Psycho-geography is an approach to geography that emphasizes playfulness and “drifting” around urban environments. It has links to the Situationist International.

Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.”

Another definition is “a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities… just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape

The originator of what became known as unitary urbanism, psychogeography, and the dérive was Ivan Chtcheglov, in his highly influential 1953 essay “Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau” (“Formulary for a New Urbanism”).

It has roots in Dadaism and Surrealism.

The idea of urban wandering relates to the older concept of the flâneur, theorized by Charles Baudelaire…and is similar to STREET PHOTOGRAPHY