What I've learned in the past 4.5 years

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This post was first published on 29th March 2024, but was edited on 11th April 2024

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Hello readers.

I'll say it first: it's good to see you. You look... well?

Maybe too well...

...like you haven't missed me at all.

That's okay... I deserved that.

I know, I know.

Well: I'm here now. I'll be doing this thing... here... a bit like the old thing, but different.

Very different.

But also very similar.

A CITY OF GHOSTS

First it comes for those on watch, whose eyes become uncontrollably heavy. They will close them - only for  a second - but that is long enough. When they open them again, they see that the desert is quite different from how they remember it.

THE FIRST NIGHT

The Spectral City appears atop a shimmering sea where once there was sand. The tide laps gently at the travellers' feet, but they are quite distracted by the sight of the city itself: slender towers lit by white and purple light, dancing to a music of such uncommon beauty the spectator finds themselves hopelessly transfixed. They know that it probably isn't real, and that if it is, it is of a nature beyond their understanding, but they do not feel fear. They feel nothing but joy.

The sound of ghostly music awakens their companions: startled, they beseech the watchers for an explanation. None is forthcoming, and soon they too are hypnotised. Somehow, though the city seems far away, they can see the beautiful, diaphanous-skinned couples in pale luminous garments walking arm in arm along its splendid boulevards. They watch a carnival of barges, piled with silken cushions, encircle the cities walls, helmed by ghostly young men and women blowing horns of delicate sound.

And it will all be too much for one of them to bear any longer. At first hypnotised by the spectacle, they will snap from their reverie and, overcome by a desire to join in, will either call out to the occupants of the barge, or wade out into the water. As soon as this happens, the music stops, and the citizens of the Spectral City will affix the interloper with expressions of such disappointment that the individual will show no reaction other than hanging their head in profound shame.

Presently, the city fades from view and the ocean evaporates into the cold night, leaving behind nothing but a sea of sand and the incredulous expression of the weary travellers. They do not speak,; neither do they return to sleep. Instead they sit in silence, contemplating the void the city has left in the desert and also in their hearts.

As dawn breaks, they may crawl back to the shade of some palm, or whatever cover they have already erected; they may drink a little of their water, if they have any left; such will be the full extent of their actions. Their only desire now is to wait for the city's return.

THE SECOND NIGHT:

Long after dusk is their wish granted, though later recollecting the precise moment proves impossible. The same gleaming spires and beautiful ghosts materialise before them, but this time it is as thought their revelry has been amplified: a true spectacle of the carnivalesque unfolds before their very eyes. Fireworks of wonderful intricacy bloom in the sky: laces, nets, starbursts of red and green and blue and silver. The promenades throng with  gay processions of outrageously costumed ghosts, dancing and marching to the unearthly music of the Spectral City.

Again, overcome by the sheer jubilance of the sight, one of the travellers is unable to resist temptation, and edges forward into the water. This time the carnival does not grind to a halt: the revellers are oblivious. Buoyed by this, the traveller will edge forward a little, wading into the ghostly waters, but something holds them back: they do not belong there. Glancing to their left and right they will see that their comrades have joined them, standing knee-deep in this illusory ocean, captivated by a carnival city of ghosts.

Here they remain, until the city and its seas fade with the rising sun.

Once again, the party are overwhelmed by torpor, and retire to positions around their camp where they might better await the coming night. But for one of them, there is a memory of another purpose, another journey they are supposed to be making. They remind their comrades of this fact, but are unable to rouse them. They pace the length of the imaginary shoreline, and the brief moment of clarity experienced begins to fade, as they contemplate a large sand dune that might afford them an evening grander view of the Spectral City come nightfall.

Here is the moment of truth. All hope for the travellers rests upon this one soul: this is their last chance for salvation. In exploring the site, even only absentmindedly, the traveller increases their chance of happening upon the desiccated remains of their predecessors. The mere sight of a mummified corpse sticking out of the desert sand will be enough to break the spell totally, and it will only take a few strong words for them to likewise rescue their colleagues.

Yet two days have already passed, two days in which the sun has shone and no food has been eaten and no-one has slept: there will be members of their party too weak to leave of their own volition, and decisions will have to be made. Do they try to carry the invalided with them, or leave them to their fate? They will receive no encouragement from those so incapacitated, whose dry lips intone that they will only slow the party down.

All to often this is the case: the party leaves at least one of their number as a sacrifice to this wicked vision, and continues their journey across the desert in bitter silence. It is a silence born not only of guilt, but also of envy: part of them wishes they could see the city too, just one last time.

THE THIRD NIGHT

Her eyes closed, just for a second, and when they opened it was just as she expected and more. An enormous silver moon bathed all in its luminescence: the towering spires of the Spectral City; its beautiful, ghostly inhabitants; its grand barges, like floating palaces. Unlike before, now she finds herself almost completely submerged, and she begins to tread water in the cool sea around her. Gondalas drift by, its passengers urging her to swim towards the city. Atop its walls the beautiful ghosts are calling to her to join them and, in time she will.

She feels a joy like no other when she is lifted up by one hundred hands, and held aloft to watch a sky erupt into a chaotic ballet of iridescent fireworks, but is brief. Her exertions have bettered her, and within she descends into oblivion.

LATER...

Perhaps her former colleagues will come by this way again. They will not have forgotten the Spectral City, even if they have forgotten their companion. In spite of knowing the dangers it poses, part of them will yearn to see it again. Perhaps they will.

If they do, they will notice amongst the throng a familiar figure: she will be more youthful and more alive in appearance than they ever remember her being, in spite of her non-corporeality. They will want to join her (foolish) or try to rescue her (even more so), bu tit is not her. It is the ghost of her final moments, a trace of her animating spirit that knew such glee in its final moments. Her soul, that which was truly her, was utterly annihilated long ago.

Inspired by The Pilgrims in Jack Vance's Eyes of the Overworld.

Contains paraphrased passages and quotes from that work, not cited. Fair use etc.

PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY AND THE OSR - D&DERIVE?

You're not going to read this, are you?

