Psychogeography
I first encountered psychogeography while reading about Iain Sinclair (I think an essay in Lights Out for the Territory, or something else by Sinclair, had prompted some further research). My most prolonged exposure to the idea came while reading London Orbital, Sinclair’s book about his exploration of the route described by the M25, the orbital road surrounding London. Sinclair walked around the circumference, seeing and recording what he saw; most importantly, though, he thought about what he had seen, extrapolating from the physical territory a reading of the psychology, the social and political psychology, or the space — writing a psychogeography. A short review I wrote about five years ago can be found here.
More recently I have been reading Sinclair’s Lights Out for the Territory, another book about walking and seeing and interpretting. The idea never completely left me, after London Orbital, but being exposed to it, to psychogeography, again — re-exposed — has started me thinking about the applicability — or perhaps simply relevance — of the idea to my photography (and also, perhaps, to my life, generally). And then a day or so ago I rewatched, with Hugo Teixeira, a documentary about William Eggleston, and suddenly psychogeographical thinking seemed to become even more pertinent.
The concept of psychogeography first appeared in the 1950s. According to the Wikipedia entry, Guy Debord defined psychogeography “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” That is a definition of psychogeography that covers Sinclair’s intellectual process, but which falls short of being definitive by failing to touch on the methodology of the studying — the actual walking. Walking is very important to Sinclair, and to others (myself included), and to understand that, the relationship of walking to psychogeography, we need to understand the Dérive. It is this side that interests me most: the intersection of the physical process, the feet on the ground, moving from point to point, with the idea, the interpretation. And for psychogeographers the walking is not simply a practicality, a way to get to what they want to see; to the contrary, the walking , the connection with — the constant connecting with — the place, is integral to, is the key to, revealing the buried information about the place.
The passage below is from ‘Drifting with The Situationist International’, an article — author unknown — published in Smile #5
The dérive is the first step toward an urban praxis. It is a stroll through the city by several people who are out to understand the “psychogeographical articulation of the modern city”. The strollers attempt an interpretive reading of the city, an architectural understanding. They look at the city as a special instance of repressed desires. At the same time, they engage in “playful reconstructive behavior”. Together they turn the city around. They see in the city unifying and empowering possibilities in place of the present fragmentation and pacification.
There is a little more information on dérive, and on how it relates to psychogeography, on the site where I found that passage. And the wikipedia articles on both dérive and psychogeography provide good background.
I’m thinking about these things a lot at the moment: the ideas tie into the Territory photographs I’m gradually putting up onto Flickr, and also into my plans for the next project; so, I imagine there will be more to write, later. First, though, I need to find some maps.