The Suffolk Psychogeophysics Summit presents an intense week-long series of interventions, field trips, open workshops and evening discussions led by international artists and researchers exploring the Suffolk countryside through the interdisciplinary lens of psychogeophysics, defined as the combining of psychogeographic techniques (methods of wandering) with the study of geophysical traces (geophysical archaeology, the revealing of place).

Open events within the week include practical workshops in building simple geophysical measurement devices from recycled materials, the construction of ghost detectors to be tested on the streets of Ipswich and experiments within high voltage photography of rocks and minerals. Fieldtrips will build on discussions and techniques established during these workshops, undertaking studies at specific Suffolk locations of interest (such as Rendlesham forest, Bawdsey Manor, Orford Ness); the measurement and mapping of qualitative psychic, physical and geophysical data.

Provisional schedule:

Sunday 28th August : Arrival and setup.

Monday 29th August : Visit to radar at Bawdsey Manor.

Tuesday 30th August : Rendlesham UFO Field Trip. Collect materials for Kirlian Workshop. 4pm - 9pm Kirlian Geological Photography Workshop at CSV.

Wednesday 31st August : Languard Fort field Trip. 1pm ? 6pm Ghost Detectors Workshop at CSV.

Thursday 1st September : Grimes Graves & Devils Dyke Morning Field Trip. Red Barn Murders, Green Children & Gallows Hill Afternoon Field Trip.

Friday 2nd September : Orford Ness Atomic Bomb Field Trip (tue to fri open boats between 10 and 2 only).

Saturday 3rd September : Evening event at CSV.

Sunday 4th September : Take down and departure.

Partners: Arts Council England & CSV Media Ipswich.

“To cover the world, to cross it in every direction, will only ever be to know a few square meters of it… tiny incursions into disembodied vestiges, small incidental excitements, improbable quests congealed in a mawkish haze a few details of which will remain in our memory. And with these, the sense of the world’s concreteness… no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, nor the illusion of a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that the earth is a form of writing, a geography of which we had forgotten that we ourselves are the authors.” – Georges Perec, Species of Spaces

PDPal was a series of public art projects for the Palm™ PDA, mobile phone and the web. It has pushed at the notion of mapping, attempting to transform your everyday activities and urban experiences into a dynamic city that you write. PDPal engages the user through a visual transformation that is meant to highlight the way technologies that locate and orient are often static and without reference to the lively nature of urban cultural environments.

Your own city is the city composed of the places you live, play, work, and remember. It’s made of the routes and paths through which you make connections. Your city is also about the meanings you ascribe to the places you inhabit, pass through, love or hate. You imagine those places and routes as more than a street address, or directions you may give. These places have vivid, metaphorical meanings and histories that PDPal allows you to capture and visualize imaginatively, effectively writing your imaginary city.

In response to the plethora of mapping projects that have utilized GPS and measurable cartography, PDPal has been anti-geographic and anti-cartesian, preferring to experiment with the construction of relative, emotionally based systems that ask: what makes social or personal space. PDPal responds to the century-old idea of the urban explorer: from Baudelaire’s “flaneur” (late 19th c); the Dadaists’ public performances of nothing, sometimes called “deambulations” (1921); Benjamin’s texts on the urban wanderer (1920’s); the Situationists’ algorithmic “derives”; Hakim Bey’s “Temporary Autonomous Zones” that spring up in the cracks of urban regulations, and are opportunities for brief piracy of a place; and contemporary work in psychogeography - all deliberate projects of “getting lost” in the city, thus restoring it to a great dense space of wonder, not just a locus of labors.

WalkSpace: Beirut-Venice invites the participant on a drift through Venice guided from Beirut and in Beirut guided from Venice. The work involves two simultaneous dérives through the historic cities of Beirut and Venice, connected in real time to each other and to the world. Two interconnected groups of participants will walk in each city, each receiving instruction and guidance from the other as they wander, get lost and explore …the psychogeographical ambiance of the city. The progress of each group will be broadcast as a live video stream via Bambuser, tracked in realtime on a map with Google latitude and tweeted, with followers having the option of giving instructions via Twitter.

The object is not to create a finite discrete work but to create a peripatetic relational space which can evolve and respond to the situation, the desires of its participants and serendipity, with the work being created through the actions of its participants. The space is furthermore overlaid with a hybrid, networked space connecting both cities and augmenting each space with the absent presence of the other.

Working from a changing set of basic instructions such as ’describe what you see’, ‘follow that person’, ‘take the next left and then thefirst right’ or the more loaded ‘take me to the heart of the city’ the two groups will walk in tandem each guiding the other, walking in Beirut as if in Venice and Venice as if in Beirut.

The project draws on early dérives carried out by the Situationists in Amsterdam and Strasbourg which connected groups in different parts ofthe cities with walkie talkies and Ralph Rumney’s 1957 Psychogeographical Map of Venice.