TL/DR

This is a derive in writing. Sights/sites we will be taking in along the way include psychogeography, the zone in Tarkovsky's movie Stalker/ the Strugatskys' novel Roadside Picnic, and the OSR (old-school renaissance) in tabletop rpgs (role-playing games).

After this brief introductory tour, readers are invited to consider four site investigation strategies inspired by the old-school style of tabletop role-playing.

Strap in... and don't forget your flask of weak lemon drink.

RIGHT, ARE YOU READY FOR THE ZONE? 

FROM HERE ON IN IT’S PURE TARKOVSKY

Iain Sinclair returns to the 1970s Russian science fiction movie Stalker throughout his writing. Indeed, references to "the zone" infect his social interactions, as the above warning was issued by him to Robert Macfarlane, as they boldly circumnavigated the perimeter of London's  (at that time) prospective Olympic Park. There are multiple reasons for Sinclair doing this, but perhaps the most obvious reason is the parallels Sinclair sees between his own praxis and the movie's eponymous protagonist.

The 1979 movie was an adaptation of an earlier sci-fi novel, Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, and follows the expedition of the mysterious stalker and his two clients - a writer and a scientist - into an area known as "the zone". The zone is "an area in which the normal laws of reality do not apply and remnants of seemingly extraterrestrial activity lie undisturbed amongst its ruins" (according to wikipedia). Only the stalker as able to perceive the true dangers of the zone, most of which are invisible. He alone is able to navigate a path safely through the landscape. His clients have hired him for this precise purpose: to lead them to "the room", wherein their innermost desires will be rendered true.

HORRIFIED ANIMALS AFTER THE PICNIC

In Roadside Picnic, the novel upon which Stalker was based, six of the aforementioned zones are described, though the events of the novel all take place within the environs of one zone in particular, in the fictional Canadian town of Harmont. The six zones were each the site of an earlier extra-terrestrial event known as The Visitation, having been "visited" by unseen aliens over a two-day period, and are now subject to dangerous, reality-bending phenomena. Furthermore, mysterious artefacts of extra-terrestrial origin have also been left behind, artifacts that appear to have supernatural properties. In an effort to contain the threat to global stability posed by the zones and their artefacts, governments have restricted access to these sites. 

The novel follows eight years in the life of Redrick Schuhart, who at the beginning of the novel is a stalker illegally entering the zone to retrieve alien artifacts and sell them for profit.

The title of the novel is taken from a passage in the novel's introduction, an interview with the fictional Dr. Pilman. Pilman compares the The Visitation to a brief stop-off as part of a much larger journey; humanity are as baffled and insignificant as the wildlife observing but not comprehending said picnic:

A picnic. Picture a forest, a country road, a meadow. Cars drive off the country road into the meadow, a group of young people get out carrying bottles, baskets of food, transistor radios, and cameras. They light fires, pitch tents, turn on the music. In the morning they leave. The animals, birds, and insects that watched in horror through the long night creep out from their hiding places. And what do they see? Old spark plugs and old filters strewn around... Rags, burnt-out bulbs, and a monkey wrench left behind... And of course, the usual mess—apple cores, candy wrappers, charred remains of the campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, torn newspapers, coins, faded flowers picked in another meadow.

THE OLD SCHOOL RENAISSANCE

...and now for something completely different... or maybe not as different as people might at first expect.

Since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson introduced the world to Dungeons & Dragons back in the 1970s, tabletop role-playing games have grown from the obscure pursuit of hobbyists into an international industry. In addition to more than five editions of the original game, rival rulesets and campaign worlds have been created, covering multiple genres of fiction beyond the sword & sorcery that inspired the original game. It is possible to purchase games enabling you and your friends to take in the a huge range of roles - from investigators into Lovecraftian horror in 1920s New Salem to a group of magical ponies in the land of Equestria... if that's your thing, of course, and no judgement is being passed.

While a potted history of RPGs is beyond the remit of this post, it is worth noting that the expanse of the hobby and its evolution into a form of collaborative storytelling led to a backlash against modern iterations (particularly the 3rd and 4th editions of D&D). Around a decade or so ago groups of rpg enthusiasts began to take advantage of the open game licence and began issuing their own content inspired by earlier versions of Dungeons and Dragons. The goal was to return to the roots of the game: namely, increasing player agency. This movement became known as OSR (itself an homage to the company which originally marketed D&D, TSR), or the Old School revival/Renaissance.

Copyright Stuart Robertson, used under creative commons.

If you are unfamiliar with the traditional model of D&D it goes something like this: a group of players take on the role of adventurers exploring an underground complex. One player assumes the role of Dungeon Master (DM) and describes what the player's characters are experiencing, as they in turn explain what they want their characters to do. The DM will keep a collection of secret notes and maps detailing the obstacles they are likely to encounter. However, they may also have to improvise as the players have their characters perform actions for which the DM is not prepared. Dice are used to generate random numbers and to decide the outcome of actions, the results being modified by a pre-agreed set of values relating to the character's abilities and talents.

In an old school rpg a party of four adventurers will venture into a dungeon, overcome various traps and obstacles (including rival adventurers, wandering monsters, supernatural forces and well-placed puzzles and traps), and emerge (probably having suffered at least some minor wounds) laden with treasure and a little tougher and wiser than before. Just as the players become more experienced at problem solving with each "adventure", so too do their characters improve in toughness and talent as they become more "experienced". 

THE ZONE AS A DUNGEON

If the parallels between the actions of a D&D adventure party and those of a stalker of the zone are not immediately obvious, perhaps the following quote from reddit user u/vilecultofshapes will prove illuminating:

This book [Roadside Picnic] is definitely and purely OSR style gaming at its finest. Deadbeat outcasts hunting for fantastic treasures in a lethal and physics-defying hellhole full of traps. 

Like the D&D adventurer, the Stalker is crossing the boundary between the ordinary world and the other, in the hope of retrieving treasure. Sometimes that treasure is physical, other times it is more abstract. Both these characters have to rely on their wits and trust their intuition as they negotiate labyrinths of mysterious danger. 

