Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool: Some

Psychogeographic Experiments

KEITH BASSETT

School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, UK

ABSTRACT This paper gives an account of a ®eldwork exercise in Paris whichattempted to relate social theory and ®eldwork practice. The paper begins with a briefhistorical review of different perspectives on the practice of walking, as a form ofmovement through the city with aesthetic and critical potential. A more detailedaccount is then given of the particular theories and practices of the avant-garde groupknown as the Situationist International, which are drawn upon for the ®eldwork exercise.The paper then re¯ects on the problems encountered in trying to apply these ideas in a®eldwork exercise, and concludes with some comments on improvements and furtherdevelopments.

KEY WORDS: Walking, ¯aÃnerie, Situationists, deÂrive, psychogeography, ®eldwork

Introduction

Walking is the best way to explore and exploit the city. (Sinclair, 1997,p. 4).

This paper re¯ects on the experience of trying to combine social theory and®eldwork in Paris as part of a human geography ®eldcourse with second-yearstudents from Bristol University. More speci®cally, it focuses on experiments withcertain ideas and practices of the avant-garde artistic and political group knownas the Situationists who were active in Paris in the 1950s and '60s and whose ideashave recently attracted renewed interest. Their practices included the activity ofwalking, or `drifting', through the city as a means of exploration and conscious-ness-raising with subversive intent. However, the Situationist perspective is justone of a line of perspectives that have endowed walking with a deeper meaningand signi®cance as a critical and aesthetic practice. It is part of the student exercisedescribed here to evaluate Situationist ideas in this wider historical andconceptual framework.

Before going to Paris the students will have completed courses in philosophy,and social and spatial theory, which include lectures on theorists such as Lefebvre,Benjamin, de Certeau, Debord, and avant garde movements like the Surrealistsand Situationists. Paris is an excellent site for related ®eldwork because the city

Correspondence address: Keith Bassett, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road,

Clifton Road, Bristol BS8 1SS. Email: k.bassett@bristol.ac.uk

0309±8265 Print/1466±1845 Online/04/030397-14 ã 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

DOI: 10.1080/0309826042000286965

Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 28, No. 3,397±410, November 2004

has not only been the home of many of these theorists but has also functioned as adistinctive source of inspiration and as a test bed for their ideas. The ®eldwork weget students to do is designed to try and deepen their theoretical understanding ofsome of these theorists by subjecting their ideas to critical examination undercontemporary conditions.

Walking as a Critical and Aesthetic Practice in Theoretical and HistoricalPerspective

Walking, as a fundamental human activity and way of interacting with theenvironment, has attracted the attentions of poets, essayists, artists, philosophersand social theorists (see Solnit, 2000 for a panoramic survey). A particularlyimportant urban tradition, which I shall brie¯y sketch in, extends from thepractices of the nineteenth-century ¯aÃneur, through the Dadaist `event', the`deÂambulations' of the Surrealists, the urban explorations of Walter Benjamin, the`deÂrives' of the Lettrists and the Situationists, the wanderings of the land artists ofthe 1960s, the experimental practices of groups such as the Italian `Stalkers' in the1990s, to the recent psychogeographical expeditions of London-based writerssuch as Ian Sinclair. These different perspectives have involved different practicesof walking; different aesthetic, critical and political strategies; and, implicitly,different forms of epistemology and ethnography (Jenks & Neves, 2000). Theyhave also involved shifting visions of the city and changing attitudes towards itsspaces (see Careri, 2002 for a stimulating review).

The ¯aÃneur, for example, emerged as a distinctive ®gure in early nineteenth-century Paris, portrayed as a disinterested, leisurely observer (invariably male)of the urban scene, taking pleasure in losing himself in the crowd and becominga secret spectator of the changing spectacle of spaces and places in thecity (Ferguson, 1987; Shields, 1987; Tester, 1987). Paris, with its long and richhistory, was the ideal city for the ¯aÃneur. A Parisian street, Walter Benjamin laterobserved, led the ¯aÃneur downwards into vanished time, into a past that couldprove both spellbinding and intoxicating (Benjamin, 2002, p. 841). But as Benjaminalso recognized, the social and spatial context that gave rise to the ¯aÃneur hadalready changed by the latter part of the nineteenth century with theHaussmanization of Paris, the rationalization of city planning, and the growthof traf®c.

