Psychogeography Project

After a lecture on New Media Art, we were given the chance to produce our own project, which involved the theory of Psychogeography. To begin with, I did not have a clue what this would involve, or what it even was! However, psychogeography looks at the relationship between the human mind and the geographic. Psychogeography investigations look at how the environment affects us, but more interestingly I feel, look at aspects of the location which are unnoticed in everyday lives, and are only spotted when projects like this occurs.

We learnt that a key method of carrying out a psychogeography project was ‘dérive’ which means to drift. This notion was developed by Guy Debord. He stated that in a dérive, people would stop their normal day-to-day activities and allow themselves to be drawn by the attractions of where they were and what they could find in the location they were at.

Basically, it meant that you could go somewhere you have been everyday for a year, but when you are actually looking at the surroundings, there is much more to it than you have ever noticed before. It allows you to see things in a new light.

Before we started embarking on our own adventure to see what we could find around Leicester, we had to plan the dérive. I decided I would do the walk in the day, to get the most of what I could see in the light. For my dérive, I got the directions off google map from my house to town, but in Devon, and then follow the same directions in Leicester, to see where it took me, and what I could find along the way. To map what I saw, and where I was going, after every corner I took, I took a photo of what was in front of me. I also took a photo if I noticed anything interesting, and noticeable, such as buildings or writing on the wall.

Sweetbrier Ln Exeter EX1, UK

1.	Head west toward Whipton Ln		43 ft
2.	Exit the roundabout onto Whipton Ln		105 ft
3.	Turn right at Chard Rd		0.3 mi
4.	Turn left at Hamlin Ln		282 ft
5.	Turn right at Hanover Rd		0.3 mi
6.	Turn right at Ladysmith Rd		417 ft
7.	Turn left at Pretoria Rd		0.1 mi
8.	Continue onto Sampsons Ln		499 ft
9.	Turn left at Polsloe Rd		0.1 mi
10.	Turn right at Gladstone Rd		0.2 mi
11.	Turn right at B3183/Heavitree Rd Continue to follow B3183 Go through 1 roundabout		0.4 mi
12.	Slight left at B3183/Paris St		0.1 mi
13.	Turn left at High St		0.2 mi
14.	Turn right at Queen St		0.1 mi
15.	Turn left at Paul St		338 ft

Paul St Exeter EX4 3, UK

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Once I had predetermined my route around Leicester, I got going on my walk. I found it very interesting to do, as I found many things that I had never noticed about Leicester before, and went places I would of probably never of been if it hadn’t been for the psychogeography project! It was amazing how much stuff there is around your environment that you just do not notice on a day-to-day basis, and that you may never realise is there.

Unfortunately, when I tried to upload the photos to share what I had found, my camera would not work, and therefore I could not document my walk around Leicester, and what I had found on my journey. Even though that did not work, I feel like the experience of doing a dérive was brilliant, and I may even do the same thing when I go home, but use Leicester’s directions in Devon.

Psychogeography projects such as this one, I believe, are definitely a form of New Media art, which are very fun to create.

Debord (1958) Theory of the Dérvive [WWW] Available from: http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm (Accessed 4/12/09)