Both the stalker and the dungeoneer are urban explorers, and all three have much to teach the psychogeographer.

FOUR STRATEGIES

Sinclair once said something about psychogeography being walking without knowing the destination, but still possessing intent. Without getting too mired in debate about what psychogeography is or isn't (and no-one wants to read that Debord quote again, I'm sure), it can be agreed that it any derive requires a strategy. Classic psychogeographic strategies involve superimposition: a walker attempts to navigate Berlin with a map of London; another attempts to negotiate the streets of Hanoi by following the dark ring of coffee staining their street map. Likewise, one can superimpose the strategies of another practice to achieve psychogeographical "effects".

Four strategies have been proposed, and since the classic D&D party consisted of four adventurers, I've matched each strategy to a corresponding classic character "class" (class and race are referred to constantly in D&D, and have radically different meanings to those used in social theory).

Of the four strategies, the first two are the most performative and yet conversely the least inspired by the OSR.

STRATEGY #1: THE PARODIST (Cleric)

Keywords: believe, commit, have faith, FISHER KING.

If you employ this strategy you will need to visit the chosen site in full performance mode. You, as practitioner, must assume the role of an archetypal fantasy character embarking on a quest, with a defined set of criteria that will determine how and when the quest will be concluded. The goal might be to slay a dragon, save a prince/ princess, or recover a lost artifact. The meta-goal is to stay in character for as long as possible while being confronted by the disdain, incredulity an/or indifference of the general populace one encounters. The practitioner attempts to parody fantasy tropes by juxtaposing them against mundane reality.

The performance may or may not be recorded audio-visually. You may or may not garner the attention of a fascinated audience.

STRATEGY #2: THE LARPER (Fighter)

Keywords: It's only a game, it's good to be laughed at, fight to WIN

LARP stands for live action role play. Unlike tabletop rpgs, LARPs involve players physically performing their characters actions in real time. As a strategy, this approach is superficially similar to the above parody, but differs in multiple ways.

You must first assemble a group of at least three collaborators. For an agreed period of time, the group undertakes to represent members of rival factions, playing out some conflict of interest across the site. In addition to an underlying plot, practitioners must agree upon rules concerning conflict resolution. PLEASE NOTE: do not attempt to resolve imaginary conflicts with real violence whilst employing this strategy. In fact, try to avoid using real violence wherever possible.

To reap the best rewards from this strategy, practitioners truly have to look upon the urban landscape with a fresh set of eyes: multistorey car parks might be castles, or wizard's towers... or even multistorey car parks. Beware of monsters.

STRATEGY #3: THE URB[an]EX[plorer] (Thief)

Keywords: cartography, exploration, BE PREPARED and BE CAREFUL

So you've packed your ten-foot pole and your fifty feet of hempen rope. Did you bring the flasks of oil? Okay, it doesn't matter: just don't forget your thieves' tools, you'll need them to pick the lock. Sneak past the guards, hiding in shadows when necessary, jump the chain link fence and scale the cranes. Only then will you be able to retrieve the Macguffin.

This strategy seeks to employ the approach of the typical OD&D adventuring party: caution, preparation, and the ability to solve most problems with a ten-foot pole. You should map everywhere you go on graph paper (use 5mm but scale it to 10 feet per square), travelling no faster than 120' every ten minutes (unless you are in an encounter, in which case 40' per round is permitted).

When you reach your goal, don't post a picture of the stunning view to Instagram, take a picture of your crappy map instead. Ask yourself if it really happened if there was no photographic evidence of it ever happening...

STRATEGY #4: THE AUTHOR OF MODULES (Magic User) 

Keywords: You will Eat Yourself, Artistic Licence, Wandering Monster Tables

With the skills of an ancient wizard, your mission is to bend reality back on its self not once but twice. First, you will need to follow the URBEX strategy outlined above, but you will need to do a little bit more than the cartography. You will be reverse engineering your adventure back into a module, similar to the one pictured at the beginning of this post.

A module is a document containing all (or most of) the information required by a DM to run an adventure. A module will contain one or more plot hooks to incite the interest of your players, several maps of important locations, and details of anticipated encounters and/or NPCs. Sometimes this will also include tools to randomise such encounters.

Based upon your previous adventure, catalogue and rationalise your experience into a coherent narrative. Consider also the paths that you did not follow, and where they may have led had you done so. Think about the encounters you had. How many were random? Populate some wandering monster charts. Scan your maps and tidy them up using image editing software, but don't lose that handmade effect. Type up all your notes in Korinna bold, staple them together, and bind them in glossy paper of at least 180g per square metre in weight.

For added ouroboros, get a group of friends together and play your adventure as a game of D&D and see what happens. For added added ouroboros, replay that adventure as a LARP, using the strategies outlined above...

POLITICS

A final note: like every fucking corner of the internet, the OSR is a battleground in this ongoing "culture war" that the idiots are determined to force us all into, regardless of its futility. Boorish blowhards antagonise left-leaning liberals, who in turn overreact to the obvious trolling, prompting another round of bear-baiting provocation. Phrases like "nazi", "social justice warrior", "alt-right apologist", "stalinist", "feminazi" etc. are chucked around with gay abandon. 

The OSR appealed to many on the left because of its rejection of corporate homogeneity, its embrace of the punk/DIY aesthetic, and the general gonzo weirdness of a lot of the material being produced. Likewise, this also appealed to many people whose sympathies leaned more to the libertarian right. For the most part, however, people just wanted to play games, and while nothing is apolitical, following the letters OSR does not automatically place anyone in a particular camp.  

EDIT:

Just want to add that the OSR also attracts centrist liberals, small "c" conservatives and actual fascists. 

EXTERNAL LINKS

http://www.bucketofsquids.com/post/anomalous_sector_crawl_anomalies/

http://pid.bungie.org/Roadside_Picnic_Artifacts.html

...AND WE'RE BACK

More than one year ago, this was posted, promising the end of another great silence. It was, of course, a lie, as the ensuing year of nothing has testified. While it would be easy to say that life got in the way of this ongoing project (a project whose ambitions have always exceeded its capacity to deliver), in truth its authors (or, more honestly, its author) has been paralysed by equivocation. So: while major life changes such as the birth of a child,  shifting geographies, and career tangents have all played their part, in the main the site author simply hasn't known what to do.