The aesthetic and critical impulse behind walking emerged in a new form in theideas and practices of the Dada movement in Paris in the 1920s. Dada, whichoriginated in Zurich in 1916 and was a re¯ection of a growing disillusionmentwith Western culture during the First World War, was warmly received byParisian avant-gardes (Bonnett, 1992; Short, 2001). The Dadaists staged a series ofprovocative events in theatres and halls around Paris but, as the movement grewstale through repetition of their shock tactics, they tried to extend their activitiesinto the streets by staging outdoor `events'. Such an event famously took place in1921, when the Dada movement met outside the abandoned church of St Julien-le-Pauvre, on the Left Bank (Sanouillet, 1965). The event was staged as a kind ofmock urban excursion to explore on foot the `banal places' of the city, and `̀ inparticular those places that do not truly have any reason to exist'' (Dada lea¯et).Although the event was intended to be the ®rst of a series of excursions to othersites in Paris, this extended plan was never carried through, perhaps because the

398 K. Bassett

event was not a great success. It rained heavily and the crowd, bemused by theDadaist antics, soon drifted away (Sanouillet, 1965, p. 245; Breton, 1993, p.53).

Dada did not anyway long survive as a Parisian movement. By 1922 its leaders,such as Breton and Aragon, were already moving on to Surrealism. The urbanwalk retained an important role, but in a new context and with different objectivesand meanings. Surrealism `̀ emphasized the importance of the exploration andliberation of the unconscious through the development of forms of culturalproduction that privileged spontaneity and chance'' (Bonnett, 1992, p. 74). Thecity, and Paris in particular, was an important focus of Surrealist activities andexperiences (Nadeau, 1989). The city was regarded as the dwelling place of themodern unconscious, an archaeological site of dreams and memories (Foster,1993, p. 196). Walking the city was a strategic device to give up conscious control,submit to risk and chance, and reveal the unconsciousness zones of urban life. Butfor this to happen it was necessary to adopt an `̀ ultrareceptive posture'', to putoneself into `̀ a state of grace with chance'', so that `̀ something will happen''(Breton, 1993, p. 106).

A central notion in Surrealist theory was the `uncanny', or the return of theforces repressed in modernism (Fer, 1993). This interest in the uncanny wasevident in the Surrealist fascination with the outmoded in all its forms, includingoutmoded spaces. Hence the classic site of the surrealist walk was the ¯ea market(Foster, 2000, p. 159), where chance discoveries of strange or outmoded objectsmight precipitate a sense of the uncanny return of historically repressed moments.But the Surrealists also experimented with more organized walks or `deÂambula-tions', extending out into the countryside, intended to achieve a state of hypnosisand disorientation, probing the boundaries between waking and dream life(Breton, 1993).

The tradition of ¯aÃnerie and Surrealist deÂambulations was both criticized andcarried forward in the later work of Walter Benjamin. Benjamin was critical of theSurrealists, trapped in their individual dreams, and sought instead to awaken citydwellers from what he saw as the collective, consumer dream world ofcommodity fetishism (Buck-Morss, 1991). His `Arcades Project', which absorbedmuch of his working life in the 1930s, was intended to provoke this awakening.Benjamin saw the Parisian Arcades, then in a state of decay, as the originaltemples of commodity capitalism, providing traces of lost fantasies from theprehistory of modernity. To excavate their hidden secrets required threeprocesses, represented in the three ®gures of the archaeologist, collector and¯aÃneur (Frisby, 1986). The archaeologist excavated the past, whilst the collectorwrenched objects from their contexts, reconstituting them to reveal their hiddentruth through techniques such as montage. The ¯aÃneur, however, was the one whotraversed the city, seeking a way through the labyrinth of the arcades, the city andthe masses (Benjamin, 2002). It was also the ¯aÃneur who provided the images thatwere the starting point for Benjamin's complex notion of the `dialectical image',when past and present moments ¯ashed into a `constellation', and provided amoment of illumination and awakening from the collective dream (Gilloch, 2002).

This brief summary is enough to show how different styles and practices of citywalking have been important components of wider aesthetic and philosophicalmovements. Walking appears as a mode of inquiry, a politics and an aestheticpractice (and often a fusion of all three), and Paris emerges as a criticallyimportant site for these experiments. The Situationists were to give these practicesa distinctive and radical twist.

Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool 399

The Situationists: Detournement, Derive and Psychogeography

The Situationists

The Situationist International was formed in 1957 by members of two political andartistic avant-garde movements, the Lettrist International (dominated by GuyDebord) and the Imaginist Bauhaus, which had emerged out of the break-up ofthe Surrealist movement at the end of the War (Hussey, 2001; Wollen, 1990). TheLondon Psychogeographical Association was also represented (by its one andonly member). When the Lettrists merged into the Situationist International in1957, Debord became the dominant ®gure in the larger group. The Lettrists andthe Situationists published a series of journals and engaged in a wide range ofartistic and political activities. Although always a small group, they have had animpact out of all proportion to their numbers. For example, several of theirleaders, and many of their ideas and slogans, were in¯uential in the 1968 uprising,and near revolution, in Paris. The group ®nally broke up in 1972.

Revolution and the Society of the Spectacle

The ideas and concepts of most immediate interest to geographers weredeveloped by the Lettrists and Situationists in the period up to 1962, whenthe focus was on the city as a site for a variety of liberatory practicesÐpolitical, artistic and spatial (McDonough, 1994; Pinder, 2000; Pile, 2002). Thesepractices addressed the question of how the quality of human life could betransformed in what Debord was later to describe as `The Society of the Spectacle',a society increasingly dominated by consumerism and the commodity (Debord,1967).

Modern society, Debord argued, had become a society of capitalistabundance, but a world of free time, leisure and creativity was continuallyput off by the creation of new wants and new consumer products necessary forthe system's survival. Life now presented itself as an immense `accumulationof spectacles', as commodity relations were extended to all areas of life(consumption, leisure, culture etc.). But this system had its own contradic-tions. It required the continual creation of new wants and desires that couldnot be satis®ed with commodities that had an ever-decreasing lifespan andquickly became banal.

Debord was also scathing about the impacts of modernist planning on cities.A new, modernist architecture and urban planning had divided the city intofunctional zones, dominated by the automobile and the freeway, andorganized space around home consumption and giant shopping malls (or`distribution factories'). Workers had been brought together in `sprawlingisolation' in the new suburbs.

The Society of the Spectacle, emerging in Paris and other cities, thusrepresented the `̀ impoverishment and negation of real life'' (Debord, 1967, p.215), whilst what was `̀ really lived''Ðindividual experience of daily lifeÐremained without language or concepts. But it was this everyday life that mustnow provide the ground of revolutionary theory and practice, rather than thefactory or the artist's canvas.

Situationism and the City: DeÂtournement, DeÂrive and Psychogeographie

How then to confront the society of the spectacle? How to penetrate its

400 K. Bassett

all-encompassing ideology and explode its false consciousness? In this context theLettrists and Situationists were convinced that `̀ the only legitimate tactics ofrevolutionary criticism are therefore those which heighten awareness, raising thedesire for autonomous action, self-realisation, and subjective expression deniedby commodity relations'' (Plant, 1992, p.86). To this end they sought to develop aseries of innovative, urban-based practices that resisted being accommodated intothe society of the spectacle.

A key tactic was deÂtournement (`diversion', or `subversion'). This implied aturning around and reclamation of lost meaning by plagiarizing materialsalready part of the spectacle and using them subversively against it. In `Auser's guide to deÂtournement', Debord and Wolman (1956) gave examples ofdeÂtournement in prose, ®lm and architecture (such as re-creating entireneighbourhoods in a deliberately disorienting way).

A related tactic involved the construction of `situations', or events, whichliberated the tendency towards play in everyday life. Situations wereconstructed moments `̀ of rupture, of acceleration, revolutions in individualeveryday life'' (Situationist International, 1958).

