk. (the art piece was how they documented their trips afaik, but generative art is more about the process than the result, hence the name.)

[popjellyfish]

I think some places are metaphorically alive which, at times, seems to me, as if they are literally alive, that is, you can feel them.

I started to take a look at that book, Passages: Explorations of the Contemporary City by Graham Livesey, just the beginning.

So far I like what Michel de Certeau wrote, "space occurs as the effect produced by the operations that orient it, situate it, temporalize it & make it function in a polyvalent unity of conflictual programs or contractual proximities."

Or as he put it more simply, "Space is a practiced place." 

Most definitely. Space undergoes experience in a similar way to us. The elements that define that space almost feel like food passing through it's system. As thing s pass through it, bits are left making it part of the space.  Some nourishing, some laced with fat and chemicals that give it indigestion. There was an art instillation here in Portland last year, funded in part by the city, that attempted to map Portland as a human body to contemplate applying acupuncture to its downtrodden areas. The show actually wasn't all that great, but it has a great kernel of an idea to elaborate on. I've played with a number of projects that attempt to invigorate space. The most fun is building public altars, street shrines left in key places built, painted, and covered in venerated found objects. Damn if I don't have many pictures of them...

In case you didn't already find it, Passages is available on Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=icf0msfWi-UC&dq=Passages:+Explorations+of+the+Contemporary+City+by+Graham+Livesey&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=R5xGqqr-2g&sig=ja6zdcPmMGRZHR99mVvpPFGR7-s&hl=en&ei=FEQBSrnOOprqtQPR3sH8BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

I also remembered another book called How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built by Stewart Brand, which I like a lot. In fact, when looking it up for this post, I found that the BBC let him make a 3 hour documentary on it, and it's in six parts on Google Video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8639555925486210852

I know what I'm watching tonight. =^.^=

[popjellyfish]

honey, I'll add that to the memebomb list if you dont mind

It's a funny thing, I read about psychogeography first on the Generative Art mailinglist, but the project explained there was obviously just a small aspect or part of psychogeography. it was about people playing a game with cards that had directions on then "second road on the right", "third left","look for a traffic light", etc. you'd shuffle the cards and take a semi-random walk. (the art piece was how they documented their trips afaik, but generative art is more about the process than the result, hence the name.)

Huh... that sounds like some sort of Dérive tarot deck. That's kind of interesting, and it makes me want to make my own.

[Triple Zero]

Dérive tarot deck? what's that?

no but I just got the impression they just prepared a stack of index cards with short instructions, and shuffled those.

[popjellyfish]

Dérive tarot deck? what's that?

no but I just got the impression they just prepared a stack of index cards with short instructions, and shuffled those.

And I'm just the sort of aesthetic nerd to gank that idea for my own purposes, making something similar for myself... but prettier. 

[popjellyfish]

For anybody interested, The Philoctetes Center held one of their round table discussions on the topic. Psychogeography: The Landscapes of Memory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vSbsSh3CoA

Ah Philoctetes... I can't imagine watching these, but listening while drawing or otherwise craft making is happykittybunnypony.

[Cramulus]

Dérive tarot deck

woah -- great idea!