The previous post closed with a call to action: "readers, what is psychocartography to you?"

No one replied and so the question remains unanswered.

In the meantime, some minor synchronicity:

Post-soviet suburban sandbox game

vs.

Reddit thread: adapting The Roadside Picnic as a tabletop RPG.

https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/b289ar/roadside_picnic_by_boris_strugatsky/

Fuck your eggs.

HIATUS

After what had been one of the most productive years so far, we accidentally forgot what we were supposed to be doing and neglected to post anything in the latter half of 2017.

That is UNTIL NOW.

Sadly, all we have to offer is this sorry excuse for an explanation and the promise that next year WE WILL BE BACK...

...with greater focus...

(or a broader-angled lens, decisions are yet to be made).

In the meantime, what does PSYCHOCARTOGRAPHY mean to you?

Really, we're actually doing it... we're inviting you to... COMMENT BELOW:

(see you in 2018)

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR LANDSCAPE #2

Another homage to Tschumi:

Russian anarchist Michael Bakunin once claimed that “the urge to destroy is also a creative urge”. 

His great political rival, Marx, identified the concept of creative destruction as the process by which capitalism clears the ground (be it through war or economic crisis), to pave the way for new innovation. 

The organism sweeps across the landscape, consuming all.

#advertisementsforlandscape

MAP OF THE WEEK #4

This week's map of the week arrives courtesy of artist Emma McNally. Like the previous two featured artists (Emily Garfield and Derek Lerner) Emma McNally's work is inspired by a vast range of phenomena, from cities to organic structures, all of which seem to relate to one another in that curious, fractal manner underpinning the machinery of the universe. In her own words: 

"I mine all sorts of ways of thinking visually about space and time: the spiral paths of particles in bubble chambers, which are infinitely fast and small; images of cellular mitochondria; the Hubble Deep Field images that probe deep time, where all time is held in the surface of the image but can’t be reached. I like looking at images that show fleeting events and images of aerial views of cities at night—all the emergent formations at a macro scale that look like deep-sea organisms in the dark water. I also love aerial images of airports, both in use and obsolete, as well as the Nazca Lines."

-Emma McNally, interviewed by Art Forum

The map above gives the impression of being a nautical navigational chart, or maybe a weather map, but ultimately the viewer lacks the key or legend to unlock the meaning of its symbols and lines. Without this, the map becomes appreciable only in terms of its own aesthetic, granting it a tantalising mystique. We are invited to peek into another world, one which may or may not exist beyond the limits of our own realm, but we cannot visit. This might be true for most of the maps featured here, but Emma McNally's work has a strong orthographic quality that makes it more... authoritative.

Have a look at her Flickr account, it's stunning:

Emma McNally 

MAP OF THE WEEK #3

This week's map of the week is taken from the sketchbook of artist Emily Garfield.

Emily Garfield creates maps from her imagination, explorations of cartography and urbanism in pen and ink. Much of her work is for sale at her site https://www.emilygarfield.com/.

The particular image is taken from her sketchbook, produced as part of a process of self examination, more of which can be read about on her blog.

24 HISTORIC STYLES DÉTOURNED: PART II of XXIV

An occasional series playing with historic garden plans taken from Turner's 24 Historic Styles of Garden Design, published by Gardenvisit.com.

What we might be looking at:

Bam. Circles, lines and a grid. This is clearly a constructivist painting! Except it isn't, it's a garden plan. So we have a wild outer edge- we can assume it's vegetation, but there's something spiky about the scheme which suggests that they could just as well be stalagmites.

The combination of spikes and the garden geometry conjures images of a violent sport, something like Speedball 2 or Salute of the Jugger. Actually, it's far more likely that the giant circle in the centre inspired that particular interpretation. It's now getting harder and harder to imagine how a game might be played here. Where's the goal? Where would the teams muster?

That said, there's something of a bowling green to the central rectangle. If this were a postmodern garden plan (which it is) then an ironic anachronism would be entirely in-keeping with that particular school of design. But by now I've revealed that I'm already familiar with the plan. This clearly references Tschumi's famous Parc de la Villette

What we are actually looking at:
Yes, this is a postmodern garden. Turner has a lot to say about postmodernism in City as Landscape, but in 24 Styles... he is more generous, noting the inventive use of geometry and materials that characterise postmodernism in landscape design:

"Geometrically, postmodernism is associated with a layered and deconstructive geometry. Rectangles clash with circles and are interscected by hapazard diagonals, as in a Russian constructivist painting. Steel and concrete structures are painted in bright col ours. Glass and other reflective surfaces help create illusions and startling visual effects."

-Twenty Four Historic Styles of Garden Design , page 71

MAP OF THE WEEK #2

This week's map of the week is brought to you by New York based artist Derek Lerner, ASVIRUS 39.

Taken from a series of paintings (ASVirus##), the hand-drawn image very closely resembles a city plan, albeit one that is fragmenting or being reconfigured. Lerner states on his website that he has an interest in systems, urbanism, and disease, amongst many other things, and this is reflected in the cyborg aesthetic that he is somehow able to convey through these monochromatic plans.

In a statement for the Conveniant Gratification exhibition at which this work was exhibited, Lerner said that all these pictures are produced using a simple rollerball pen. No drafting or planning is carried out, with the drawings growing organically as ink is applied to paper.

To enjoy more of his work, please have a look at the thumbnails page of his website http://dereklerner.com/Art/Thumbnails.

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A homage to Tschumi:

THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS

"Finish your bowl!" she said, as though admonishing a naughty child.

The small bowl was nearly finished... it had been his third, after all, and he was sated. He had made the mistake of pushing it away from himself, indicating he was done, and was immediately shamed. Generations brought up in times of scarcity rear a generation of scolds, but these in turn tend to begat profligate sons and daughters. He laughed, nervously, and with guilt, as he finished the remaining grains.

