Talk:Psychogeography

Borderline useless
This article is pretty much useless to someone who has no idea what psychogeography is. I wanted a quick description of the term and I am still none the wiser. If I wanted an in-depth discussion of the subject, I would read a book. Can someone with some knowledge on the subject attempt a rewrite? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.21.27.42 (talk) 11:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Almost five years later and this comment is still 100% applicable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:BDA3:A8F0:38BB:8BB7:9211:CCC2 (talk) 06:01, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

5 years later and still applicable. What a load of nonsense.--Murky Falls (talk) 10:48, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Origin of term
origin of the word psychogeography is from IS Definitions by the Situationist International. so i revert to that position User:Paki.tv (14:56, 29 June 2005)

Source for quote at start of article?
The quote in the introduction of this article is ostensibly from "Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation" in Situationniste Internationale No. 1 (1958). But the text of "Preliminary Problems" is online at, and I was unable to find that quote, or even the word "psychogeography," anywhere in it. Jd4v15 03:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've found the correct source for the quotation and edited the article accordingly. Jd4v15 20:10, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

What is it?!
I stumbled across this article because it had a curious title, but the article does not go into any detail explaining what psychogeography other than a basic one-line definition. Can somebody flesh it out? BeardedPhysicist 04:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The useless prattle of a few megalomaniac malcontents?EricR 08:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As far as I can make out its the practise of studying how travel effects the psyche and the emotions. In other words it is the study of the emotional/psychological effects of environments, particularly man-made environments. In some areas there seems to be a parapychological element to it too. But I'm not sure. I'm basing this latter on the Manchester Area Pychogeographical website featured in the links section. ThePeg 12:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Psychology categorization
The WikiProject Psychology template was recently removed from this article with the reason given that psychogeography is not related to psychology. If that is true, it should not be listed in Category:Psychology. In my opinion, either the project template should be restored or the category should be removed since the project directly handles all topics listed in that category. What does everyone else think? —Cswrye 16:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I added a link to Affordances, under the "see also" heading, because that seems to be what this piece is about... but in an obscurantist, neo-Marxist kind of way. If this is truly what it's about, then there does seem to be some potential as a theoretical project in psychology (perhaps by synthesizing it with an enactivist approach of Vygotsky?), but I don't see how to do that while at the same time preserving the anarco-radical spirit that seems so central to its current presentation. It seems more likely -- if we ignore the definition provided at the top and the bit at the end about the column -- that this is Wikipedia's version of the Sokal Hoax. I suggest this in the nicest possible way, of course, but the suspicion isn't helped by Will Self's bio: he writes satire. JTBurman 04:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

ummmmmmmmmmmok.
I fail to see how this is geography at all. All sources indicate (entirely indirectly) that it is the practice of walking randomly in a city and making connections between what you see. It's not passive, practitioners seem to actively interact with their environment, affecting it -- which is a no-no for any serious matter of study unless your acts are carefully planned and intended.

What sucks is that neither this article nor any of the available links describe the topic adequately. This page (and others) is mostly spent talking about who and when but nothing about what, why or how.

Anyway, this page is becoming a link farm; the "groups" section should be removed or heavily condensed. - Keith D. Tyler &para; (AMA) 18:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. the opening sentence saying that Psychogeography is a subset of geography (whatever that may be) is quite misleading, Psychogeography has never had anything to do with geography or psychology as academic disciplines (though I'm sure that they will soon find a way of accomodating such an interesting method of exploration). Psychogeography stems from the arts rather than the sciences, it is a methodology of critique, not an empirical tool.86.7.226.15 (talk) 17:11, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for these posts. I will look at the section mentioned (groups) and try to fix the problem. Jthekid15 (talk) 12:26, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Overhauling page
Recently have completed a project about psychogeography and found this Wiki extremely underwhelming and unhelpful. I am in the process of adapting my work to create an in-depth entry that will hopefully shed more light on the topic. Please feel free to help me remove jargon etc. I hope this attempt succeeds. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheWarning (talk • contribs) (17:53, 1 June 2007)
 * Good luck, it's a mishmosh of esoteric tribal "knowledge" and unexplained neologisms and philosophy. It seems to be basically the practice of holistically attaching philosophical and metaphysical notions to an undirected and unobstacled walk through a city. Why it deserves its own name and study isn't clear. If you can show why it is distinct and what its method, and purpose, and expected outcome is, this article might be saved. - Keith D. Tyler &para; 16:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately it hasn't improved much in the meantime - it's attracting more of the same material if anything.Autarch (talk) 20:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)


 * As of this date, I read this for the first time, and it appears to be utter nonsense. Reading it is like being transported into another world devoid of science and reason.  Perhaps that is what psychogeography is, after all, in which case the article should say so.  24.27.31.170 (talk) 00:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC) Eric