Another central notion was that of the deÂrive (or `drift'), conceived as`̀ a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences'', involving`̀ playful-constructive behaviour and awareness of psychogeographicaleffects'' (Debord, 1958). On a deÂrive one should abandon oneself to`̀ the attractions of the terrain and the encounters (one) ®nds there''.Although partly indebted to earlier Surrealist experiments in space,the Situationists were critical of the Surrealists' reliance on chance and thepursuit of the strange and uncanny for its own sake. Chance was lessimportant in Situationist practice because cities have `̀ psychogeographicalcontours, with constant currents, ®xed points and vortexes that stronglydiscourage entry into or exit from certain zones'' (Debord, 1958). The deÂrivewas thus to be more than just strolling; it was a combination of chance andplanning, an `organized spontaneity', designed to reveal some deeper realityto the city and urban life. The deÂrive was also distinguished from ¯aÃnerie ormere voyeurism by its more critical attitude towards the hegemonic scope ofmodernity. On a deÂrive one tried to shed class and other allegiances andcultivate a sense of marginality. DeÂrives thus tended to avoid the more obvioustourist areas, which pandered to crass appetites for ultravisible urbanspectacles.

One could deÂrive alone, but Debord thought small groups were preferable. AdeÂrive could last for a few hours, a day, several days, or even longer. Thespatial ®eld might be precisely delimited or vague `̀ depending on whether thegoal is to study a terrain or to emotionally disorient oneself'' by moving tounfamiliar terrain. The spatial ®eld might be a whole city, a neighbourhood oreven a single building. One could explore a ®xed spatial ®eld, or if the aim wasdeliberate disorientation (or a `rational disordering of the senses') rather thanexploration, one might start from a `possible rendezvous' (selected bysomeone who might not turn up), engage complete strangers in conversation,and incorporate various `transgressions' (Debord gives some typically semi-serious examples, such as slipping into houses undergoing demolition, hitch-hiking through Paris in a transport strike without destination to add to theconfusion, wandering in spaces forbidden to the public etc.).

The deÂrive is thus a kind of elaborate game, but one that leads to a radical re-

Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool 401

reading of the city. It re¯ected a kind of guerrilla mentality in which theSituationists saw themselves launching raiding parties on the power of thespectacle from bases in the less sanitized parts of Paris (and later London andAmsterdam). On a deÂrive the Situationists typically avoided tourist and petit-bourgeois areas, and favoured the ghettos and slums of the urban poor, areaswhich they romantically saw as assets to the city rather than spaces to beremoved by urban planning.

The experiences of the deÂrive were also intended to contribute to theconstruction of a `psychogeography' of the modern city. Psychogeographywas `̀ regarded as a sort of therapy, a fetishisation of those parts of the citythat could still rescue drifters from the clutches of functionalism, excitingthe senses and the body'' (Sadler, 1999, p. 80). It was induced by placesthat generated `̀ salutary states of awe, melancholy, joy or terror'' (Bernsteinin Hussey, 2001, p. 91). In Debord's words: `̀ The sudden change ofambiance in a street within the space of a few metres; the evidentdivision of a city into a few zones of distinct psychic atmospheres; the pathof least resistance which is automatically followed in aimless strolls (andwhich has no relation to the physical contour of the ground); the appealing orrepelling character of certain placesÐall this seems to be neglected'' (Debord,1958).

Psychogeography demanded new forms of cartography, capable of repre-senting states of consciousness and feeling. The Situationists thus sought tomap out uniteÂs d'ambience, or singular places with special qualities. This unitymight re¯ect the social composition of an area, or common architectural style.But the emphasis was placed more on the `soft' mutable elements of urbanscenes, such as the play of presence and absence, of light and sound, ofrhythms of human activity in time and space, and the association of memoriesand places.

As well as uniteÂs d'ambience, the Situationists identi®ed nodes or pivotalpoints (plaques tournantes), which acted like turntables as one progressedthrough the city. They referred to pentes (gradients) in urban space, resistantand non-resistant `paths' through the ®ssures of the urban network, `axes` and`passages', boundaries and `lines of defence'. Some sense of what they weresearching for can be found in Khatib's `An attempt at a psychogeographicaldescription of Les Halles' (Khatib, 1958). From walking and observationthrough the old market area (now demolished and rebuilt), Khatib tried toidentify the boundaries of the quarter, its internal uniteÂs d'ambience, its pivotalpoints, its ®ssures and lines of resistance, its sudden breaks, its bastions anddefences (of the bourgeois quarters, for example). In another example Debordand Jorn constructed their `Naked City' map of Paris, by cutting up andrearranging parts of street maps to form a psychogeographic map, withpsychic units, plaques tournantes, pentes etc. Arrows represented tendencies todrain along non-resistant paths; and the distances between areas represented`effective distances' rather than physical distances between places (Pinder,1996).