"Good. I wouldn't want you to become a hungry ghost when you die."

Hungry Ghost- what a collocation. It seems so apposite: the disembodied spirit refuses to let go of some shred of life from hunger, from lack. And above, pictured, No-Face (or even Noh-Face): spurred by his desire to befriend a sympathetic girl, he ate his way through a bathhouse of rogues and fiends, shitting gold.

Noh-face was but one of many characters in the movie Spirited Away, and by no means central to the story, which was principally concerned with a little girl from the "normal" world negotaiting the complex and bizarre world of ghosts in order to rescue her parents. The standard reading of Spirited Away is that it is a kind of coming-of-age story, albeit one in which the protagonist transitions from infant to juvenile rather than adolescent to adult. Ultimately, Chihiro/Sen leaves the magical world for the mundane, as we all most do (apparently) as part of growing up.

The universe according to the child is undoubtedly a more terrifying yet magical place, and in many respects parents are agents in the creation of this landscape. Figures from folklore, myth and religion are used to manipulate children into conforming. Sometimes, this is a performance that the child realises (eventually), is intended purely for the aforementioned effect; at other times, this practice is an embedded cultural artefact as real to the parents as the children uttering it. Warnings that bad behaviour will result in a eternal damnation, perpetual immolation in the flames of hell are, right now being issued to Muslim and Christian children all across the globe, even as you read this. Many will carry a subtle fear of that fate to their grave.

The creative intellect of the child is quick to populate their immediate universe with invisible spirits. It is a facet of our psyche that is evolutionarily advantageous: establish agency, be wary of revealed agents, fear those agents that cannot be seen or understood. On top of this multifarious cosmologies have been constructed, but on top of this layer children build their own folklore, spending, as they do, a great deal of time in the realm of the imagination.

The six realms of Buddhism (Animal, Human, Jealous Gods, Hungry Ghosts, Gods, Hell) were "depending on what one read... mystical states, psychological states or actual physical places", according to Roy Bayfield in Desire Paths. Bayfield had been exploring Buddhism in the aftermath of major surgery, and seeking to engage more directly with the subject (and, one suspects, to give himself an excuse to do some walking), took it upon himself to explore the six realms in person. Superimposing a simple mandala-as-map over the United Kingdom, the six realms converged at the traditional centre of England, somewhere near Coventry. Over a period of two days, Bayfield utilised the "Finding" approach (discussed briefly here), "externalising my mediation practice into physical territory.." The Six Realms were psychological and mystical states and actual, physical places, because he said they were!

The idea of alternate realms of ghosts and spirits operating on a parallel plane to our own is common to the mythology of many European and Asian folk traditions: the Sidhe of Celtic legend, the world of the Kami in Shinto, the elemental planes of the western mystery tradition. Likewise, the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism seem to occupy two worlds simultaneously, that of the living and the dead... or, rather, their world exists within our own, but is invisible most of the time.

Re-constructing the mythology of the hungry ghost in Vietnamese culture is complex, not least due to the cultural layering that seems to take place in Vietnamese and other Asian cultures. Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Communism have all impacted the folk practices of the Vietnamese to lesser or greater extents, with no doctrine completely able to oust the other one. This might explain why ostensibly Catholic families still maintain ancestral shrines and whilst otherwise secular families might make an offering to the ancestral spirit of Ho Chi Minh. Perhaps this is no more remarkable than the appropriation of pagan festivals by the Christian calendar, but it is hard to draw objective conclusions when one sat in the midst of the subject.

So, whilst the threat of becoming a hungry ghost might be familiar to Hue's children, in parts of China the phrase hungry ghost  is synonymous with ancestor worship. This may or may not tie into Buddhist tradition, wherein those who have committed the least evil spend a period in the realm of Hungry Ghosts prior to rebirth, a kind of purgatory. Whilst there it is confusing for the layman outsider to negotiate the nomenclature and the architecture of indigenous belief systems, there are some obvious takeaways to be had, not least that to the majority of Vietnamese people ghosts are a real and important part of life, and their intentions are not always benign.

Dr. Gabor Maté is a physician who has worked with "hardcore drug addicts" (his words) for most of his career. Drawing upon his experiences working with these people he has concluded that addiction stems principally from childhood trauma, rather than genetics or the psychoactive properties of the substances themselves. When his experiences were published he chose the title In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. The title is evocative, and speaks sympathetically to those among us who have encountered addiction in our own lives or those close to us. Dr. Maté offers this explanation for his choice of title:

"Now, the hungry ghost realm, the creatures in it are depicted as people with large empty bellies, small mouths and scrawny thin necks. They can never get enough satisfaction. They can never fill their bellies. They’re always hungry, always empty, always seeking it from the outside. 

"That speaks to a part of us that I have and everybody in our society has, where we want satisfaction from the outside, where we’re empty, where we want to be soothed by something in the short term, but we can never feel that or fulfill that insatiety from the outside. The addicts are in that realm all the time. Most of us are in that realm some of the time. And my point really is, is that there’s no clear distinction between the identified addict and the rest of us. There’s just a continuum in which we all may be found. They’re on it, because they’ve suffered a lot more than most of us. 

In other words, to Maté we are all Hungry ghosts, to a lesser or greater extent, and that extent is defined by the degree to which we have suffered in childhood. Whether one can be led into permanent exile in the realm of hungry ghosts merely by being traumatised with threats of being turned into a hungry ghost is open to debate....

Back in Blighty, Roy Bayfield ventured to Coventry in his quest to externalise his understanding of the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, "a place of endless, unsatisfied consumption and continuous, grasping poverty" (the Realm, not Coventry), and did not initially find hat he was looking for. However, it soon occurred to him that his feelings of discomfort and dissatisfaction was entirely in keeping with the feelings that a hungry ghost would encounter, thus "job done", he took a train to the next stop in the six realms, that of the Realm of Jealous Gods.

In the Human Realm the man finished his bowl of rice, and asked his wife if she really believed in Hungry Ghosts.

"Don't be ridiculous." she said, and finished her rice porridge.

