Psychogeography Response /// Alternative Map

I find it interesting that “This American Life” describes alternative maps, specifically those created by Denis Wood, as “more like novels, trying to describe everyday life.” Sure, some of these maps describe lifestyle observations within the landscape that can be organized and presented: this might include the map of Jack o’ lanterns around the neighborhood on Halloween, or Toby Lester’s map of ambient sounds. In these creations, these men are mapping aspects of their lives pertinent specifically to their lives, making their creations into personal novels, in a way. But many of the subjects within the maps seem distant from the lives of the mapmakers. The maps of street lights, water lines and hydrants, and power lines jump to mind. As the This American Life article mentioned, “Mapmaking means ignoring everything in the world but the one thing being mapped, whether it's cracks in sidewalks or the homes of Hollywood stars.” Thus, if the maps of the areas had every single different element being mapped under a different layer in Photoshop, the artists have turned off the visibility of every element but the visibility for the mundane-seeming element we are presented. But why are these mapmakers outlining these details of their personal space and not any others?

To create a map of something is to honor it, in a way: this something is a mark or series of marks on a landscape important enough to be comprehensively outlined. That a map exists to document where this aspect of the landscape can be found implies that someone is interested in looking for it. A map, after all, carries the connotation of utility. So, in essence, these artists are placing special emphasis on their chosen focal points to imply a user who needs this information or is specifically interested in this information. Perhaps this is nothing more than a Dadaist, Surrealist exploration of Baudelaire’s idea of a “flaneur,” as the Wikipedia article on psychogeography suggested. From my experience in my Modern Art History class, this would imply that the artists are playing the part of an objective eye, a roving and observing gentleman in the context of modern urbania--- but one who assaults the everyday understanding of a map with the presentation of the absurd (but perhaps arbitrary) element or one who forces the viewer to understand the landscape in a psychologically-troubled, perhaps obsessively-counting, paranoid sort of manner. (The Surrealists were big on troubles of the mind.) While I can see the confrontational pursuit and potential impact of the early psychogeographers, I hardly think these contemporary mapmakers carry the political and socially-upheaving attitudes of these earlier artists and those of the Dadaist affiliation on a whole.

No, I think these specific artists are perhaps attempting in creating maps (and, therein, paying homage) to their selected elements to force the audience to consider the wealth of complexity in any given location and the impact it has on our lives and others’ lives. Sure, one might look at the maps of power lines and think of the electricians and construction workers who must know a map like this rather intimately—but I also see a map like this one and think of the real importance of the element, even to myself. While it’s easy to consider things like road maps the only documentations of important aspects of our surroundings, these maps document paths and locations of elements essential to our daily lives. Even if we have no intention of using the map to follow on foot to see the different locations, we might see the map and marvel at (or just chew over) the prevalence of that element, the organization, the dissonance from the landscape we’re used to.
This refers only to the newer manifestations of this idea… clearly, there is a rift between these newer maps and the older forms. It seems to me that the most all-encompassing statement for both manifestations is that “By definition, psychogeography combines subjective and objective knowledge and studies.” For the older artists, like Debord, this involved combining what he called “hard ambiance,” or physical reality, with “soft ambiance,” or a cognitive/emotional association or sensory association. It seems that newer artists pursue the same basic combination of information, but they tend to present a pointedly unorthodox element of objective knowledge that can more subtly and comprehensively imply a subjective knowledge. Debord and his associates stopped the creation of their psychogeographic maps due to the observed “relativity” of the landscape, in which idea or emotion could never be fully expressed to another by any means of retelling. Perhaps this modern manifestation was a way to solve this problem.



So how can I meld the subjective with the objective to create an interesting, engaging, off-beat alternative map of St. Mary’s? How can I ignore every part of the campus but the part I am most interested in?

-I could create the naturalist guide to St. Mary’s. Not a totally subjective account, but not completely objective either. Documenting animal spottings, good hiking and biking trails, good smells, pond smells, hard trees to climb, easy trees to climb, best places to find edible plants, where to watch out for poison ivy, etc…

-After a painful breakup last week, I could create a map of all that nonsense just to put it to rest… where we met, where we did this and that, how we broke up… but isn’t is boring when art projects are too esoteric?

-I could map out the different chairs and benches around campus--- all the different public places to sit. Maybe that’s a little too pointedly knocking off of Denis Wood’s work, and maybe it doesn’t mean enough to me… but I do entertain a minor fondness and fascination with chairs.

-That’s all I can think of for now.