About the artist

Conor McGarrigle is a Dublin based new media artist and researcher working at the intersection of digital networks and real space. His work is concerned with the the integration of digital technologies into the everyday and the spatial implications of location aware mobile devices. His work involves urban interventions mediated through digital technologies such as smartphones and GPS and projects have involved, mapping, iPhone apps, augmented reality and guerilla video projection. Recent projects include; NAMAland (2010), WalkSpace (2010) and JoyceWalks (2008-).He has exhibited widely internationally and was an invited participant in the Documenta 12 Magazine project.

He received a Bsc from University College Dublin, an MFA from the National College of Art & Design and is currently a PhD candidate at GradCAM Dublin. He has spoken internationally at conferences including Digital Art & Culture 2009, DRHA 2010 & 2011, ISEA 2009 & 2011, Art of Research Chelsea (2008), 5th Symposium on Multimedia Caixa Forum (2005), SIGGRAPH (1999, 2000).

His work has been widely exhibited internationally including the Unrealised Potential touring exhibition, St. Etienne Biennale, FILE Sao Paolo, SIGGRAPH, Fundacio ‘La Caixa‚Äô Barcelona, Fundacio Miro Mallorca, Media Art Friesland, the Seoul Net Festival, Art on the Net Tokyo, The Werkleitz Biennale, Stuttgart Filmwinter, D/Art Sydney, CyNet Art Dresden, The National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, The Boston Cyber Arts Festival, the Thailand New Media Arts Festival, Lightwave at the Science Gallery Dublin, EV+A Limerick, Arthouse Dublin, The City Arts Centre Dublin and the Project. He was an invited participant in the Documenta 12 Magazine project.

Avantgardes have only one sole moment; and the best thing that can happen to them is, in the fullest sense of the term, for them to have made their moment. — Guy Debord

Often described as “the last avantgarde”, the Situationist International occupies a central place within postwar European culture. The movement articulated its position both within and in opposition to the emerging consumer society of the 50s and 60s, developing a number of highly influential artistic, philosophical, and political concepts for criticizing and subverting this society’s forms: the notion of a “society of the spectacle”, in which capital is accumulated to the point where it becomes image; the artistic method of “détournement” or “hijacking”, where elements of popular or established culture are torn from their contexts and employed in new, unsettling ways; the idea of a “dérive”, a “drifting” through the city that liberates other modes of existence within urban space — and so on. The importance of these concepts and models for contemporary art and thinking cannot be overestimated.

However, attempting to trace the different Situationist concepts and models, we soon realize that they originate from a wide range of places and contexts. In fact, rather than a movement in the singular, the Situationist International was enmeshed in a sprawling network of movements, where events occurring in the peripheries, in excluded or marginalized sections and constellations, were just as important as those taking place in the ideological center. Or, put in other words, rather than a Situationist movement, we could perhaps speak of an open, multifarious Situationist moment, whose genealogy remains largely untraced and whose virtualities remain hidden.

Alla Kungens Hästar is a series of events, seminars and interventions that will address topics such as these, with the hope that this may provide starting points for other readings, assessments and perhaps even extensions of the long moment of the Situationist International. It is conceived as a multinational project, which will attempt to trace the Situationist International and its network of associated groups, as they spread out across Europe. Alla Kungens Hästar is co-organized by the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. The project is initiated by Daniel Birnbaum and Kim West.

With support from Allianz Kulturstiftung.

A selection of cultural and everyday routes are remapped to your current location, these routes range from cultural trails such as routes from James Joyce’s Ulysses to individual daily walks. Walks can be shared with photos and route maps and users can add their own routes to the app.

WalkSpace is designed to take you places you mightn’t otherwise go, to see familiar places in a new light opening a window to chance encounters and experiences. The app is inspired by the Situationist dérive acting as a locative media version of the classic experimental technique for re-enchanting the city.

A walk route is generated based on your current location. Each walk has waypoints along the route and as you navigate your route you will be given the option to take a photograph at each one which will then appear as a pop-up on tapping the waypoint pin. When the walk is completed you can share a map of the route of your walk and the photographs you took along the way by email.

WalkSpace is a locative media art project by Conor McGarrigle with programming by Emer MacDowell and is now available as a free download from the appstore.

In his provocative book, Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics, literary ecologist Timothy Morton suggests that much ecocritical nature writing makes the same Romantic assumptions it seeks to critique. He posits that a properly ecological view of the environment must challenge aestheticised views of nature, and be immersed rather than observational. How can, and does, sound-based music ‘rethink’ environmental aesthetics? How can sound-based music, and writing on it, contribute to the ecocritical debate?

