7 research outputs found

    Arts of urban exploration

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    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

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    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

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

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    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 dĂ©tournement and dĂ©rive, 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 thĂšse expose une nouvelle perspective interdisciplinaire quant Ă  la lecture des poĂšmes d’aprĂšs-guerre de le poĂšte de New York School Frank O’Hara. Au travers de la philosophie de Situationiste Internationale, plus prĂ©cisĂ©ment des Ă©crits de Guy Debord, cette Ă©tude explore les connections entre la poĂ©sie de Frank O’Hara et des propres reprĂ©sentation urbains et culturelles. Grace au notions de psychogeographie et ses « anti-technique » de dĂ©tournement et dĂ©rive, cette recherche se concentre sur l’art d’appropriation qu’utilise O’Hara dans ses assemblages poĂ©tiques. L’emphase mise sur les poĂšmes d’aprĂšs-guerre tirĂ©s de The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara illustre la vision de l’environnement moderniste de O’Hara. Les aspects urbains, expĂ©rimentaux, et Ă©rotiques inspirĂ©s de la poĂ©sie française sout mis en valeur par les poĂšmes choisir d’O’Hara. Les deux premier chapitres proposent une approche psychogeographique pour dĂ©composer les images des poĂšmes de O’Hara tandis que le troisiĂšme 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’homosexualitĂ©

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

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    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 Ă  propos du lieu

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    Dire qu’on habite quelque part est une tautologie, tant que l’acte mĂȘme d’exister dĂ©pend de lĂ  oĂč on se trouve. Une approche purement scientifique de la notion de lieu nous semble inadĂ©quate pour rendre compte de l’emprise totali­sante des lieux sur nos esprits, loin au-delĂ  de la seule performativitĂ© de la pratique opĂ©rationnelle 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 intĂ©rieur – le lieu s’impose au-delĂ  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 Ă©tĂ© amenĂ©s Ă  exposer deux sĂ©ries de travaux artistiques, prĂ©sentĂ©es comme autant d’études psychogĂ©ographiques, oĂč il s’agit de sonder, par l’intermĂ©diaire de l’expression artistique, cette chose singuliĂšre qui semble fonder chaque situation spatiale particuliĂšre.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
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