“Psychogeography” seems to be generally considered a relatively benign observational activity — a random drifting through the city to experience the effect of “the geographical environment on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.”
Some inhabitants of London, England have taken an interventionist, and rather less benign, approach. A friend recently forwarded this email invitation to me:
SAVAGE MESSIAH NEW YEAR’S EVE DRIFT….a psychogeographic trawl through London’s repressed desires………………………….
MAPPING AND SURVEILLANCE ON THE STREETS AND UNDERGROUND NETWORK………………….……………..’key themes FOR CONSIDERATION……..’ may include…….MASS TRESPASS, SPONTANEOUS OUTBREAKS OF MOB VIOLENCE, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, ARSON ATTACKS, KEBABYLON MAYHEM, GATECRASHING……………..
……BRING
booze
chalk
spraypaint
pens
cameras
notebooks
DAT machines
soundsystems…..all events, dialogue, mayhem will be chanelled back into a special issue of Savage Messiah
The drift will be monitored via mobile phone tracking technology and map grid references will be podcast.ASSEMBLE @ THE FOUNDRY, GREAT EASTERN STREET/OLD ST 9PM for schizoid cartography ( erratic map manufacturing on beer mats), plotting and fuelling up.
DEPART AFTER MIDNIGHT
DESTINATION UNKNOWN.
Forget paying a tenner to get into your local or staying in one boring party, SAVAGE MESSIAH URGES YOU TO TAKE TO THE STREETS!!!!!!!. Fuck organised, state sanctioned entertainment.
LORD COE, YOUR PROJECT WILL FAIL.
DEATH TO THE GODS OF MOUNT OLYMPUS!!!!!!!
The reference to Lord Coe refers the man who led London’s successful bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2012. This invitation derives from a London zine called “Savage Messiah” put out by one Laura Norder (Laura Oldfield Ford).
2 comments
These folks take the Situationist history of psychogeography very seriously. Capslock Marxism.
In Toronto, we’ve been accused of being fake-psychogeographers because we leave our Molotov cocktails at home, and just observe, blend in, wander, drift and sometimes record or document, other times ignore that and just talk. Mostly explore. I sort of like it this way, so do others, but routinely somebody (often people doing/who have done weird degrees like architecture combined with philosophy) confronts me/us on this, and I shrug, and suggest they start their own angry group if they want to drag all that theory through the streets. We’re fine and light on our feet.
The booze is cool though.
—
When I was in London I did a lot of wandering right around Old Street, where the walk above started from. I was looking for the graveyard where William Blake was buried. I found it, he’s dead, but the area was sort of neat — not shiny London, it had streets where there were few people on them, sort of dark. London’s is a bit like Manhatten these days, ultra gentrified, so it was good to stumble upon areas that don’t fit that. I got lost for a while, then saw Norman Foster’s Gherkin and followed it to Whitechaple and population.
“Capslock Marxism.”
Have you ever read Eisenstein? That dude wrote like he cut his films.
“In Toronto, we’ve been accused of being fake-psychogeographers because we leave our Molotov cocktails at home…”
You still haven’t seen Monkey Warfare, have you?