MAP OF THE WEEK #1

This blog is named psychocartography. What the means is still very much up for grabs, and I suggest there are psychocartographies as much as there are psychogeographies, but within my own praxis I'm still nowhere near arriving at a satisfactory definition.

It should- I suggest- have something to do with maps. Seems appropriate that from time to time an especially interesting map should be shared. Welcome, then, to Psychocartography's inaugural map of the week, courtesy of Anthony Boguszewski.

The map above is taken from the following blog http://edouardcabayatelier.blogspot.fr/2012/09/anthony-boguszewski.html, and traces the movement of chairs in the Jardin de Luxembourg park in Paris. When this was first published, Anthony Boguszewski was a student of Edoard Cabay  at L'Ecole Speciale d'Architecture (ESA). Cabay's atelier, Re-, developed "a process-focused approach to design which is based on the creation of cartographical catalogues of the physical context revealing emergent patterns creating opportunities for design."

Of the interesting piece of cartography his study produced, Boguszewski remarked: "Chairs do not migrate anywhere but closer to the other chairs."

This may or may not continue into a series labelled map of the week.

THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

All maps are political. Right now, there's only one political map that counts for UK citizens, and after Thursday, that map looks something like this:

Map courtesy Guardian UK

The map above was created by the Guardian and typifies that newspaper's high standards of graphical communication. At a glance, and following a brief explanation of the UK political system, the uninitiated are able to assess the political geography of the United Kingdom. The blue team are stronger in the South and rural areas; the red team in the North, Wales and metropolitan areas. Both teams are struggling to make in roads in Scotland, where the yellows hold sway... and Northern Ireland does its own thing.

Such was the case when one of my Vietnamese colleagues took an interest in the colourful map upon my screen, making those precise observations above. What the map does not display is how it has changed. The story of this most recent election is not told in one image, it is a series of images, a series of maps of as many elections as one would wish. 

So whilst there is so much to talk about- the decimation of moderate parties in Northern Ireland; the declining fortunes of capital "L" Liberalism; the growth of regional nationalism- this is not really the place for such things, but an opportunity to reflect on the limitations of the map. 

No graphic is capable of displaying data equivocally. The politics is in the selection of which data to display. But beyond that, maps are limited by the constraints of their dimensions. A 2D image may be able to display 3D data, but that fourth dimension is trickier to pin down.  Thus maps show us only a snapshot of history, a moment frozen in time, devoid of any context apart from geography. 

THE GREAT SILENCE

Recently, I have been listening to a lot of podcasts. Most recently, an episode of This American Life grappled with the issue of loneliness, starting at a cosmic level. Given that I listen to podcasts principally out of a kind of loneliness (living and working in a non-English speak environment), it was amusingly apposite. In a very short time, however, my amusement gave way to a feeling of existential dread.

The programme bore the title “Fermi’s Paradox”, and used the conundrum of cosmic loneliness to springboard into the more general topic of loneliness. For the uninitiated, Fermi’s paradox is the contradiction presented by the apparent likelihood of intelligent life existing in our Galaxy and the complete lack of visible evidence that this is the case. In Fermi’s words, “Where are they?” (“they” being technologically advanced aliens).

For the show’s producer, David Kestenbaum, the possibility that humans are alone in the visible universe made him feel profoundly sad. I do not share this feeling: perhaps when there are fewer things to feel sad about within human civilisation I will start to grow melancholy at the silent universe. I did allow myself to consider Fermi’s paradox yet again, however, and this led me to a darker place.

The predominant hypothesis concerning the apparent absence of intelligent life is quite simple: there are no aliens. The Rare Earth Hypothesis states that the conditions necessary to create life, even in its most simple form, are exceptional. Technologically sophisticated, culturally complex civilisations such as humanity are therefore beyond an oddity: the evolutionary coincidences that have led to our development amount to probabilities of trillions-to-one, we are alone in the Universe. This was what rendered Kestenbaum so upset. The universe, within which our tiny planet is barely a pinprick, is teeming with death: it is a cold, desolate, empty expanse, which will ultimately consume all human endeavour.

The show was a journey of reconciliation- allowing Kestenbaum to come to terms with his feelings of cosmic isolation. Part of this process seemed to focus on gently mocking his sensitivity, and allowing him to recognise that there are far more pressing things to worry about in the world. Additionally, other reasons for the Great Silence were touched upon, suggesting that Fermi’s Paradox need not preclude the existence of alien life.

One of the reasons explored was the so-called “Zoo Hypothesis”: the existence of alien civilisations is being deliberately kept from us so that our cultural and biological evolution can follow its own course, without external influence, presumably for similar reasons to those of conservationists preserving endangered species in their natural habitat. It was a thought I’d had before, but had not pondered for some time… least not since the Simulation Hypothesis had been re-popularised by Elon Musk. It was putting these two ideas together that sent me into my own existential tailspin.

An extension of the Zoo Hypothesis posits that in their efforts to conceal the rest of the universe from us humans, the advanced alien civilisation(s) have somehow isolated our world and its immediate astral environs, surrounding them with an incredibly sophisticated simulation of the rest of the universe, which has been created bereft of other sentient beings. For me, Fermi’s paradox naturally dovetails into the Simulation Hypothesis: our entire reality is a digital simulation that has been created to observe how a human civilisation might develop in a universe lacking any other sentient beings.

Imagine those early pioneers of agriculture, trading the uncertainty of the foraging lifestyle for the relative security of sedentary life. These men and women ultimately set in motion an unprecedented revolution in culture and technology, culminating after tens of thousands of years in the exploration of space.

Along the way they have created hierarchy, religion and war. To facilitate their industrious exploitation of their planet’s resources, they have poisoned their own environment against them. Whilst they have made progress in reversing the inequality that has sprung up over the centuries of cultural evolution, it is unclear as to whether this progress is sustainable given the scale of the environmental problems and capacity to annihilate themselves over political disagreements.

