Hardback, black and white illustrations, 158 pages, W125mm x H195mm
Psychogeography. Increasingly this term is used to illustrate a
bewildering array of ideas from key lines and the occult, to urban
walking and political radicalism. But where does it come from and what
exactly does it mean?
This book examines the origins of Psychogeography
in the Situationist Movement of the 1950s, exploring the theoretical
background and its political applications as well as the work of early
practitioners such as Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. Elsewhere,
psychogeographic ideas continue to find retrospective validation in
much earlier traditions from the visionary writing of William Blake and
Thomas De Quincey to the rise of the flaneur on the streets of 19th
century Paris and on through the avant-garde experimentation of the
Surrealists.
These precursors to Psychogeography are discussed here
alongside their modern counterparts, for today these ideas hold greater
currency than ever through the popularity of writers and filmmakers
such as Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, Stewart Home and Patrick
Keiller.
From Urban Wandering to Cognitive Mapping, from the Derive
to Detournement, "Psychogeography" provides us with new ways of
apprehending our surroundings, transforming the familiar streets of our
everyday experience into something new and unexpected. This guide
conducts the reader through this process, offering both an explanation
and definition of the terms involved, an analysis of the key figures
and their work as well as practical information on Psychogeographical
groups and organisations.