Psycho-geography is a hybrid of photography and 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
PETAPIXEL definition of PsychoGeography CLICK HERE
Q :How do you respond to this idea?
A : go on a walk and photograph what you see
Q: Where do I walk?
A: either somewhere you know really well…or somewhere you do not know at all
What to photograph and how
- Abstract visions…alternative, “wrong” photographs
- Formalism…line, shape, pattern, tone, colour etc
- Romanticism in the town / countryside…atmospherics
- The people : 3 x types of portrait (observatinal , formal, environmental)
- The objects | Ephemera (litter and debris)
- Make use of your senses : see , hear ,taste, smell, touch
- Old vs New vs Development
- Good vs bad…subjective approach
- Form vs function
- Gentrification vs dereliction
- Juxtaposition | contrasts | diversity
- Unconventional beauty
- Signage and facades
- Typography and graphics
- Movement / clutter
- Aerial Imagery / Satellite / Surveillance
- Angles | Viewpoints
SOME EXAMPLES TO LOOK AT…
The Boyle Family : The ground we walk on
http://www.boylefamily.co.uk/boyle/about/index.html
Mishka Henner : Aerial Imagery in the digital age
Luke Fowler: Two-Frame Film | Juxtapostions
http://www.photopedagogy.com/two-frame-films.html
Stephen Gill : “in-camera photograms”
Superflux : explore over-surveillance and the prospect of intrusion in our everyday lives…has the concept of psycho-geographies evolved into something dystopian-like and Orwellian (1984- “Big brother”)…governments, town planners and the authorities design how we live, where we live and essentially control popluations of towns and cities.
Marcus Desieno creates de-humanised landscape photography by hacking surveillance camera networks…but avoids privacy problems normally associated with urban and residential areas…
