Walker

“Psychogeography: a beginner’s guide. Unfold a street map of (Edmonton), place a glass, rim down, anywhere on the map, and draw round its edge. Pick up the map, go out into the city and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go.”

Those are the words of Robert MacFarlane, a British travel writer and proponent of psychogeography. It’s the words I used to better understand my own community and to get out there and try it myself.

This is the project I chose to explore one Saturday afternoon in early January. I intentionally started my circle around the university, an area that many of us interact with on a daily basis. In some ways choosing this area is cheating: many sections give preference to the walker offering safe sidewalks and paths to explore. However, I chose this area because it is often replete with pedestrians, making for an interesting journey through this city space.

The communities surrounding the university and through Whyte Avenue are full of small shops and environments rich in details. But a circle is not a line and my planned journey needed to continue. Although I could have opted for a more southerly route, I felt the downtown area would present me with many details and possible adventure. And so my circle was drawn.

As I progress through the day, it’s easy to see how much time people spend in vehicles. Inside it you are in a perfect cocoon: the temperature is nicely regulated, a sense of safety and security is ensured through your seatbelt and airbag system, and the music is at just the right volume.

The very act of stepping into your vehicle closes a door between you and the outside world, isolating you, and inhibiting your interactions with your community. If you stand on a street corner you will watch vehicle after passing vehicle containing one solitary individual. When you take the time to walk along the streets you are in much closer proximity to those around you.

Modern cities are designed for motorists and the concept of walking can be considered a subversive act. Imagine yourself for a moment walking down the Anthony Henday. Although you have every legitimate right to inhabit this city
space as a pedestrian, the idea of vehicles zooming past in such close proximity at 100 kph is intimidating and dangerous.

The modern city dictates that this space is intended for vehicles; walking in this space subverts it.

Although addressed by many writers in the past, the study of psychogeography emerged in Paris in the 1950s. Guy Debord described it as “the study of the specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.” Psychogeography has developed as a mix of ideas and events through the writings and studies of different authors.

One major concept that has emerged through psychogeography is the concept of the walker in a city as an act of subversion.

“Walking is seen as contrary to the spirit of the modern city with its promotion of swift circulation and the street-level gaze that walking requires allows one to challenge the official representation of the city by cutting across established routes and exploring those marginal and forgotten areas often overlooked by the city’s inhabitants,” wrote Merlin Coverley in his 2006 book Psychogeography.

Taking the time to walk through the streets re-connects you with the community you live in: the smells, sounds, nuances, and details inherent to every urban environment. The slow pace of walking gives you time to internalize these details.

Secondly, psychogeography “seeks to overcome the processes of ‘banalisation’ by which the everyday experience of our surroundings becomes one of drab monotony,” wrote Coverley in 2009. In this way psychogeography encourages individuals to take in the details that build our urban environment.

“Be alert to the happenstance of metaphors, watch for visual rhymes, coincidences, analogies, family resemblances, the changing mood of the street,” said MacFarlane, famous for his writings about landscape. Psychogeography encourages us to see daily life through new eyes. There are many details that are no longer perceived as we pass through the same routes on a daily basis.

Check out the embedded PDF below for photos detailing Selena’s journey, as well as a video tour of the experience.

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