Maps
I've put the maps back. Please explain removal Paki.tv 23:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * They're not maps, they are modern art pieces. They have no bearing on the article, are not referred to or discussed in the article, and do not serve to illustrate or elucidate any point within the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.241.229.177 (talk) 10:21, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please see the text - they are indeed referenced! Paki.tv (talk) 00:46, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The maps are referenced and relevant, and no good reason has been offered by the anonymous user who keeps deleting them. An anonymous user, by the way, who has made no improvements to the article.  Deleting content without a good reason, and without explanation, is vandalism. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  17:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Why are there four maps by the same artist here? Shouldn't there be more diverse and historical visual examples? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.157.236.240 (talk) 09:37, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Much work to be done
MUCH WORK TO BE DONE — I HAVE MADE A START WITH SOME REMARKS HERE

For some reason most of the post-situationist sites and all kind of blogs tend to link to the medium size scan of the psycho-geographical map I place on one of my sites years ago; mostly this is done by quick & dirty hot-linking, letting me pay for the traffic and not caring at all about the context in which I have made that personal scan from the original available. That is just say "not polite", because I do welcome links, but to the page on which a picture resides and not to the picture only; next comes the fact that the authors of this Wiki could have given more time to the history and idea of maps and mapping. Which can be seen from some reactions on this page. Geography is not necessarily bound to cartography in the narrow sense as a medium to express spatial information. One of the best short formulations of what cartography can be also is in the introduction of the main Western standard work on cartography by Harley, J.B. (1932-1991) and Woodward, David (1942-) "The history of cartography vol.1": "Maps are graphic representations that facilitate a spatial understanding of things, concepts, conditions, processes, or events in the human world." In that sense the playful, fun and nonsense maps made by Debord and especially Asger Jorn still do fit the term map. What this Wiki article fails to mention - and that should really be added - is the main origin of the idea. This is the work of the French anthropologist and geographer Chombart de Lauwe and his major study in two volumes "Paris et l'agglomération Parisienne" ; I just stumbled upon this Wiki this morning and have to stop here and will come back to this place to describe in full how to undertsand the situationist idea of psycho-geographie... and by the way it is NOT only the sityuationist who use this term, there is a branch of criminology that uses the same term without any reference to the situationist, also that is for next time, when I am more free to write then now; I leave this message here because I think this Wiki entry is not so much about psycho-geography, but more about a specific post-situationist branch of people who took up that idea and are here promoting their interpretation (which I think is fine) but as this is meant to be an entry to the whole subject, it needs heavy and fundamental editing. I give tow links in the mean time that show most of the relevant books in photographs: - http://imaginarymuseum-archive.org/ISU/ - http://imaginarymuseum-archive.org/ISU/F02.html

TJEBBE VAN TIJEN —comment added 08:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Please identify yourself
will the anominous person please identify him/her self and clarify why they keep deleating the maps/artworks on this page. Jthekid15 (talk) 12:30, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Link to Baltimore Psychogeography Association
The link that I put to The Baltimore Psychogeography Associaiton keeps getting deleted. The Baltimore/Washington Psychogeography Association has been renamed to The Baltimore Psychogeography Association. The link to the The Baltimore/Washington Psychogeography Association, (which I put there in the first place), is long out of date. The new link to The Baltimore Psychogeography Association is www.joshuaberlow.com/what.htm Please put it back on and don't remove it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Romarkin (talk • contribs) 19:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a single purpose account that spams links to the Joshuaberlow.com domain to various articles. IrishGuy talk 20:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The only edits from your account have been to add links to your own domain. That is a conflict of interest and it is spam. IrishGuy talk 20:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Irishguy has deleted the link to The Baltimore Psychogeography Association. But he (or someone) didn't stop there- another link to my site has been messed with on the Vampire entry. This is the link to the article Circumcising Dracula. Apparently according to Irishguy any link that I put to my own domain is a conflict of interest and spam, regardless of whether or not the link pertains to the Wikipedia entry. Then I was barred from making any further changes. To me this seems like heavy-handed nitpicking. All I was doing was linking to articles that pertained to Wikipedia entries. I thought other people would find the information linked to useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.255.207.192 (talk) 22:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Irishguy is correct. Please stop adding those links.  Thank you. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  22:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Ungrammatical
Please correct this sentence if you understand its intent: Though the path required to achieve this utopia is difficult and hindered by society and its own constructions, now as living agents that actively enforce restrictions where we may have once considered them arbiters of independence. 95.222.120.117 (talk) 18:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