The Psychogeographic Tradition

These urban-focused practices were particularly important in the early phase ofLettrist and Situationist activity. After about 1962 they became less important as

402 K. Bassett

political goals and strategies shifted, and in 1972 the Situationist International waswound up entirely (Hussey, 2001). However, many of its ideas ¯owed on throughvarious artistic, architectural and political movements in various Europeancountries, including Britain (for architecture, see Sadler, 1999; Borden andMcCreery, 2001; Swyngedouw, 2002, and for impacts on Punk and popularculture, Marcus, 1989).

Psychogeographical practices also survived as an intermittent, almostunderground tradition, to re-emerge with new vigour in recent years. A searchfor psychogeographical websites reveals the existence of various groups basedin European and US cities. The `Social Fiction' group's website, for example,recounts recent experiments with `algorithmic and non-algorithmic' deÂrives inRome and Holland (Social Fiction, 2002). For algorithmic deÂrives differentgroups followed a simple algorithm (second right, second right, ®rst left,repeated) to construct a path through the city, sometimes resulting in zigzagpaths, sometimes spirals and loops. Their diaries record events, sensations,comments etc. at random points.

In the UK the psychogeographic tradition is also evident in the work of IanSinclair. In Lights Out for the Territory he recounts a series of walks throughsalubrious and insalubrious parts of London, producing accounts that exude anervous energy and provide a rich brew of observations, feelings andanecdotes (Sinclair, 1997).

Critical reaction to his work has also brought important issues of genderto the surface once more. Scalaway (2001, 2002), for example, arguesthat Sinclair's `¯aÃneur-construct' is characterized by its `̀ invariablemasculinity, by his alienation from the scenes he observes, by his essentialsolitude''. He `yomps', `cruises', `marches', or `hustles' through the crowds.The city thus appears as something feminine, passively there for the taking,a wilderness-like space of adventure to be conquered or possessed.Scalway tries to develop an alternative notion of `̀ the exploring strategiesfor the drifter in a feminine mode''. In contrast with Sinclair's assertivewalking she talks of having to look for spaces to slip through and round,of weaving and threading paths, of dodging and darting through urbanspace. Her ideal is to ®nd a way of being in the city `as a citizen', and of®nding a way of walking which is also more about negotiation and regardfor the Other than Sinclair's approach.

Practising Psychogeography

Different theories and practices of walking, and the Situationist and psychogeo-graphic approaches in particular, provide a rich source of ideas for exploring,experiencing and, it is hoped, understanding cities. In lectures in Bristol weexplore these texts and ideas in some detail, situating them in their widerphilosophical, political and artistic traditions, and relating them to their historicaland spatial contexts. However, translating these ideas into ®eldwork practices forstudents poses many interesting challenges. The key principle here is thatstudents are fully involved in the process of critically examining alternatives andworking up practical possibilities themselves.

Inevitably, any project work will be something of a compromisewith Situationist principles, which were, after all, linked to forms of radicaltransgression pre®guring the ultimate overthrow of capitalism. We reassure

Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool 403

students that though they might wish to make this their lifetime's project, theoverthrow of capitalism is not a course requirement. However, even in aninevitably `de-radicalized' form, Situationist ideas have much to offer and canform the basis for rewarding exercises in urban exploration and understandingthat open up a whole swathe of broader questions and issues. I give a brief andcritical account of my own experiences on two recent ®eld trips to Paris in 2002and 2003.

Developing the Exercise

The exercises emerged out of a series of iterations following lectures and setreadings. Students were encouraged to put forward their own ideas in class, andwe worked these up into suggested guidelines, which then became the basis forfurther discussions and revisions. The end result was a ¯exible framework forgroup work that left room for groups to experiment in their own ways. The groupsthemselves comprised 5±6 students, with one student designated as the group'scoordinator, although the actual dynamics of group working was left up to eachgroup to decide. Each group leader was given a pack of material for her/hisgroups several weeks before leaving Bristol, which included maps, key articlesand chapters, and guidance notes.

