Art
Mapping & Touring
John Jordan and James Marriott - Heavy Opera
Hasan Elahi - Tracking Transience | grant proposal
The center for urban pedagogy
the Surveillance Camera Players | 2
Parking Public: a Tour of Parking Lots and Utopias - Ryan Griffis
bureau d'études
Tangential University
They Rule - Josh On
Simon and Garfunkel "Live @ Central Park" - Cory Arcangel
VGmap
More Resources
psychogeography/index
psy.geo.Conflux Psychogeography Festival, NY, USA
http://glowlab.blogs.com/ Glowlab is a Brooklyn-based arts lab dedicated to the production, documentation and presentation of multi-media work in psychogeography and public-space arts.
Text
Theory of the Dérive - Guy Debord
Radical Urban Theory
Questioning the Frame - Coco Fusco
Life in Fluxus, Arthur C. Danto
Film
Cruise - Timothy "Speed" Levitch, Bennett Miller
Examples of Instruction, program or script based conceptual art
Yoko Ono - Dream Universe | 2 |
Sol Lewitt | 1 | 2 |
Fluxus Debris Archive
Captain Kirk's Chair: An Instructional Installation, by MTAA
100 (11) Instruction Works - developed by iKatun for the 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival in Toronto, Canada
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things
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Project: drifting, mapping, touring
"Modern society is throwing off its rags and preparing to move into a new home: the radiant city .Certain facts are known, certain definite principles and rules of conduct have been laid down. Not in any orderly fashion, perhaps. But they do form the component parts of a doctrine, something clear enough to serve as a guide. They are brief words, not revolutionary slogans, but they provide a solution to a revolutionary situation. For example: The plan must rule.
Disappearance of the street.
Differentiation between simple and multiple speeds.
What to do with LEISURE in the machine age; leisure could turn out to be the menace of modern times.
The use of land in town and country.
The dwelling unit considered as part of the public services.
The green city.
The civilization of the automobile replacing that of the railroad.
Landscaping the countryside.
The radiant city."
Le Corbusier , Ville Radieuse 1933
"One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll. In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones."
The Theory of the Dérive, Guy Debord 1952, http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm
Lecture:
What is psychogeography. The rationalist, orderly, modernist city, touching on social control, navigation and "machines for living in". Henri Lefebvre's theory of everyday life: the "right to the city." The Situationist International: psychogeography, the derive, and detournement. Alternative constructions and navigations of the city. The Situationist urbanism of Constant's New Babylon project (1959-74): Note flexible spaces, role of mood and play, transportation. Reviewing the "Information Super Highway," rationalist dreams for net and correlations with the modernist rationalist city.
Assignment
Keeping in mind the aims of the dérive (drift) and the concept of the "naked city" write/draw two maps each with scripts, or sets of instructions for creatively navigating the physical and conceptual spaces they represent. Sites should include the following:
1. a public space.
2. a private space.
3. a networked media space.
4. a broadcast media space.
First, the instruction sheets / maps should be written with a specific physical or virtual site(s) in mind. You should visit the site, walk/click your way through and investigate until you feel comfortable writing a program for yourself and others to use while navigating the site(s). Consider the expected use and navigation through the site(s) and how you might creatively alter/subvert a perhaps otherwise common experience. Your program may reveal aspects of sites often forgotten, or you may choose to use the program/script to narrate a story or to take the user through stages of a performance (we will talk of other possibilities in class). Regardless, think about how and why and to what end your instructions ask a participant to realize/enact/perform/install a public action according to your requests.
How do you desire your participant to have a significant experience.
Next, first yourself and then a participant (exchange maps/programs etc. with another classmate) should navigate the site according to your instructions while documenting with digital photos and/or video, drawing or other visual representation your/their movements/activities through the site, recording particular objects or people of interest, happenings, etc. Also, bring a notebook and write down impressions, thoughts, happenings etc. while (or soon after) the experience of
Thirdly, create a simple website that documents your journeys through your own and one other classmates instructions / mapped spaces.
As Always - Detailed project parameters and software demonstrations will be given in class.
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