A rewrite is serously needed
The section Psychogeographic maps is particularly in need of a rewrite, containing such phrases as The erotic charge of psychogeography was undeniable, the rousing sexual conquest of having fully explored and overcome the exoticism of the city- presumably Situationist jargon. (This example was chosen because it wasn't in a quotation in the orginal article.) Unfortunately this makes the article difficult to understand. Autarch (talk) 12:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Other problematic prose includes: These are just a few examples of vague or impenetrable prose that adds little to the article and which makes it read like an essay.Autarch (talk) 13:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * However, it is imperative for one to be aware of a certain amount of humor in the SI's conceptualization of psychogeography.
 * But before succumbing to the truth of the impossibility of true psychogeography, Debord made another film, On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time (1959), the title of which suggests its own subject matter.
 * The Situationists' response was to create designs of new urbanized space, promising better opportunities for experimenting through mundane expression. Their intentions remained completely as abstractions.
 * Though the path required to achieve this utopia is difficult and hindered by society and its own constructions, now as living agents that actively enforce restrictions where we may have once considered them arbiters of independence.
 * Pyschogeography has become one of the dominant approaches to the poetry of modern London, an idea big enough to unite poets who find themselves in warring camps.

It probably falls foul of WP:NONSENSE and MOS:OPED too.Autarch (talk) 21:16, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention WP:JARGON and possibly WP:NOT.Autarch (talk) 15:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I've restored the maps to the contemporary praxis section, but i have not restored the text from the last edit. i'm suprised u left the poetry section in though. Paki.tv (talk) 10:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The poetry section has a lot of problems - no references and there are many assertions which seem to have no relevance to the subject. How are the maps referenced in the text as you asserted earlier on the talk page?Autarch (talk) 18:56, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * REfence added into 'COntemporary' section Paki.tv (talk) 10:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Have now removed that section - it was more suited to an article on London poetry and needed sources anyway.Autarch (talk) 18:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

More problematic prose
The sentence Bill Humber [Executive Director, Revitalization Institute, Toronto, Canada [4] [5], participant in few of our walks, described our intentions in his article about psychogeography like this: “In discovering a small world we discover the whole world.” implies WP:COI
 * ” The subjective analysis–mental reaction, to neighbourhood behaviours related to geographic location. A chronological process based on the order of appearance of observed topics, with the time delayed inclusion of other relevant instances” - this is given as a definition of psychogeography (apparently given by Aleksandar Janicijevic), but it doesn't explain it.

Psychogeography in poetry suffers from MOS:OPED (e.g. brilliantly captures the atmosphere of Soho in the afternoon) and seems more suitable for an article on London poetry. It also doesn't cite sources.Autarch (talk) 19:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yet more impenetrable prose
Some more examples: Autarch (talk) 19:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) It demanded the rejection of functional, Euclidean values in architecture, as well as the separation between art and its surroundings. The implication of combining these two negations is that by creating abstraction, one creates art, which, in turn, creates a point of distinction that unitary urbanism insists must be nullified. This confusion is also fundamental to the execution of unitary urbanism as it corrupts one's ability to identify where "function" ends and "play" (the "ludic") begins, resulting in what the Lettrist International and Situationist International believed to be a utopia where one was constantly exploring, free of determining factors.
 * 2) The Situationists' response was to create designs of new urbanized space, promising better opportunities for experimenting through mundane expression. Their intentions remained completely as abstractions. Guy Debord's truest intention was to unify two different factors of "ambiance" that, he felt, determined the values of the urban landscape: the soft ambiance – light, sound, time, the association of ideas – with the hard, the actual physical constructions. Debord's vision was a combination of the two realms of opposing ambiance, where the play of the soft ambiance was actively considered in the rendering of the hard. The new space creates a possibility for activity not formerly determined by one besides the individual.

Some plain English... or maybe not
The article must have been copy/pasted from an academic article aimed at people already familiar with the Situationists and so on. To make things worse, the people involved in psychogeography are probably _intentionally_ vague. What I'm getting from it is: Psychogeography is an avant-garde movement that seeks to encourage innovative, revolutionary thought by creating playful and surprising urban spaces. Does that summary make sense, or is it vague and confusing, too? I hope it's accurate! Bluemonkee (talk) 02:12, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

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Images
The article contains four images with no explanation of what they are or how they relate to the content. They appear to be maps / artworks all by the same creator, which seems excessive; perhaps a single one might be useful. As far as I can tell from this talk page, they seem to have been removed and readded on previous occasions. Can anyone actually justify or explain their inclusion? Jellyman (talk) 16:20, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

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Original Research?
Hi. There is much in this article that is unsourced. Is it OR? Sorry, I am new to these things but it seems like some of it possibly could be to me. W1tchkr4ft 00 (talk) 01:57, 25 October 2020 (UTC)