Each group was given an area of central Paris to work in, with boundariesmarked on detailed street maps. They were given a tape recorder and broughttheir own cameras. The areas, selected by me, were large enough and variedenough to provide plenty of scope for a one-day exploration. The areasincluded a zone centring on Les Halles (partly on the grounds that this hadbeen the site of a Situationist deÂrive before its redevelopment); a zone inMontparnasse extending south of the Montparnasse tower; an area centred onthe Place d'Italie which included Paris's Chinatown and the historic Butte auxCailles; and two multi-ethnic, semi-gentri®ed areas in eastern Paris, oneextending east of the Bastille and the other centring on Menilmontant. Thesewere for the most part areas that were away from the more familiar touristsites and were also areas that most students knew little or nothing aboutbefore the visit.

Each group was given the task of exploring the psychogeography of its areausing a variety of different approaches in combinations that the groupmembers could decide for themselves. They could explore their areas throughan algorithmic or non-algorithmic deÂrive, or perhaps switch from oneapproach to another in the course of the day to see what difference it made.They could take their whole area as a territory to explore through an extendeddeÂrive, or after an initial period of exploration they could switch to a moreintense focus on a smaller sub-area or even building. However they proceededthey had to decide on ways of recording their progress and responses,periodically stopping and recording group or individual discussions, deci-sions, impressions, feelings, attitudes etc. using notebooks, journals and/ortape recorders.

They were urged to experiment with the Situationist vocabulary of uniteÂsd'ambiences, plaques tournantes, pentes, passages, axes, borders and defences,paths of attraction and repulsion etc., perhaps extending them with sugges-tions of their own. They were asked to think about ways of representing thehard and soft phenomena of the city (feelings, senses of calm or dislocation,

404 K. Bassett

attractions and repulsions etc) in cartographic form, perhaps using Debord's`Naked City' map of Paris as a model of how to represent psychic unities,distances and slopes.

In identifying psychogeographic phenomena they were asked to considernot only written or speech recordings, but also sound recordings andphotographs to capture the sense of place, thus generating a visual and auralrecord of their progress as a kind of `walkscape' (Careri, 2001). It wassuggested they might also capture meanings and sensations of place throughtheir associations with certain `found objects' such as postcards, artefacts etc.,which they could collect during their progress. They were also urged to stopand contemplate what was happening around them during the course of theday, noting how activities, sounds and sensations varied, transforming thesense of place through diurnal rhythms.

They were also asked to consider the possible gender dimensions of whatthey were doing and how they were doing it (each group was made up of maleand female students). Did gender make a difference in choosing their routes,and in attitudes and responses to places, paths etc? Could they build this intotheir understanding of the city and the way they responded to differentplaces?

At the end of the day each group returned to the hotel and after a debrie®ngand discussion session with me each group then had the rest of the evening toorder and assemble the members' notes and materials while events were stillfresh in their minds.

On both occasions I have run this exercise I found that all the groups seemedto have at least enjoyed their day, discovered parts of Paris they had nevervisited, collected a fund of experiences (some funny, some revealing, andsomeÐat least to the ®eld trip organizersÐalarming), and engaged invigorous arguments and debates with each other (which continued on intothe evening). In the initial debrie®ngs, however, in spite of acknowledging thepleasures of exploring Paris on foot in spring sunshine, not all members ofeach group were equally convinced of the deeper value of the exercise.Attitudes were partly affected by group dynamics and membership. AlthoughI did not engineer the composition of each group in too ®ne a detail, I did tryand get a balance of abilities, enthusiasms and personalities. On each occasion,however, I was often pleasantly surprised by the way that groups that lookedstronger on paper were often outclassed by groups where my expectationswere initially lower. Performance seemed to be affected (strongly in somecases) by the choice of group coordinator. Some proved particularly dynamicand innovative, and their enthusiasm communicated itself to the whole group.In some cases, however, internal disagreements resulted in the margin-alization of the leader or internal fragmentation of the group. Attitudes to theexercise were also affected by the kinds of areas that the groups were sent to.Some groups returned enthusiastic about the richness and variety of the areasthey explored, whilst others were somewhat dismayed by an apparentseeming homogeneity of landscape they could not seem to differentiate.However, more detailed critical re¯ections on what they had done took placein a more relaxed setting after returning to Bristol.

