Arts of urban exploration

This paper addresses ways in which artists and cultural practitioners have recently been using forms of urban exploration as a means of engaging with, and intervening in, cities. It takes its cues from recent events on the streets of New York that involved exploring urban spaces through artistic practices. Walks, games, investigations and mappings are discussed as manifestations of a form of ‘psychogeography’, and are set in the context of recent increasing international interest in practices associated with this term, following its earlier use by the situationists. The paper argues that experimental modes of exploration can play a vital role in the development of critical approaches to the cultural geographies of cities. In particular, discussion centres on the political significance of these spatial practices, drawing out what they have to say about two interconnected themes: ‘rights to the city’ and ‘writing the city’. Through addressing recent cases of psychogeographical experimentation in terms of these themes, the paper raises broad questions about artistic practices and urban exploration to introduce this theme issue on ‘Arts of urban exploration’ and to lead into the specific discussions in the papers that follow

Place memory and dementia: Findings from participatory film-making in long-term social care

yesA participatory film-making study carried out in long-term social care with 10 people with Alzheimer-type dementia found that places the participants had known early in life were spontaneously foregrounded. Participants’ memories of such places were well-preserved, particularly when photo-elicitation techniques, using visual images as prompts, were employed. Consistent with previous work on the ‘reminiscence bump’ in dementia, the foregrounded memories belonged in all cases to the period of life between approximately 5 and 30 years. Frequently the remembered places were connected with major life events which continued to have a strong emotional component. The continuing significance of place in the context of long-term dementia care is considered from a psychogeographical perspective

BANKSY, RHETORIC, AND REVOLUTION

This thesis examines the projects outlined by the Situationist philosophers and their impact on revolutionizing consciousness. Alongside of this examination this thesis demonstrates how the appropriate rhetorical means in conjunction with street art—specifically the work of Banksy—may lead to the successful implementation and execution of the Situationist\u27s projects. This thesis examines the concept of the spectacle as developed by the Situationists as its object of critique and the concepts of culture, unitary urbanism, psychogeography, détournement and dérive as the framework in which the spectacle can be successfully critiqued in order to foster a more critical consciousness. In addition to this framework my claim is that the aforementioned elements are accomplished by the work of Banksy and his ability to alter the material conditions of our reality through his rhetorical construction of material enactments by creating appropriate and kairotic works which provide life to the Situationist\u27s projects and affords the potentiality of revolutionizing consciousness. In Figure 1. Banksy critiques the idea of spectacularization. There is a fear that technology will distract individuals’ from living and experiencing their lives to the fullest, that their desire to record moments will get in the way with actually living through experiences. In fact the concept of recording events, for many people, is bringing more life to those events than the event itself. We’re currently living in a society where the record of the thing itself is greater than the thing itself. Of course, whenever something is recorded it can be spectacularized--elevated to a greater degree of importance--and shared with many. At the same time, urban architectural achievements have become idols unto themselves. People visit the Eiffel Tower for the purposes of visiting the Eiffel Tower. Even in the act of being a tourist or a spectator we are being placed in positions of passivity. The goal is to absorb whatever man made phenomena has been constructed for the purposes of enjoying it intrinsically without understanding why. In their article Rhetoric and Materiality in the Museum Park at the North Carolina Museum of Art Kenneth Zagacki and Victoria Gallagher rhetorically analyze the complex and interwoven spaces of the North Carolina Museum of Art. Their research claims that the move from symbolicity to materiality involves a shift from examining representations (what does a text mean/what are the persuader\u27s goals) to examining enactments (what does a text or artifact do/what are the consequences beyond that of the persuader\u27s goals) and, as Carole Blair suggests, to considering the significance a particular artifact or text\u27s material existence: What does it do with or against other artifacts? And how does it act on persons? (Zagacki and Gallagher 172). This move from the purely symbolic importance of a text or artifact to its materiality is exceptionally important when discussing how potential Situationist projects can be materialized into and implemented effectively in the real world. The Situationists were essentially radical realists—their critiques need to exist in the most material form possible in order to generate the conscious liberation that they desired. That being said Margaret LaWare and Victoria Gallagher ...suggest that material rhetorics contribute to discourses of public identity by inviting visitors to see and experience landscape (or physical context) around them in new, and very much embodied ways (as cited in Zagacki and Gallagher 172). The recursive nature of material rhetorics allows us to analyze exactly how environment\u27s are affecting individual\u27s subjectivities and how they too can go about affecting their world in new ways. I turn to this article specifically for the methodology that Zagacki and Gallagher construct in order to discuss in a more concrete fashion the rhetorical complexity of these spaces and their potential affect on visitors: we argue, through two material enactments of the human/nature interface that we characterize as ‘‘inside/outside’’ and ‘‘regenerative/transformative.’’ By ‘‘inside/outside,’’ we refer to the experience of moving (1) between constructed spaces, such as a museum space or an urban landscape, to less constructed, more organic spaces such as the outdoor park or the rural landscape; and (2) between what we refer to as natural history and human history. By ‘‘regenerative/transformative,’’ we mean moving (1) from natural states to human-constructed states and back again to nature, and (2) from one state of understanding to another. The capacity to create spaces of attention that call forth particular experiences reveals the potential rhetorical impact and reach of the Museum Park’s material forms. (173) The framework established here is specifically most affective when discussing these specific spaces—not every material space will have an inside/outside which would lend itself to phenomenological observation. However, for the purposes of this project, I find it important to reflect on how the static/dynamic enactments produced by the space harboring Banksy\u27s work functions as a method to produce the concrete/utopia enactment by détourning expectations of space via messages whose kairotic nature—its location in time and place—and content create a specific psychogeography which can revolutionize our expectations and engagement with the world

Frank O'Hara & the city : situationist psychogeography, postwar poetics, & capitalist culture.

