Over the academic year and various moons of 2024-5, a number of investigative walks were conducted by a heterogenous group of humans around Aberystwyth University’s campus. Our mission was to study the specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviours of individuals – i.e., do some psychogeography. ‘Psychogeography’ is a confused term in today’s popular / academic milieux . . . let’s not go there now . . . but we were interested in applying its methodologies as a Lettrist & Situationist praxis rooted in 1950s Saint-Germain-des-Près Paris. Read more about the Lettrist & Situationist Internationals here.
Psychogeography is about understanding the socio-economic production of self and space ~ our conditioning, perhaps, at any particular historical moment. It is Marxist and psychoanalytical, and also deeply phenomenological; it is about understanding experience and breaking down faux ontological and epistemological dualities.
How endlessly we could respond to the questions: how do our surroundings make us feel? how do our surroundings make us act? what is our agency in relation to our surroundings? where is it that we find ourselves? why should we care? how can we make life on Earth as fulfilling and enjoyable as we might want it to be, and collectively?
Across the aforementioned anno duration, we ran seven sessions based on the psychogeographical technique of dérive, exploring the university’s campus we frequent so obediently. The dérive is, briefly, a ‘rapid passage through varied ambiences. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll’. This definition is taken from Guy Debord’s ‘Theory of the Dérive’, which you can access here.
To gather psychogeographical data, we dérive’d on select discreet themes: ‘1. CARPARKS’, ‘2. THE GARDENS OF CAMPUS’, ‘3. PENGLAIS RAVINE’, ‘4. ENTRANCES’, ‘5. TOWERS’, ‘6. UNDERGROUND / EGG HUNT’, & ‘7. After Blossom: TABLES’. Invitations were made via university intercomms and also outracomms such as Instagram and word-of-mouth; a series of posters advertised our intentions.
Each of the seven sessions 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 consisted of a dérive, usually starting at around 4pm at a pre-agreed meeting point, and lasting between i and ii hours following – more-or-less – a calculated route of inquiry, and then afterwards the watching of films in the university cinéma following the thème du jour, and then an engagement in Salon-esque discussion, usually involving beverages and morsels. La dolce intellectual vita?
Fig. A ‘A Reading of Molière, or, Reading in a Salon’ (c. 1728) Jean François de Troy
We had no design to produce any discernable art and+or literature through the course of Campus Dérives, but nonetheless it manifested. Once our septet objectives had been completed, participants threw their reflections into a historical materialist hat, from which emerged out again a small-ish pamphlet: Campus Dérives (think.material Press, 2024).
We were very excited with the surprise, and thus threw a party to celebrate, which you can read about here.
Fig. B Bunches of lavender
Campus Dérives has inspired further work of psychogeographical or psychogeography-adjacent endeavour, for example Dr Kelechi Anucha’s ‘Black Flâneurs’ Beyond Human Festival series in Leeds (see here), Dr Craig Hammond’s pedagogical modules at Liverpool John Moores University (see here), bike-dérives in Glaschu, and more.
Due to the apparent success of the Campus Dérives (an earlier log can be accessed here and re-trace the organisation of antics via social media here) and the Campus Dérives tome that unexpectedly came from it, we were able to launch a new modest-publications arm of the Centre for Material Thinking. It is think.material Press, and you can read of its ongoing activities here.
About the Artists
aim king is a practice-based researcher whose PhD combines film, poetry and river walking as a method of non-binary environmental communication. They studied ecology & environment at University of Liverpool before their MA at Aberystwyth University in documentary filmmaking. Their fluvial inquiry is inherently interdisciplinary and often involves collaboration between environmental activists and other artists. Their films have been selected for festivals, including Eisteddfod 2024, Wales One World 2024, International Portrait Film Festival 2023 and Tonnau Short Film Festival 2022. @filmm.a.king
Amy Grandvoinet is a writer and artist dod o Bracknell and is currently undergoing a PhD on so-called literary psychogeographies. She studied history at University College London, then literary studies at Aberystwyth University where, in collaboration with Cardiff University also, she is now at the doctoral grind. Residential creative/research stints have been at the British School at Rome (2023) and Samuel Beckett Research Centre (2024); recent publications are in Folding Rock, The London Magazine, Gilded Dirt, Apria, more; exhibitions and performances are scrambled. She will work with the Museo del Camminare Venezia imminently. Plîs see amygrandvoi.net
