Ultra-Marxist Psychogeographic Wandering

While scrolling around the vast encyclopedia that is the internet one morning, I stumbled across the term “psychogeography”. Originally, one would assume this is a sort of crossroads; the location where the disciplines of psychology and geography intersect. Yet, while this may be the surface level case, the meaning behind this word goes much deeper. From a Parisian art movement, to parkour, to concepts of Marxism, psychogeography is anything but ordinary.

The term first appeared in the early 1950s, thrown around by a radical Paris based art collective known as the Letterist International. The group was a motley assortment of creatives, with a complex history. It was through this group that the term psychogeography emerged, coined as the “study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals…” by founding Letterist Guy Debord. 

However, the term wasn’t spontaneous. It was created in response to the “dérive” (the drift), a practice in which Letterist members would wander urban environs for hours to days on end, seemingly with no specific purpose other than to wander. It was these dérive’s which inspired many of the Letterist’s odd urban proposals, which would evolve into a movement known as unitary urbanism. Some of these proposals included the abolition of museums in favor of art sporadically placed across the city and the opening of Paris rooftops to be used as walkways. 

The Letterist International would go on to become the Situationist International, who continued the Letterists practices. Situationists saw the dérive as a necessary technique, with routine routes and predictable commutes being seen as a connection to capitalism, which the largely Marxist organization rebelled against. For the Situationists, it was as if the city was being seen through a new lens, except the colour of said lens did not exist; it was existential, experimental, and a political statement as much as it was a practice. 

Ultimately, the Situationist International would go on to dissolve, most of their radically odd ideas going down with them. With the Cold War in full force, Situationist ties to Marxism couldn’t be ignored, and most of their ideas would go down in Western history as inherently negative due to their association with the extreme left. Critics would go on to say that concepts such as psychogeography were nothing more than an overcomplication of simple and mundane ideas, hidden behind big words and nonsensical calls to action. 

Yet, today, the idea of psychogeography still remains. Scholars point to the parkour movement as a modern example of the dérive, jumping across rooftops a call back to the Letterist’s who dreamed of walking among the terraces of Paris. The computer-roleplaying-game Disco Elysium may nod to psychogeography through its “shivers” skill (see Raymond Li’s “Revachol Vista” post). Will Self, a professor at the Brunel University of London, still teaches a class on psychogeography, encouraging students to put down their phones and wander the world. It is clear that while the Letterists and Situationists may be gone, some of their concepts have taken new life in this quickly urbanizing world.

I might get off the internet for a bit now, maybe go do some wandering. Psychogeography or not, a good walk around town never goes remiss. Although, I don’t think I will jump on any rooftops. 

Written by Cole Swanson; photo from The Naked City (Guy Debord).