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And yet we love ruins that present themselves as a pure, bygone past, almost entirely destroyed, and not as something that still lives on through tradition or skilfully cultivated memory; still less as a perpetual present – this Hell in which we live.

The relics, equipped with interactive touch screens, audioguides and explanatory panels, represent the transformation of the world into an amusement park, and the undivided reign of the present. But that's not enough to soothe our devastated hearts' need for ruins.

We want ruins that look like ruins and nothing else.

Ruins – be they Roman, medieval, industrial – that are peaceful and comforting, because they show that they are the ruins of a past oppression, of a closed chapter in the history of the unlivable world in which humans were born.

Places of misfortune, symbols of oppression and injustice, which we can see are now out of harm's way. That their evil power is gone. That they can no longer inspire fear or respect.

We would walk among them as if among the skeletons of immense animals, monstrous, terrifying, finally dead.

Read more : https://www.paysfantome.fr/p/paradise-is-garden-of-ruins.html

As we all do, I enjoy walking and discovering new neighborhoods. But I loose track of where I was. Years ago I would have probably used a paper map to mark my walks. Is there an APP (paid or free) than can track and most important, save my walks? A bonus if it can overlay my walks to help me take a different route? Thanks!

Whenever I'm in a new city I try to do an all-day walk with some sort of theme to it that let's me get a good overview of the city. Some examples:

Walking through the 20 arrondissements of Paris

Walking between The Seven Sisters Cemeteries in London (more info)

Walking between The 10 Shrines of Tokyo (more info)

I'm wondering if anyone has an idea for a similar type of walk in any other large city. Criteria are:

About 20-25 miles (this is pretty flexible).

Provides a good overview of the more regular, residential parts of the city. If it hits the touristy stuff, great, but it's not a priority.

Has some sort of theme to it, probably involving walking between a set of things, similar to the above.

All ideas and cities welcome!

Hi everyone :) In a week I'll be visting a new city. It will be a kind of sentimental tourism since I'm going there to meet someone I have a romantic interest in. But this person will be working during the day so I'll have plenty of alone time to walk alone in the city.
Recently I've been getting into psychogeography and started to watch and cross through my own city with this intention of observing the relation between human and city through matter and emotions (more or less) and it's been very intersting. But I know my city very well and I have so many memories and impressions in it and walking through it feels like deepening and adding to something already very familiar, while I think that with a new city, that on top of everything is super different from my own (different continent), the dimension will be one of novelty and difference.
So with this in mind I would love if you shared some of your personal tips or insights or anything regarding on how to visit a new city with psychogeographical visions. Is there something particular you focus on? Is there any question that you ask yourself while walking? What do you do with the emotions that follow your gaze?
Thank you :)

someone (who it was remains a mystery) set this subreddit to private for some reason or other, now it's public again. rejoiceth!

i’ll be in Barcelona and Istanbul for two weeks each. Will definitely do my own thing, but would really appreciate some good reads for those places, whatever interesting stuff yall recommend.

Need advice. Looking to give a book to a friend…

I have a good friend that is an ultra science geek and he has done a lot of research into psychophysics in his approach to researching visible light and such… a scientific research approach.

I’d like to turn him onto psychogeography, and the more spiritual and/or philosophical aspects of it. The perspective, or the lifestyle for lack of a better term.

My friend is also heavily into cinematography so clearly I’m trying to connect his interest in psychophysics with his interest in the visual environment and new ways to interpret it.

My knowledge of psychogeography comes from my interest in the Situationist movement and the political side of it… I’ve merely read Society of the Spectacle, The Revolution of Everyday Life and some Situationist anthologies. I can’t say any of them paint the picture or even romanticize psycho geography itself and the drift as stand alone concepts. Blah blah blah.

All that said… What book would you most recommend that would best paint the picture of psycho geography???

I'm part of the team behind walk · listen · create, the home of walking artists and artist walkers; a community of over 1500 creators who use 'walking' as an integral part of their artistic practice.

We just announced the Marŝarto Awards, which is an award that recognises 'walking art'. The deadline for submissions is the last day of October, Walktober.