Cue intervention by an interstellar civilisation. Detecting the emergence of a technologically advanced civilisation within range of their spacecraft, said civilisation decide to introduce themselves. They are dismayed to find that Homo sapiens has been unable to resolve its social differences in spite of its huge leaps forward technologically. They issue dire warnings to the terrified denizens of earth, having witnessed this behaviour in previous civilisations. Almost universally, world leaders surrender to the superior beings and follow their recommendations, in order to steer humanity from its path to destruction. Not all of earth’s citizens are so eager to comply, resulting in a bloody war.

Reluctantly, the aliens assist earth’s leaders in the suppression of the global insurrection, but in doing so they reinforce support for the rebel forces. The whole planet is in the throes of a bitter, bloody civil war. The aliens have failed utterly, and after much discussion, decide that their only option is to intercede directly: follow our road map to peace and prosperity, or face annihilation- annihilation at their hands.

The threat is enough to at least get the leaders of the significant parties to agree to meet. The dividing line is clear and stark. On the one hand, the establishment opinion holds that humanity will be destroyed unless the aliens’ instructions are followed. On the other hand, insurrectionists argue that it was the aliens who created this situation in the first place, are now threatening the earth directly, and better to die fighting for freedom than to continue living with no control over their fate.

The divisions and arguments are predictable, but the alien civilisation is able to steer a way through the debate with their trump card: simulated realities. They have the power to create incredibly accurate hologrammatic simulations, and are capable of demonstrating the outcome of actions on a galactic scale by tweaking the simulation’s parameters. Hundreds of these simulations are run, each demonstrating that if humanity was simply left to their own devices, the only possible outcome is increased misery and suffering and ultimately, the extermination of all biological life.

Naturally, the insurrectionists suggest that these computer models are weighted in favour of the extra-terrestrials preferred outcome. As a measure of good faith, the aliens induct the top computer scientists and programmers from the insurrectionist side into the inner workings of simulation construction. Across earth, an uneasy truce reigns.

After several years, the insurrectionists are convinced by the civilisations validity, but this does not put an end to the conflict. The debate turns to the age-old issue of individual agency and the greater good, the Platonic/Aristotelian dialectic that has plagued public discourse since the dawn of civilisation. However, faced with annihilation, the wider populace overwhelmingly choose life as well-fed slaves than hungry free men. A new world government begins to institute the aliens’ original programme for cultural and environmental recovery.

Naturally, pockets of resistance still exist across all continents. Though they can no longer count on the same levels of popular support as before, they are still able to interrupt the recovery programme and cause misery, pain and suffering. For some, this is the price of progress, and anticipate the remaining insurrectionists slowly dying out. For others, it is unnecessary and hideous, and are dismayed by the establishment’s inability to stamp it out completely.

Once again, the aliens manage to steer a path through the fog. Human leaders are urged to reach out to the remaining extremists and offer amnesty: not in return for ceasing their actions, but for the opportunity to negotiate and discuss once again. The aliens are desperate to understand the desires and motives of these men and women, and to do what they can to end what they see as unnecessary suffering. Amongst the myriad demands and aspirations lurked something curious: it wasn’t that the insurrectionists wanted the aliens to just go away, they wanted them never to have arrived.

So: in order to demonstrate at least some degree of compliance, the aliens agreed to run a simulation in which they never came to earth. In fact, they agreed to run a simulation of the universe entirely devoid of other sentient life forms. They hoped this would demonstrate the hopelessness of the remaining insurrectionists’ cause. I cannot speculate on the outcome, because I believe that this is the simulation in which we now live.

I snapped out of my reverie in a manner similar to Dhasa in the Glass Bead Game: I found myself back in the present, doing something completely mundane, having lived through not just one life time but tens of thousands of years of parallel history. Like Dhasa I was by water, pouring from a shower head not a gently babbling forest stream. My heart rate felt higher than usual and I was aware of a great deal of chatter in my head. I resolved to practice some mindfulness, in an effort to return myself to normality.

Inhale, exhale: as long as you are breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong with you.

I felt the cold, wet torrent immerse my head and body.

I looked at the soap bubbles forming between my fingers.

I observed the complexity of the iridescence on the surface of each bubble, each one, containing within it its own universe.

What kind of technology would simulate this? Even at a level observable by the human senses, what power would be required to simulate something so complex, so convincingly?

It looks so real. It feels so real.

But then again, it’s all we’ve ever known. How do we know that this is what wetness feels like?

Embrace the matrix. There is no way out.

You can listen to the podcast that inspired my melancholy here.

HUE/BECKTON - STRATEGIC VS> TACTICAL [PSYCHO]CARTOGRAPHY (PART THREE)

FINAL PART IN A SERIES OF THREE. READ PART ONE HERE

In the event, i hit a wall. A ten metre fucking thick wall of brick and earth. Then I walked beneath the arch instead of through the wall, which was a more sensible option. Then I hit another wall (pictured). This time there was no massive arch, but an entry fee and tickets and electric vehicles and i wasn't in the mood for any of that.

It was a cool, overcast, February day in Hue, city of walls, and I was at the citadel, the citadel not even noted in Full Metal Jacket, where the rebel army had holed themselves up for several weeks until they were ultimately bombarded out of hiding by American air power. There's not a lot of that in the local histories, nor about the initial atrocities they insurrectionists committed, nor the vicious reprisals they and their sympathisers likewise endured. Instead, the story is focused on Vietnam's Imperial past, the colonial protectorate of the Nguyen Dynasty, the anachronistic monarchy and life at court. I was not in the mood for all of that.

What I was in the mood for, I knew not. Somehow the disparate threads at which I'd been tugging had remained just that- disparate. For once, sticking a map on top of another one didn't really achieve anything other than make a nice picture.  It wasn't even my picture- it was Struan Brown's. The ingredients were there but it wasn't working: the military origins of psychogeography and cartography, the horrors of war aped, in children's play and cinema, but I felt disinclined to pull the pieces together, and I was not quite sure why.

