#contextuallectures

I wanted to address the places I have never visited in West Yorkshire and plan to visit them - and carry out psychogeographical derives in these areas. I understand that some areas may be very quiet, however, there is something that intrigues me about these areas and I therefore need to visit these places. 

An experience/derive is an experience wherever it is, it will add to my knowledge of places and my personal memories I hold.

I also plan to obtain objects from these places (following on from inspirational artists such as Rachel Whiteread and Mark Dion - where they collect objects from places and transform them into something refreshing and innovative. 

These are the places I plan to visit during my time: 

Ackworth

Addingham

Collingham

Crofton

Denby Dale

Elland

Farsley

Featherstone

Hemsworth

Holmfirth

Kippax

Kirkburton

Knottingley 

Meltham

Mickletown

Normanton

Oakworth

Oxenhope

Queensbury

Repponden

Saltaire

Silsden

Slaithwaite

Todmorden

Since recently discovering Psycho-geography and its wonders, I have become fascinated with the way it has transformed the way I engage with the landscape.    Before, I used to detach myself away from the urban environment, tending to be lost in my own world - known as a blase attitude. Yet, I have become more engrossed within the landscape/urban environment.  I am constantly aware of what is happening around me.

I listen, look, feel, touch and hear everything around me.

I then found out Leeds University have their own Psychogeography group, where they give lectures and guest speakers to enthusiastic psychogeographers every 2 weeks. I decided to join as I had become obsessed with it and feel now I have experienced it, I will be involving it more within my practice.

This talk from Asa Roast, was based on the city of Shanghai and its vibrant modernity. 

Firstly, we were shown a youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M93gGlERrPw

Street Angel, Yuan Muzhi, 1937.

River Elegy, 1988 (was banned by communist parties. All about Chinese history - opposition: Inland being ancient and traditional, then the opposite, being the vibrant sea representing opportunity and modernity). 

Asa did his dissertation on the urban history of China - focusing on Shanghai in a psychogeographical approach. 

SHANGHAI - IMAGINED CHINESE FUTURE.

20's 30's (Vibrant, modern art, poets, painters, intellectual freedom).

MODERNIST - COMMUNIST.

Next 40 years, and other in communist China.

Lee pung

SKYLINE PHOTOGRAPH - China demographic - 12 million people (NOW 25 million) "The City is different" 

People returning back - streets are erased, subways built.

They are so obsessed with changing - always radically different.

Radical departure from itself.

HONG KONG, Akbar Abbas.

PHOTO: Bright, vibrant, jazzy smokey clubs. - expensive.  increase in crime.  

Cosmopolitan vibrant city. 

Mental Maps, his first major series, were produced during a stay in Hong Kong. Combining the factual precision of traditional street maps with his own interpretation of the local environment, these small watercolours documented the artist’s perception of the great cities of Asia, South America and Australia. Ackermann has since created large-scale dynamic installations that are built up from individual components comprising paintings, drawings, photographs, wall drawings and sculptural, billboard-like constructions. His work frequently deals with the double side of tourism – the glamour, speed and consumption of international travel but also the detritus, architectural scarring and garbage that it leaves behind, and his installations often take on the appearance of strange advertisements for a global tourism industry run amok. The places he depicts have a generic quality, and yet they look strangely familiar: non-places where the traveller’s desire replaces the local culture. His most recent White Cube exhibition, ‘Home, home again' (2006) brought together a series of large-scale paintings, drawings and sculptures that focus on London as their point of departure. Ackermann presented a large-scale drawing that provides a metaphorical link between his ongoing ‘Mental Map’ series – watercolours made while on the move in hotels around the world – and his paintings, constructed from memory in the studio.

Franz Ackermann is known for his paintings and installations based on interests such as tourism, globalisation, urbanism. Although, I don't paint within my practice, or create installations similar to his, the mental side of his work, the way he thinks and experiences urbanism and tourism intrigues me the most. I could to a certain extent argue that psycho-geography is like becoming a sort of tourist when you experience cities and different places, as you look, listen and breathe the city in - taking it all in, record constantly.

Imaginary time is indistinguishable from directions in space. If one can go North, one can turn around and head South; equally, if one can go forward in an imaginary time, one ought to be able to turn around and go backward. This means that there can be no important  difference  between the forward and backward directions of imaginary time. On the other hand, when one looks at "real" time, there's a very big difference between the forward and backward directions, as we all know. Where does this difference between the past and the future come from? Why do we remember the past but not the future?

Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time

From the book, The Consequences of Modernity - Anthony Giddens, 1996