What is sonic ecology in art? This themed issue aims to move forward from the valuable foundations of early Acoustic Ecology and soundscape composition, considering related and different approaches sound-based music as ecological reflection of listening, sound and place. Topics for investigation might include (as suggestions):

· Soundscapes and sonic psychogeography.
· Sonic activists, eco-activism in sound art and sound-based music.
· Field recording projects that address issues of ecology, environmental stewardship and sustainability in the light of collective, or personal, experience of sound in the world.
· Sound-based music as the ‘transliteration’ of recorded experience and memory of time and place.
· Artistic projects arising from phonography communities and online dissemination of both music and materials.
· Online soundscape experiences and compositions (interactive soundbased works, curated sound-based music, sound collections, field recording projects, listening projects, virtual environments)
· Consciousness-raising, through sound-based music, in relation to listening and place.
· Artist statements, personal and subjective, ‘listening in the world’.
· Critiques and consideration of Acoustic Ecology.

As always, submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome.

Submissions may consist of papers, with optional supporting short compositions or excerpts, audio-visual documentation of performances and/or other aspects related to your submission that can be placed onto a DVD and the CUP website for “Organised Sound”. Supporting audio and audio-visual material will be presented as part of the journal’s annual DVD-ROM which will appear with issue 16/3 as well on the journal’s website.

The London Psychogeophysics Summit proposes an intense week-long, city-wide series of walks, fieldtrips, river drifts, open workshops and discussions exploring the novel interdisciplinary frame of psychogeophysics, colliding psychogeographics with earth science measurements and study (fictions of forensics and geophysical archaeology). Centred around SPACE, open events include practical workshops in building simple geophysical measurement devices from scrap materials, fieldtrips for study and long-term use of such devices in the city, measurement and mapping of physical and geophysical data during city-wide walks, deployment of strategic underground networks, fusion of fiction, derive and signal excursion, studies of river signal ecologies alongside short lectures and discussions of broad, interdisciplinary psychogeophysical themes.

The London Psychogeophysics Summit will take place from 2nd August to the 7th of August with daily events at SPACE, evenings at HTTP Gallery, and walks and river drifts scattered across London. A large open air event will take place on Saturday 7th August.

Yarra brings together self selected writers and sound artists to record their random urban explorations of the City of Yarra. Using social network platforms, e-mail, forums and word of mouth Ernesto Ríos invited over two hundred people to drift in the City of Yarra. Based on their artistic practice and interest in working with Ríos´s process seven artist completed seven unique derives.

These explorations generated multiple artistic interpretations of identity within the metropolitan kaleidoscope, place and the participants’ time in the City of Yarra resulting in a prototype interactive and permanent website with the view that, in the future, this website can be built upon by City of Yarra.

This project can also be seen as a series of probable journeys through the puzzling everyday maze of the City of Yarra.

Yarra draws upon the concepts of the political and artistic movement, known as Situationist International and the artistic practices of Psychogeography and Dérive but incorporates the more contemporary art techniques such as multimedia field recordings.

Psychogeography is “The study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals”. La Dérive, a French concept meaning an aimless walk, probably through city streets that follows the whim of the moment. Dérive is also considered as an experimental mode of behavior linked to the conditions of urban society; a technique of transient passage through varied ambiances.

Associate Artists:

Philip Samartzis (sound artist)
Jacques Soddell (sound artist)
Emilie Collyer (writer)
Penelope Chai (writer)
Martin kay (sound artist)
Amanda Wallace (writer)
Camilla Hannan (sound artist)
Paul Doornbush (sound artist)
Rodrigo Sigal (sound artist)

More info here.

This project has received the support of: City Of Yarra and the 2010 Community Grants Program, Punctum, In-Habit, RMIT University and Optisolutions I.T. The artist would like to extend special thanks to Rodrigo Szalay, Eduardo Vital Preciado, and Daniel Geake for making this project possible.

Bike Box is a participatory locative media project and database created by Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown. Using open-source software, participants will be able to listen to and contribute geotagged audio that relates or responds to specific locations in Brooklyn, New York: Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and along the Brooklyn waterfront. The audio can take any form, including (but not limited to) sound art, personal anecdotes, field recordings, radical histories, interviews, or audio tours. The audio may be geo-coded for a specific location (i.e. a building or a street corner) or an object (i.e. a public art project or mailbox).

Bike Box will be at Devotion Gallery in Brooklyn from July 16-25, 2010. Three technology-enhanced bicycles available to the public will allow users to connect to the project database and hear sounds geocoded for specific locations in the target area. People with iPhones may also download the free Bike Box application at the gallery. An installation inside the gallery will allow visitors to listen to audio streaming from the Bike Box database and to track the progress of Bike Box users in real time as they ramble and roll through Brooklyn. In imagining this project, we are particularly interested in developing a platform for civic engagement and participatory art making.

We are seeking contributors to the Bike Box audio database. We invite land-use experts, historians, poets, artists, and interpreters of all types to map the sonic terrain.

We are seeking curators to curate specific audio tours and program related events in the gallery space (workshops, screenings, lectures, performances) related to the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods, land art, locative media, psychogeography, radical history and/or mobile media.

If you have an idea for a geo-specific project, please contact us. We are accepting proposals and submissions on a rolling basis until June 10th.

please email your proposal/submission (text, URL, audio, and/or images) to:

contact[at]sabinegruffat.com or contact us through the secure form on the BIKE BOX website.