Psychogeography

Speaking for myself - although maybe it's true for all of us - there seems to be a whole soup of stuff bubbling away in my mind all of the time. Often I don't think I even really notice it, it's like the muzak in my head. But then sometimes two or three things will coalesce and become An Idea that I consciously consider.

So, last week, a couple of things happened: firstly, my online acquaintance, Emily, wrote an article about the relationships that we forge with places we live. Secondly, I received my copies* of Shriekback's reissue of 'Secrets Of The City'. This was a companion CD to their album 'Sacred City', which they released in1992. In brief, the album - which, despite being several years after their Imperial Phase, I'd consider their finest - is concerned, at least in part, with the phenomenon of Psychogeography. 

It's a subject that fascinates me - spinning off, as it does, from Situationism - and all of this came to a head for me this morning as I ran through New Malden, up the road where I grew up, then along Westbury Road and past the end of Rodney Road, which I would never walk along when I lived in the area. When I was young, New Malden was my London; I knew all its streets and shops, lanes and library, but something entirely internal to me decided that I wouldn't go down that road. I wasn't scared of it in any way, I just had an unjustified rule that I wouldn't go along it. It is on the map of New Malden but it wasn't on my map of New Malden.

Bill Drummond is a particular hero of mine (and I don't have many, really). An arch-Situationist, I believe he is also a practitioner of psychogeography in a lot of his art. I remember an article in which he says that when he used to go fishing he would ensure that his route there and back, viewed from above, formed the shape of a fish. This appeals to me at a very fundamental level.

It's not just about what we take from our landscape but what we impose on it, too. 

This evening we went up into London for Frank and Andrea's wedding reception (the actual service was in July). Both the hotel and the bar where we were celebrating were in bits of London that I don't know well, and after a day of thinking about 'my London' and what that looks like, it was odd to feel myself adding a new part. It felt almost like an intrusion, like a bit of the city muscling into my mental map. Today's photo is taken from the hotel window.

The reception itself was great, though. Lots of lively, friendly people, including a couple of Twitter friends whom I haven't met in the flesh before, but mostly chatting and having a laugh with the Minx. It was a good time and very lovely to see Frank and Andrea surrounded by their friends and looking so happy.

*I literally couldn't resist buying two copies. I don't even know anyone who'd be particularly pleased if I gave them the spare one.