Psychogeography Task

In our lecture with Leah two weeks ago, we were set a task of doing a piece of psychogeography and producing an outcome to show to the class on 10th October. This was supposed to mimic the piece that Leah had written that was inspired by Bill Drummond's own work, and we were supposed to draw our own names into the surrounding area and walk that. However, I decided to take a slightly different approach to this task.

When Leah started introducing us more to Psychogeography and artists that produce works along this 'criteria' as it were, it reminded me so much of Geocaching; which I am very familiar with. Geocaching is an international online site where people go and place 'caches' in the form of whatever they like. This could be a tupperware box, small magnet lockbox, or even something as extravagant as a fake pinecone with a hidden compartment. The idea is then to post this cache online with coordinates indicating its location. The user will then go there and take an object from the cache, only if they are to replace the item with something of equal or greater value. There always features a logbook also to record your visit there. You can then log online that you have found it. Some caches are posted as part of series, or puzzle, which you have to find answers to in order to find the cache. This is what I decided to do for my psychogeography project.

This one had a grid and various places which would reveal a name to you at the end. It's a very good way to learn more about your surroundings and to gain new experiences.

The main thing this project taught me was that the use of sound alongside photographs can bring them to life in a completely different way; It is different experience to viewing film, however. It requires you to use your imagination and put yourself in a place that I find particularly mentally challenging. Also, the experiences I had on this journey allowed me to meet new people and see my surroundings in a way I never have before.

For example, in the hours I spent walking around Farnham I experienced talking to new people that I see all the time but never engaged with, witnessed a car crash, discovered a small cafe that I like, found quiet in a place which has so many cars.

EDIT: During the lecture with Leah, in which we presented this work. She seemed to like the idea behind the walk, but her criticism of it was that I didn't include the geocaching element of it enough. As I came from the idea of Geocaching in my mapping out of my route, she felt I could have included that in the final work much more.