I made a circuit of the inner wall, which amounted to a stroll of just under 2.5 km. This is not long for a walk, but it is long for a wall. As I patrolled the perimeter I tried to put my self in the shoes of one who would have made such a journey before: a guard, most likely, or maybe a penitent. Perhaps a bored concubine looking to sneak back in after attempting to escape palace life, but later having a change of heart. The shoes of the soldier felt small on me, not because soldiers have small feet, but because I'd pretended to wear them as a young boy, under similar circumstances, circumambulating Hadleigh Castle. That magnificent wreck is slowly crumbling into the Estuary after more than seven centuries. Hue's citadel has been around for a much shorter period of time, but it's historical significance is arguably greater.

In Roy Bayfield's book Desire Paths, the author describes: 

"..the finding approach described by Duncan Barford in his blog post  'Inside the Entrances to Hell': "

Perhaps this is what I should have done, instead I wandered around, eyes flitting at materials, looking for something that would make everything fall into place. I didn't find that. Instead I found this:

HUE/BECKTON - STRATEGIC VS> TACTICAL [PSYCHO]CARTOGRAPHY (PART TWO)

PART TWO IN A SERIES OF THREE. READ PART ONE HERE

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

-Charlie Chaplin

Looking back at the Hue psychocarte from 2014, experiencing disappointment: a pretty picture, but practically useless. A fraction of a battle map, spliced out and blown up, the details blurred and indistinct, all before the overlay… The plan had been to trace a random path through the citadel using the overlay, the route of a dérive, but the streets were barely visible.

"All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops — the geometry" -Raoul Vaneigem, The Unitary Urbanism Manifesto

The roots of the dérive (as opposed to its routes) are supposedly in urban warfare: the “aimless drift” was used as a means of reconnaissance. DeBord and the Situationists were engaged in cultural warfare, and via détournement (cultural re-appropriation and re-purposing) these tactics were being turned back against the state. Like war, psychogeography was a political act. But like the actors portraying Joker and his comrades in Full Metal Jacket, there was also an element of play.

The closing chapter of Full Metal Jacket occurs in 1968/86 in Hue/Beckton. A crazed General, Kubrick, has ordered a platoon to wander through the remnants of a gasworks in search of a Vietnamese woman, whom they are to kill. She is the third and final woman, and the only one not to be presented by Kubrick as a sex object, though is equally disposable. The only enemy whose face is seen in close up- feminine, because the enemy must be emasculated. In the end, after a hard day’s play, the lads wander across the burning landscape, singing a song Mickey Mouse. In spite of yourself, you may just feel an incongruous warm glow inside.

Not only was 1968 a big year for Hue (just as 1986 was a big year for Beckton, although it would be made aware of that until long after the event), it was a big year for the Situationists. Increased militancy amongst industrial workers and students, culminating in a series of occupations, protests and a general strike nearly brought the French establishment to its knees. Though there were numerous socio-economic causes for this period of civil unrest, the Situationist International can take credit for providing some degree of leadership, and its writings strongly influenced the political graffiti of the time, which have provided some of the most enduring images of the period. 

Via http://radicalgraff.tumblr.com/post/143899675528/be-realistic-demand-the-impossible-may-1968

Ultimately, the status quo prevailed, state power managed to suppress the protestors, and returned stronger and more resilient. Likewise, in Vietnam, the Tet offensive was ultimately crushed by the combined ARVN and US forces, and the rebel forces were expelled from all the major urban centres they had assaulted. In Europe and the USA, 1968 is often remembered as the last gasp of the counter-culture, a glorious failure. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive was a dress rehearsal for 1975, and victory for the revolutionaries (who, predictably, went on to impose their own repressive regime of state power). Ho Chi Minh’s forces succeeded, perhaps, because there was a coherent strategy in play, one which would outlive its progenitor.

Fire at the Albert DockVia http://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/ghosts-london-blitz-aerial-maps/

Tet is rapidly approaching, 49 lunar years having passed since the infamous offensive, and the Battle for Hue. 31 years have likewise elapsed since the Battle of Hue was recreated at Beckton gasworks. Both of these are prime numbers. The 49^th Boulevard was also the previous name given to Pham Van Dong Street in Hue. The time (and the cosmic numbers) is right for some kind of intervention. Yet without a coherent strategy- in this case, my psychocarte- there can be no opportunity for a successful operation. From the outset, the superimposition of a Hue map atop a map of Beckton (or perhaps the other way around) seemed like the best place to begin.

Sadly, it's been done before: here is Struan Brown's interpretation of Beckton overlaid on Hue. One cannot be startled by the fact that this has been done prior to it being imagined by me, but what is perhaps surprising is that Struan was actually a class mate of mine at the University of Greenwich. We studied together on the Landscape Architecture masters programme in 2014 (both of us had also been Greenwich students in 2013, but during different semesters). I have no memory of seeing this before, but was suddenly beset by a strange fear that I was experiencing cryptomnesia, the phenomenon of experiencing a memory as an original thought. 

Image by Struan Brown via http://struanbrown.blogspot.com/2013/12/beckton-gas-works.html

Perhaps of greater concern was the possibility that, having previously seen this image, the map of Hue had been buried in my subconscious, and that its presence there had subtly compelled me to find its origins. My journey to Hue, less than one year later, was not only on a whim but also somewhat serendipitous. Originally, I had obtained a job (via an agency) as an English teacher in Hanoi. Whilst booking the flights, I discovered it would be much cheaper to fly to HCMC and travel up to Hanoi independently than fly directly. On informing my agency, however, it transpired that this would not be acceptable to my prospective employer (I would have missed some "essential" part of the induction process whilst travelling from HCMC to Hanoi), and a new course of action was decided. Instead of teaching in Hanoi, I was told to meet up with a group of newly-qualified TEFL teachers in HCMC and travel with them to Hue, a city I believed I had never heard of.

It's hard to recall what was influencing my decision making processes at that time, the whole period prior to my departure is a miasmic blur. My memories of this period are a series of weird vignettes, mostly of one-on-one conversations with people who's lives are going to be somehow disrupted by my departure. There's no truth in them, really,: I've spliced and edited them back together too many times, there were filters on the lenses, and they're remakes anyway. 

PART 3 TO FOLLOW