Podcast: What on Earth is Psychogeography

I had the great pleasure of being interviewed live onstage at the fantastic Wanstead Tap about the subject of walking and psychogeography for the Tap Into Podcast. And appropriately I did ramble all over the place a bit.

Here are some of my notes.
Original definition of Psychogeography by the Situationist International:
“the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” S.I.
dérive
A mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. The term also designates a specific uninterrupted period of dériving.

Note on psychogeography from my book This Other London:
“In 1953 a young poet and activist, Ivan Chtcheglov, writing under the pseudonym of Gilles Ivain, produced an article called ‘Formulary for a New Urbanism’, in which he put forward this utopian vision: ‘Everyone will live in their own cathedral. There will be rooms awakening more vivid fantasies than any drug. There will be houses where it will be impossible not to fall in love. Other houses will prove irresistibly attractive to the benighted traveller.’

Quote about the S.I and the City
One article from 1958 sums up the group’s feelings about the city: “The world we live in, and beginning with its material decor, is discovered to be narrower by the day. It stifles us.
“We yield profoundly to its influence; we react to it according to our instincts instead of according to our aspirations. In a word, this world governs our way of being and it grinds us down.”

Video I made about Mathieu O’Neil’s Situationist Library in Paris.

Link to part of the Chris Gray Memorial Lecture at Housmans bookshop October 2012.

Extract from an article I wrote about British Psychogeography and the 90s psychogeography revival:
The revival of the London Psychogeographical Association had been announced with a statement in their first newsletter in 1993, “The revival of the LPA corresponds to the increasing decay in British culture, and indeed of the British ruling elite. It has been, in fact, an historical inevitability”. In an essay entitled ‘Why Psychogeography’ Stewart Home reinforced the point, “Psychogeography is not a substitute for class struggle, but a tool of class struggle.”

Sacred alignments of London map
Lud Heat map

London Psychogeographical Assocation NewsletterWhy Psychogeography
“There is a spectre haunting Europe, nay, the world. The spectre of psychogeography”
The publications of the London Psychogeographical Association forthrightly present a reconstruction of urban life.

Previous posts about Iain Sinclair and Psychogeography

Proto-psychogeography
The Fringe of London
“On rambling round the outskirts of London, and the unexpected turns, trials and triumphs that lie in the path of the wayfarer”. 

Discovering Maxwell’s The Fringe of London had been an epiphany for me, realizing that there was a heritage for this odd practice of wandering around neglected streets, following the city’s moods, tracking myths, retracing old paths and uncovering forgotten histories. – out-take from TOL

“The border-line between folk-lore and fairy-tales is not more nebulous than that between topographical research and “nosing about.”
The former, in either case, is but a grander name for practically the same thing. I mean the outdoor part of topography, not the many hunts in the land of books that usually follows later.”

“There are two ways of topographical hunting: one is to follow the “scent” of a clue, and the other is to go into the unknown to find what may be. Each way has its own charms and surprises. “

“The way of the topographical rambler is sometimes hard, often muddy, usually interesting; but never dull.” – Gordon S. Maxwell – The Fringe of London, 1925

England’s Character by SPB Mais 1936
“So make up your mind to be bound by no programme, to travel with complete irresponsibility, to start nowhere in particular, and the odds are that you will catch a glimpse of England that is vouchsafed only to the privileged few.”
“What you are looking for is as elusive as the faery music of the piper at the gates of dawn. What you see may be incommunicable to others, but it will provide you with a vision that may well alter the whole of your outlook on life.”

“Londoners live and sleep in places that in one’s lifetime had been remote and inaccessible”
Walter George Bell, 1926

“… I decided that these little towns must be celebrated. I would lock up, gather toothbrush, comb, and razor, and revisit them; make a Grand Tour of the true heart of London”
The Outer Circle Rambles in Remote London, Thomas Burke 1921

Some previous posts about psychogeography

3 Comments

  1. AJ   •  

    I normally don’t comment on anything online at all and yet here I find myself leaving a second comment on your blog. Can’t help it – that podcast is bloody brilliant! I’ve learned so much from it. There’s something about your work and how you present it that I find really accessible and invigorating. And I’m clearly not the only one! Just started reading Welcome to New London as well, great stuff. 👍
    Makes me want to embark on my own psychogeographical adventure.
    I’ve always felt that I have to walk through a landscape to really form any kind of a relationship between me and a place, and walk through it – or in it – on my own. It’s a very different experience walking together with other people. Do you find that to be true as well?
    Cheers John!

    • JohnR   •     Author

      Thanks so much AJ – yes I definitely prefer walking alone

  2. Alistair McFarlane   •  

    Hello John. My ancient computer has real trouble opening Spotify. Will you be making your Wanstead Tap chat available anywhere else?
    Possibly your biggest fan,
    Alistair McFarlane (aka AMcF54 on YouTube)

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