Research Collection

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”.  It’s a complex topic that has developed quite a following.

My Definition: “Psychogeography is how places have an effect on us emotionally and behaviorally”.

Some of the most important popular books dealing with the subject of psychogeography from authors such as Rebecca Solnit, Will Self and Merlin Coverly.

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

Psycho Too by Will Self

Psychogeography (Pocket Essentials) by Merlin Coverly

Psychogeography by Will Self

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit

For anyone who still thinks getting lost is by definition a bad idea, this book will probably turn you around about 180 degrees.  Getting lost, says the author, is how you find the things you didn’t even know you were looking for but really needed to find.

Rebecca Solnit is an essayist, an art critic, an environmentalist, a political activist, and that’s only the short list.  She is also a very good writer, as evidenced by a dozen books on subjects varying from A History of Walking to her latest publication, A Paradise Built in Hell.  The former really is a history of bipedal movement, told in her inimitable style, and the latter is a wonderfully hopeful report on the aftermath of disasters both natural and man-made.

In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Solnit celebrates the value of the intangibles, the undervalued and the small glories that many if not most of us tend to ignore or hustle right on past without noticing them at all.  Part of the basic philosophy is no particular philosophy, rather a sense of wonder, an open mind and the capacity to see and feel more than just what can be labelled or defined.

B.J. Whitehouse said in his review of Getting Lost that this is a book you should read again after you’ve read it the first time, because the ideas and inspirations need time to simmer.  Solnit writes about the uncertainties that plague us all, sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically.  Ultimately, it turns out that uncertainty, or “getting lost” can open the door to marvels that we’d never discover if we never strayed from the beaten path.

Psychogeography (Pocket Essentials) by Merlin Coverly

While psychogeography cannot be described as a ‘science’, this relatively new field of literary exploration does involve considerable study of the human psyche as it relates to physical surroundings and the different environments that exist in different places. It’s about as far as you can get from an ‘exact science’ and that makes it even more interesting for most people.

Quote From Book: “Are we talking about a predominantly literary movement or a political strategy, a series of a new age ideas or a set of avant-garde practices? The answer of course, is that psychogeography is all of these things, resisting definition through a shifting series of interwoven themes and constantly being reshaped by its practitioners.”

Merlin Coverly’s book has been described by several reviewers as a very good, short introduction to the subject of psychogeography for those who are unfamiliar with the whole notion.  He explains in clear and entertaining terms the origination of the term, though some critics have accused him of being overly partial to Paris and London as the ‘roots’ of p-g.

Most sources agree that the idea, if not the word, is as old as humanity.  Humans have always been aware on some level of the impact their specific surroundings, landscape, climate etc. have on their emotions and lifestyles.  However, the concept more or less coalesced in the 1950’s in France, with visionaries out to “reimagine” the urban environment. Coverly describes the evolution of psychogeography in a coherent and readable volume, well researched and perfect for beginners.   He follows the psychogeographical trail from its origins up to and beyond the London Psychogeographical Association.

Coverly takes the reader through the ‘processes’ involved in this approach to changing our perspective on the world around us.  For example, the act of walking through a well-known city instead of taking a taxi, seeing the same buildings, streets and inhabitants from a more personal angle, can make us see everything in a different light, and that is sort of what psychogeography is all about.

Psychogeography by Will Self

The full title of this book is Psychogeography: Disentangling the Modern Conundrum of Psyche and Place, which should give you a clue as to content, but if this is your first encounter with the concept, perhaps a bit of explanation is in order.  Psychogeography can be loosely described as the study of how geography, or a particular place on Earth, affects the behaviour and emotional climate of the humans who live there.

The author, Will Self, is known, amongst other things, for his ‘psychogeography’ column in the Independent newspaper, and the book is partially a collection of some of those essays, but it is a great deal more than that.  As an example, Will writes about his effort to integrate his two geographical psyches, one in South London, his ‘home base’, and the other in his mother’s home town of New York City.  By walking from his home to Heathrow Airport, flying to JFK, and walking from there to the middle of Manhattan, he aimed to create a seamless transition that somehow manages to ignore the miles of ocean in between.  It’s an interesting perspective, to say the least.

Will Self has a way of seeing people, places and things in a different context, and he enables his readers to see them differently too.  He absorbs the landscape, architecture and ‘atmosphere’ of any spot he visits, from Ohio to Morocco to Ireland or wherever his plans or his curiosity lead him.  Psychogeography is not only entertaining; it may very well change the way you see your environment, and even the ways you are affected by what you see and experience.  Illustrations by Ralph Steadman are a perfect added bonus.

Psycho Too by Will Self

To follow up and expand on his previous Psychogeology, Will Self teamed up with illustrator Ralph Steadman again, and together they have produced another winner with Psycho Too.  The theme of walking as a means of connecting, focusing and integrating with different people, places and things is the source of the book’s introductory essay, a new one called ‘Journey Through Britain’.  This time instead of ‘walking’ from central London to central Manhattan, Self and Steadman took a rather metaphorical but also literal walk from the home of the late J.G. Ballard to ‘The World’.

‘The World’ is a series of manufactured floating islands off the coast of Dubai, shaped to resemble the continents and islands of the world, and intended as personal homes for the very wealthy.  Unfortunately the project has ground to a halt, so to speak, due to financial troubles and sinking islands.  ‘The World’ was a source of some severe commentary and not a few metaphors in Self’s travel journal.  The man who bought Britain, for instance, is currently serving seven years in a Dubai jail for bouncing cheques.

After that powerful introduction, the rest of Psycho Too is mostly drawn from the best of his essays written over the past decade or so.  Self and Steadman have travelled to and walked through the streets of Los Angeles and the awesome heads of Easter Island, and from what used to be called the Third World to ‘The World’ at the opposite extreme.  The vision they share with the reader is often disturbing and sometimes frightening, but always well worth a careful look.

Yi Fu Tuan

“Space is more abstract than place. What begins as undifferentiated space becomes ‘place’ as we get to know it better and endow it with value. … From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.”