This dissertation adopts a fresh interdisciplinary perspective on reading the postwar urban poems of New York School poet Frank O’Hara. Through French Situationist philosophy, and particularly the writings of Guy Debord, the study explores the spatial and textual relations of O’Hara’s urban and cultural representations in postwar poetry. With the help of psychogeography and its “anti-techniques” of détournement and dérive, the research focuses on O’Hara’s uses of appropriation in constructing his urban assemblages. The dissertation considers postwar poems from The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara and offers Situationist readings and understandings of O’Hara’s modernist (urban and cultural) space. The choice of specific poems highlights O’Hara’s unequivocal inspiration by French poetry and focuses on their urbane, experimental and erotic aspects. The first two chapters propose ways in decoding psychogeographical approaches in poetic (de)composition for reading O’Hara’s poems, while the third delves into O’Hara’s uses of camp in dialogue with Situationist politics that highlight not only the capitalist and the cultural, but also the erotic and the queer.Cette thèse expose une nouvelle perspective interdisciplinaire quant à la lecture des poèmes d’après-guerre de le poète de New York School Frank O’Hara. Au travers de la philosophie de Situationiste Internationale, plus précisément des écrits de Guy Debord, cette étude explore les connections entre la poésie de Frank O’Hara et des propres représentation urbains et culturelles. Grace au notions de psychogeographie et ses « anti-technique » de détournement et dérive, cette recherche se concentre sur l’art d’appropriation qu’utilise O’Hara dans ses assemblages poétiques. L’emphase mise sur les poèmes d’après-guerre tirés de The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara illustre la vision de l’environnement moderniste de O’Hara. Les aspects urbains, expérimentaux, et érotiques inspirés de la poésie française sout mis en valeur par les poèmes choisir d’O’Hara. Les deux premier chapitres proposent une approche psychogeographique pour décomposer les images des poèmes de O’Hara tandis que le troisième chapitre examine l’utilization du « camp » en rapport avec la politique Situationiste qui souligne non seulement la capitalisme et la culture, mais aussi l’érotique et l’homosexualité

“Follow the groove, man.” An exploration of wayfaring in the landscape of Neolithic Langdale

During the Neolithic period, the Langdale Pikes were the stage for the most prolific axe production in the British Isles, with its artefacts being distributed to all corners of the island through vast exchange networks. Their prevalence and popularity have led many archaeologists to ponder the significance of the mountainous location to Neolithic people. Like many axe production sites, Langdale has long been perceived as a liminal and even dangerous place, with the popularity of the axes attributed to their value as created by risk. In this study, we shall demonstrate that not only is this a misrepresentation of the role of mountains, but that it must be inherently false. This study will demonstrate that these were dynamic landscapes by using a combined theoretical approach to movement through least cost analysis and phenomenological fieldwork. By using both an objective and subjective approach to this landscape, the study created a path network, as defined by the various agents entangled within the landscape which were consolidated and built upon by a series of experiential walks. A methodological feedback loop was developed which overcame the limits of either approach whilst presenting the results in a credible, creative and hopefully collaborative, way through interactive story maps. Beyond the methodological developments, the results of the path network and subsequent fieldwork demonstrate a seasonal movement into this landscape wherein a variety of activities could have taken place and thus attested to the fact that this landscape could not have been liminal during the Neolithic. Successful navigation and discovery of the working sites required the traveller to be equipped with an expansive and detailed knowledge of the landscape accessed through such mnemonic movements

Empiries artistiques à propos du lieu

Dire qu’on habite quelque part est une tautologie, tant que l’acte même d’exister dépend de là où on se trouve. Une approche purement scientifique de la notion de lieu nous semble inadéquate pour rendre compte de l’emprise totali­sante des lieux sur nos esprits, loin au-delà de la seule performativité de la pratique opérationnelle de l’espace. Par nos perceptions, par nos affects, par le plus profond va-et-vient entre nos identifications et appropriations spatiales et notre for intérieur – le lieu s’impose au-delà de toute raison. C’est ainsi que nous proposons d’explorer ici la place, que nous pensons essentielle, d’une posture artistique dans la construction d’un savoir sur les lieux. À Cerisy-la-Salle, nous avons été amenés à exposer deux séries de travaux artistiques, présentées comme autant d’études psychogéographiques, où il s’agit de sonder, par l’intermédiaire de l’expression artistique, cette chose singulière qui semble fonder chaque situation spatiale particulière.Saying that we live somewhere is a tautology, in the sense that the very act of existence hinges upon where we are. A purely scientific approach to the notion of place seems inadequate for taking into account the totalising hold that places exercise over our minds, over and beyond the sole performativity of the operational practise of space. By our perceptions, our feelings; by the to-and-fro between our spatial identifications and appropriations and our deepest heart – place asserts itself beyond the bounds of reason. Thus we propose to explore the status, which we consider essential, of an artistic posture in the establishment of a corpus of knowledge about place. At Cerisy-la-Salle, we had the opportunity to exhibit two series of art works, presented as so many psychogeographical studies. Our objective is to fathom, by the intermediary of artistic expressivity, that singular thing which appears to found each particular spatial situation