Walking and Mapping: Artists as Cartographers (Karen O’Rourke, 2013)

Read

currently reading in October 2025

Source

found in the XPUB library

Chapter 1 — Psychogeography: the Politics of Apllied Pedestrianism

Synopsis

The first chapter of Walking and Mapping—namely: Psychogeography: the Politics of Apllied Pedestrianism; an extract can be read here—presents the concept of psychogeography. The term was first used by members of Letterist International in the 1950s. It describes the exploration of cities and similar environments with a focus on personal connections to the encountered places and routes taken. This approach is very much based on play and the personal opinions of someone on their surroundings. In the book, Karen O’Rourke recounts an experience from October 2004, when she participated in a “psychogeographic walk”. Writer and squatter Wilfried Hou Je Berk uses “walking algorithms” to drift through urban landscapes. On a note, he writes instructions for the participants such as “first right, first left, third right, repeat”, as well the request to note down anything striking.

Just a few pages later, O’Rourke again quotes Wilfried Hou Je Bek, who describes psychographic writing as “the city-space cut-up.” I’m now all ears (or eyes?), as cut-up has been a recurring term in our current Special Issue. And sure enough, in the next sentence O’Rourke makes a connection to William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Just as they rearrange newspaper texts and audio snippets to reveal possible underlying meanings, “so too psychogeographers decode urban space by moving through it in unexpected ways”.

Importance

The idea of walking as research appeals to me. Also, a lot of artists and writers connected to the Special Issue #28 are mentioned in the book. After reading the first few pages, I made this writing machine.