The Presentation and Follow-up

The ®rst session of the related Space and Spatiality course in the summer term was

Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool 405

dedicated to presentations by each group in turn. Each was given 20 minutes topresent and comment on its experiences and critically re¯ect on the wholeexercise. The groups were encouraged to combine visual material (maps, sketches,photographs, objects) with tape-recordings and other material, as a visual/soundnarrative or collage. They were urged to think of imaginative ways of commu-nicating their experiences and ®ndings to the other groups.

The presentations on each occasion varied in quality, but were never lessthan entertaining, and some were highly imaginative, critical and insightful.Groups used photographs, collages, edited tape-recordings of their discus-sions, street noises etc. Baguettes and posters appeared as props in re-stagedperformances of group encounters that caught some of the surrealistic andfaintly self-mocking style of Situationism. Other groups preferred to rely onmore formal PowerPoint demonstrations. Some groups attempted their ownversions of psychogeographic maps in the style of Debord's `Naked City'.Figure 1 shows an example from the Bastille area, showing uniteÂs d'ambience,lines of least resistance, plaques tournantes etc., with illustrative photographs.

Over the two years the groups have experimented with both algorithmicand non-algorithmic deÂrives. Some have used different combinations duringthe course of the day, noting the different kinds of paths and experiences theyproduced. One group had tried blindfolding a leader and using sound andsense of smell as guidance in choosing pathways to try and break away fromwhat they saw as `the tyranny of the visual' in inviting or repelling the choiceof paths (see Urry, 2000 on non-visual clues in the city). Another group had

Figure 1. Pschyogeography of the Bastille

406 K. Bassett

tried using a dice to choose directions, had changed leaders randomly, orengaged in protracted discussions about psychogeographical prompts in thelandscape before arriving at collective decisions. Each approach seemed toproduce different results in terms of pathways and the experiences theygenerated.

In the process of carrying out the exercise different groups became moreaware of various contrasts, which they variously characterized in terms ofdifferences between Haussmanized boulevards and backstreets, public versusprivate spaces, the local versus the cosmopolitan, the ordered and thedisordered, the light and the shaded, the threatening and the unthreateningetc. They had also become more aware of various lines of attraction andrepulsion in the landscapes, and some reported a sense of alienation in variousspaces, for example the sense of alienation felt in penetrating public buildingsbeyond their front spaces, or exploring ambiguous spaces that were not clearlypublic or private (public housing blocks, hospitals, mairies etc.). Some reportedan increased awareness of boundaries and contested spaces. Children's playareas were experienced as spaces of safety and innocence and temporaryrefuges, but parks could be both welcoming and threatening, often withinsmall distances. One group commented on the nature of `layered spaces'which seem to have contested or multiple meanings, not easy to disentangle.Several groups also questioned whether these kinds of distinctions actuallyarose `naturally' through their own experiences, or were in a sense `imposed'as a result of prior reading or theoretical knowledge as geographers. Mostgroups also commented critically on the dominance of `the tourist gaze' infocusing their attention on striking buildings or monuments (Urry, 1990,2000). Some tried to escape the lure of obvious tourist attractions and paths bytrying to follow paths of most rather than least resistance.

In discussing routeways and sharing experiences of place most of thegroups also became more conscious of gender differences. Some commentedon the evident gendering of spatio-temporal rhythms, and became moreconscious of the kinds of visual and other clues that made different streetsmore or less threatening to women. There were also tentative comments aboutthe way the `otherness' of ethnicity subtly, and sometimes not so subtly,in¯uenced their choices and pathways.

Several groups commented on the dif®culties of navigating what they felt tobe bland and mundane spaces on the one hand, and spaces that generated aprofusion of surface experiences on the other, both of which induced a kind ofdazed withdrawal or distraction, which they realized was the most commonstate in which we unthinkingly negotiate the city. One group found itselfretracing its steps and raised the issue of whether one could deÂrive in the samearea several times, producing different experiences as a result. The groupnoted that retracing a morning's route in the afternoon produced differentresponses that were partly due to a growing familiarity with an area andpartly due to looking out for something different to respond to and record.

Finally, various students drew critical attention to the limitations of some oftheir experiments. One group commented that some of their explorations (e.g.into the `public spaces of housing blocks') turned out to be `steriledeÂtournements' that produced little of value. Several groups raised the problemthat a group of students wandering the streets stood out like a sore thumb insome areas, attracting the attention of passers by and locals, who became

Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool 407

suspicious. Some deÂrives were interrupted by temporary `lines of ¯ight' to newstarting points.

