Web homepage: http://www.electricant.com/psychogeographic/magazine.htm (see below for links to other local chapters) Email : weed@electricant.com Spokespersons : Bill Brown (New York), Len Bracken (Washington D.C), Stewart Home (London).
This group maintains it’s presence on the Web mainly as a portal to other groups, but there exists two main psychogeographic associations in London and New York.
The Situationists understood the spectacular nature of architecture-pulsating, shimmering phallic towers of glass and light in the streets, in magazines, covered in advertisements yet unreal in their cold lack of responsiveness. Situationist architectural thought exercised powerful seductive forces on mainstream postmodern architects and armed itself with internal ideological, socio-political traps for them. The result, of course was an attempted recuperation of Situationist design perhaps resulting in the rise of the theme park and the shopping mall, caricatures of the total public space.
Consider that the modern Times Square built on top of the old porn theaters and strip clubs is a new pornographic image of a monument to consumption, a three dimensional advertisement focused on a giant television set, the entire architectural setting calculated to create desires that can only be satisfied by shopping. Further, Times Square exists psychogeographically on all available media channels, its actual physical existence is made even more superfluous by its global availability and its inability to do more for us in the flesh than it can on the video screen or in the mind's eye. All architecture strives for this effect now, posing for the camera, for consumer products, standing for alienation and emptiness.
The buildings and the cities themselves become commodities as the Earth is transformed into endless shopping malls, airports, hotels and amusement parks ringed by highways and ghettos. (from International Psychogeographic magazine website ) Fucking ugly buildings such as the huge United Artist theatre complex that is being erected at Broadway and 14th Street are destroying the charm of our city's streets and the ambiances of our city's neighborhoods. We should be fighting against fucking ugly buildings as vigorously as we are fighting against terrorist bombings of the World Trade Center and other city landmarks, for these architectural monstrosities are horrible explosions in reverse, disasters that spring up, rather than fall down. Fucking ugly buildings are the neutron bombs of urban planning: they kill the spirit -- the love of beauty -- of the people who have to experience them day after day, while leaving their bodies intact. Because fucking ugly buildings are the same anywhere you go -- what makes them fucking ugly in the first place is that they all look alike, each one has the same square-headed, blank, glassy-eyed expression -- their construction in Manhattan is destroying its uniqueness, fragmenting its unity, and threatening its very spirit. (“ No More Fucking Ugly Buildings ” from New York Psychogeographic Association website )
Broadly, there are two strains within the psychogeographic tradition: Utopian—the envisioning of new cities. Ethics—the creation of new ways of experiencing urban landscapes and escape from the flows of power. Resistance—actions are taken against the gentrification and commodification of space.
This groups envisions itself as neo-Situationist, and therefore, Guy Debord, Raoul Vaneigem and the S.I. architect Constant play a huge role in this group’s theoretical conceptions. Outside of situationist theory, Wilhelm Reich and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari also are influential.
Rational, capitalist, territorializing society
Internet, Newsletters, Grafitti
Non-violent, non-branded tactics aimed at open up alternatives ways of living daily life. This group favours tactics that involve following an ethic rather than a type of direct action—though this certainly happens too. Tactics are premised on the Situationist ethic of derive.
New York Psychogeographic Association ( http://www.notbored.org/the-nypa.html )
London Psychogeographic Association (http://www.unpopular.demon.co.uk/lpa/organisations/lpa.html ).
Washington Psychogeographic Association.
These groups primarily have two focuses; one is revolutionary and utopian—the envisioning of new cities that would encourage drifting and the following of random, transient desires; while the other is aimed at creating alternatives and forms of resistance to ‘territorialized’ daily life—the encouragement of derive and the ‘re-reading’ of cities. This ‘ethic’ or ‘orientation’ strain appears to be far more vibrant and realistic than the utopian aspect of psychogeography, but at the same time it often degenerates into mere pranks and petty vandalism—with situ theory to justify it--this is especially true of both Stewart Home’s London and Len Bracken’s Washington D.C group. The New York Association, and other elements within the psychogeographic movement, have attempted to distance itself from either group and reject the inherent escapist element that psychogeography might lend itself to.