24.3.05
CROWD PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY
One definition of psychogeography might be that it's a discipline that maps the ways in which the design of spaces & places work to evoke, influence or manipulate moods & behaviour.
Another possible definition of psychogeography might be that it's an activity that tries to figure out how the cognitive image we have of a certain place has been formed by it design & this image is conform reality by exploring it in a way that is different from normal use of that space. By doing algorithmic walks for instance.
The experiment Social Fiction will undertake at January the 25th, 2003 in that lovely town called Utrecht, which happens to be where we live, will combine the approaches of both definitions in an effort to try to find out in which ways the availability of a crowd, or a lack thereof, changes your appreciation of a certain place.
Since the early seventies Utrecht has been blessed with a concrete corridor called Hoog Catharijne (HC) that connects the train station with the old heart of the town. For most people HC is only a obstacle, a trench filled with shops & people that has to be passed ASAP. What a lot of people fail to notice is that HC apart form this own crowded trench also offers the visitor a wide range of allies, obscure entrances & staircases at 3 different levels, most of which seem to be without function.
But apart from the crowds, HC has got another reputation, that of being unsafe in the evening when large groups of addicts & homeless people seek shelter there for the night. Even though at a square like Neude more violence & robberies happen than at HC, the latter is in the eye of the public a dangerous no-go area.
For this experiment participants are asked to follow people, without them noticing you, on their various ways through HC to find out where they are going to, what they are doing & what seems to determine their decisions to go about. By infiltrating the crowd, it might be possible to find out how being part of a crowd changes your perception of the place.
By doing this experiment at the end of the afternoon it will be possible to experience HC when it's very crowded & when it's returning to it's desolate state in the stretch of one hour.
The participants in the possession of the will to do so are encouraged to find out if the observation made by Elias Canetti that 'The hallucinations of alcohol provides us with an opportunity to study crowds as they appear in mind of individuals' by using alcoholic beverages before & during the experiment.
All the participants are invited to join the bald anarchists of Social Fiction afterwards to a pub famous for it's beer called Belgium.
Another possible definition of psychogeography might be that it's an activity that tries to figure out how the cognitive image we have of a certain place has been formed by it design & this image is conform reality by exploring it in a way that is different from normal use of that space. By doing algorithmic walks for instance.
The experiment Social Fiction will undertake at January the 25th, 2003 in that lovely town called Utrecht, which happens to be where we live, will combine the approaches of both definitions in an effort to try to find out in which ways the availability of a crowd, or a lack thereof, changes your appreciation of a certain place.
Since the early seventies Utrecht has been blessed with a concrete corridor called Hoog Catharijne (HC) that connects the train station with the old heart of the town. For most people HC is only a obstacle, a trench filled with shops & people that has to be passed ASAP. What a lot of people fail to notice is that HC apart form this own crowded trench also offers the visitor a wide range of allies, obscure entrances & staircases at 3 different levels, most of which seem to be without function.
But apart from the crowds, HC has got another reputation, that of being unsafe in the evening when large groups of addicts & homeless people seek shelter there for the night. Even though at a square like Neude more violence & robberies happen than at HC, the latter is in the eye of the public a dangerous no-go area.
For this experiment participants are asked to follow people, without them noticing you, on their various ways through HC to find out where they are going to, what they are doing & what seems to determine their decisions to go about. By infiltrating the crowd, it might be possible to find out how being part of a crowd changes your perception of the place.
By doing this experiment at the end of the afternoon it will be possible to experience HC when it's very crowded & when it's returning to it's desolate state in the stretch of one hour.
The participants in the possession of the will to do so are encouraged to find out if the observation made by Elias Canetti that 'The hallucinations of alcohol provides us with an opportunity to study crowds as they appear in mind of individuals' by using alcoholic beverages before & during the experiment.
All the participants are invited to join the bald anarchists of Social Fiction afterwards to a pub famous for it's beer called Belgium.
# posted by alvaro @ 12:02 a. m. 