Some General and Critical Comments

In spite of some obvious limitations concerning the time available and safetyprecautions, there are rewards to be drawn from such an exercise at a variety oflevels.

First, the exercise involves students in an active and self-critical way intranslating theoretical ideas into practical strategies on the ground, and then usingtheir experiences to criticize and comment on those ideas. Linking the ®eldexercises to textual sources within a wider course structure is important here.

Second, such an exercise is a way of getting students to open their eyes and earsto what is often taken for granted or ignored in negotiating urban space. It is a wayof raising consciousness of urban places and rhythms, of how we experience boththe hard and soft phenomena of the city; of how we can open ourselves up to awider range of experiences of the city; and how we can record and communicatethose experiences. Such an exercise can thus raise issues both about how we readthe city, and also how we can write and represent the city. The presentations thusencourage students to experiment with combinations of writing, performance,visual and sound montages, etc.

Third, such an exercise is a way of opening up important issues concerningepistemology and methodology. For example, to what extent is a practice like thedeÂrive a form of urban ethnography, and how does it compare with or complementother ethnographic techniques? Jenks and Neves (2000) draw some interestingparallels between the ¯aÃneur and the urban ethnographer in ways which bringout the both the strengths and limitations of ¯aÃnerie and deÂrive.

Fourth, and more speci®cally, such an exercise leads to a timely re-examinationof Situationist ideas and practices. For example, to what extent does theSituationist vocabularly of pentes, plaques tournantes etc. provide a useful set ofconceptual tools for cognitive mapping? An obvious point of comparison here iswith the work of Kevin Lynch, who also produced cognitive mapping termin-ology but from within a totally different tradition of modernist town planning.Compared with Lynch, the Situationist approach is much more subversive andtransgressive in its intent. An interesting question to pursue further is whatdifferences this makes to the kinds of cognitive and psychogeographic maps thatcould be produced in the same city or neighbourhood.

A more general question that students also have to confront is the extent towhich it is possible to retain the radical intent of Situationism in today's urban andpolitical context. After all, concepts such as deÂrive and deÂtournement were not justintended as tools for spatial exploration and mapping, but were part of a widerstrategy to subvert the dominance of the spectacle and open oneself up topotentially liberating and transformative experiences. Can one use Situationisttools for an academic exercise in this kind of way without effectively de-radicalizing them to the extent that they become lifeless and un-illuminating? Arethe kinds of liberatory and transformative experiences the Situationists werelooking for still possible in a more advanced stage of consumer capitalism andchanged urban context? Has the original notion of the deÂrive lost much of itscritical potential by being incorporated into the very system of urban spectacles itwas intended to subvert? After all, the tourist industry itself, through brochures,

408 K. Bassett

®lms and guides, now creates and markets entire districts and quarters withincities as places with distinct ambiences to be consumed as spectacles. Touristguides of increasing detail, catering to different tastes and interests, providetourists with networks of pathways to wander through different areas. Somemulti-volume guides to Paris steer the interested tourist almost from house tohouse, providing dense historical detail and instructions on where to direct thegaze. It is almost as if the society of the spectacle has `deÂtourned' the Situationists'own attempts at deÂtournement. One is then led to ask, what new forms ofdeÂtournement might now be possible to subvert the society of the spectacle? Whatform might `situations' take in contemporary urban society? Although no clearanswers to these questions have emerged, getting students to debate them hasproved reward enough for all concerned.

Finally, the engagement with Situationist ideas and practices encouragesstudents to explore further the fascinating artistic and intellectual tradition that Isketched at the beginning, extending from the nineteenth-century ¯aÃneur, throughBaudelaire, the Surrealists, and Walter Benjamin, to the current psychogeographicwritings of Ian Sinclair. There are many opportunities for cross-comparisonbetween authors. For example, another of our exercises involves students inattempting to rework aspects of Benjamin's `Arcades Project' (Benjamin, 2002),and in discussion aspects of his urban methodologies can be counterpoised toSituationist ones. Comparisons of Debord's Parisian deÂrives and Sinclair's London¯aÃneries also open up questions concerning the way similar techniques mightproduce radically different results in different cities.

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