What constitutes 'walking art' is quite flexible. Read the announcement at the link below.

https://walklistencreate.org/2023/02/06/introducing-marsarto-the-walking-art-award/

As a teenager, I once broke into a house. It was at the bottom of my street and bordered a square, or more precisely a plot of land half concreted, the other half with a few trees and tall grass. This square was bounded by an old wall on three sides and surrounded by houses and private gardens. One of these houses was particularly old, half-timbered, and had been called "the executioner's house" since time immemorial. Legend has it that it was the house of Joan of Arc's executioner.

It seemed vaguely abandoned; it wasn't in ruins at all, but there was something silent, still, asleep, like a holiday home, perhaps.

I entered it one summer afternoon with a schoolmate, Julia, with whom I had kept some distant relations. We knew (I can't tell you now how) that a door at the back, leading to the kitchen, was never locked.

My heart was pounding with the feeling that I was committing a transgression greater than a simple break-in. A moral, even metaphysical transgression, which I was unable to articulate precisely at my young age. Perhaps I was simply drawn to committing a forbidden act, drawn to the very idea of crime, of breaking and entering, of voyeurism. Not with the aim of harming anyone, but with the idea, again unstated, that at the end of the transgression awaited me revelations, a richness and depth of existence that a well-regulated, honest, law-abiding daily life did not allow.

The house was not abandoned at all. It was richly furnished and full of fascinating objects, clean and welcoming, warm and woody. I was not at all surprised; on the contrary, it was like finding myself in front of an obvious setting, a spectacle, that I knew obscurely I had to meet one day. A necessary step in my life, an archetypal house that I had to explore one day. I wandered with Julia through the rooms, taking my time, stopping on each knick-knack or old piece of furniture, fascinated.

I remember a long wooden table, a fireplace, a kitchen with ochre tiles and copper pans, well framed paintings on the walls, a thick dark leather sofa; I remember exposed beams, thick stone walls, fabric cushions, succulents and old books, I remember the fruit baskets, the first floor with its cosy bedrooms (there were three, obviously a family lived there, the parents and from the decoration, two teenagers, boy and girl).

An Amstrad CPC 6128, old cupboards, a wooden staircase, immemorial. The centuries seemed to cohabit here in peace.

It wasn't dark, strictly speaking, in the house, but the daylight came in soft, golden, lazy rays; it seemed slowed down, muted, respectful of the privacy, the tranquillity, the peace of the occupants, whose lives I wondered what they might look like and what kind of life they might lead in this place. Their existence, at the same time, seemed to me a little incongruous, almost theoretical and implausible; the house seemed made to remain silent, motionless, like a pure décor, a pure idea of a domestic paradise that should not be defiled by its presence. Perhaps the inhabitants avoided going home after having felt the same way I did?

On the way out we came face to face with a woman on a bicycle; the owner of the place. Julia ran away as if she had seen a ghost. But the woman was smiling, almost amused that she had caught us in the act and that she owned a house capable of producing such an attraction. I told her without any reluctance or shyness about my exploration of her intimate domain. It was like telling her how I would have made love to her - I was unable to consciously make that comparison at my young age, but the situation disturbed me in the same way. The landlady, who must have been in her forties, seemed to understand this, with intelligence and indulgence.

I don't know how long we had been in the house, but as I spoke to this smiling, almost entirely silent woman, who encouraged me to continue my confession with her simple smile, still riding her bicycle with one foot on the ground, I realised that dusk was falling; a warm, intense twilight, which gilded everything in a golden light, an idyllic light which further accentuated the attraction I felt for this older woman with whom I had just established a more intimate bond than I could have hoped for; a heavenly or Luciferian light, I don't know, but which secretly meant, for me alone, that my quest was a success.

https://psychogeography-of-nothingness.blogspot.com/2023/01/post-tenebras-lux.html

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Some theories I have:

- Iain Sinclair moved on to other things?

- Will Self made it uncool?

- The smartphone made the dérive impossible?

Please can anyone suggest some names for a new service that is seeking to capture the spirit of a place. Thank you!

I've written a shortish piece about my time as a deliveroo rider which I think might be classed as psychogeography. Would welcome feedback. https://medium.com/@lazaruszapruda/confessions-of-a-deliveroo-rider-925e4b7d5edc