Name: wilfried hou je bek
http://www.socialfiction.org/psychogeography
Algorithmic Psychogeography
The generic principle applied to the city walk19th Century opium eater Thomas
de Quincey remains the first reported case &
indeed the prototype of the obsessive drifter. With no other goal in mind than
to satisfy his curiosity about what might be discovered around the next corner,
De Quincey spent entire days randomly strolling around London. In the 20th century,
the surrealists in the 30ties & the Lettrists in the 50ties elaborated on
this urge by transforming it into a systematic practice. In the 60ties the Situationists
took this activity to the next level by developing psychogeography: the science
of the dérive, the drift. These dérives were not random, but persuaded
the psychogeographer to use his or her imagination to experience the urban surroundings
in a new way. Methods they adopted for this were for instance to literally followed
their nose by chasing smells or navigating through Paris on a map of London.
What drove the situationists to the streets can hardly be called curiosity -
political & theoretical motivations were the key forces.
From the 70ties onwards psychogeography kept attracting people but more as an
academic bon mot & seldom as something to actually DO. But the curiosity
to discover all aspects of the city didn't stop here. It reappeared under the
moniker of Urban Exploration. A world wide discipline & an enthusiastic
international network of people who spent their free time by "going places
where you are not supposed to go". A search on Google opens up this spectrum
with dozens of well documented sites. Perhaps the only limitation in the scope
of this phenomena is the strong tendency towards sensation seeking, making most
activities dangerous &/or illegal. The exploration of public space has often
been overlooked as too obvious.
It is that which Social Fiction sets out to do with a Psychogeography project
of our own. After some initial experiments with the situationist methods, we
soon grew dissatisfied with them because we didn't succeed in completely opening
up the city. For example, in our first experiment we went around with 2 groups
in the newly built town Leidsche Rijn (in the armpit of Utrecht, Holland). Both
groups were provided with a map of Rome & left in different directions with
the agreement to meet again half an hour later on the south bank of Ponte Garibaldi.
Even though we had a pleasant afternoon we felt that this way of manoeuvring
was too strongly influenced by the limits of personal tastes, expectations &
biases. What we needed was an objective method which gave us the opportunity
to stroll around town free of prejudices because we suspected that the psychogeographical
effects would be stronger if the route was as clear as possible. We wanted to
stroll around in a way that resembled John Cage's dictum that he gave his musicians
'directions but no map'.
Having established all this, our attention was soon focused towards John Conway's
'Game of Life' in which we found the clue we were looking for. The power of
the Game of Life is that no matter how simple the rules are, one cannot predict
what will happen to a colony in any given situation, neither for the immediate
nor for the distant future. The only way to find out what will happen is to
execute the program. In this vein we devised a set of rules which carves out
an endless route through the city which, we hoped, would not be predictable
& which keeps the psychogeographical pedestrian wondering where the logic
of the stroll-algorithm will take him/her.
In the summer of 2001 we have undertaken 3 experiments to test our assumptions.
The directions we gave to the participants were all variations on this kind
of
formula:
2nd right
2nd right
1st left repeat.
The experiments we will undertake in the summer of 2002, already dubbed 'The
Hot Summer of Psychogeography' will result in more detailed insights in the
inner workings on the behaviour of our algorithm. At this stage we will present
some first observations & suggestions to improve our method. The success
of these experiments is dependent on 3 different variables.
1) The ability of the directions to enslave the participant; to create the desire to find out where this all 'will lead to'.
2) The real unexpected 'new-ness' of the stroll
3) The actual enhancement of the agents cognitive map with new images & experiences of the city. The first & second facilitates the third.
The actual psychological effects of these strolls are difficult to measure.
We propose to develop an objective test to calculate subjective results by giving
the stroll a more game-like character. The agent could submit scores to specific
sites according to the psychogeographical effects it invokes. These scores can
be added up to make for a high-score, thus determining which route out of many
is the most powerful. The cross reference of all experiments might tell which
specific places have a strong influence on the average agent.
Up until now we have only informally discussed the experiences afterwards. It
soon turned out that the rules worked like we expected them to. When an agent
is convinced of his knowledge of the city, the contrary is soon proved. A generic
stroll is a constant surprise. It is unpredictable where the logic of the direction
will push the agent to next, not just for the next half hour but for the 4th
next turn as well. Like in the Game of life, the smallest change leads to entirely
different routes. When strolling on a 2nd right, 2nd right, 1st left
algorithm, 33 generations might bring you to point A. When a second agent executes
the same algorithm but encounters a street that the first agent could pass but
has now been blocked, the resulting journey will end up kilometres away. Comparing
of routes has also proven that every minor change in the directions (say the
change from 3rd left to right) has an enormous impact on the
agents route.
The often heard first reaction on our algorithm is that it won't bring us very
far because our stroll will end up in a loop. A second thought is often sufficient
to eliminate this idea: as long as you are not walking in one of those rare
pure symmetrical cities this won't happen very often. Until now it has only
happened once in approximately 30 strolls that someone got trapped in a loop.
This didn't happen immediately but after an hour, so in rare urban constellations
it does occur. Another thing that might stop the stroll prematurely is a dead
end. We argue that this should be seen as a worthwhile result. Under no circumstances
should the agent resume his or her stroll by just breaking the deadlock &
continue executing it in a randomly chosen direction. However, in reality the
agent doesn't want to spoil his/her afternoon & goes on in some arbitrary
way.
A more dubious problem is the vagueness about what exactly is the next 'right'
turn & whether something is a turn at all. Especially in squares, parks
& complex traffic flyover this often is a debatable issue. Until now we
have always told the agents that, when faced with ambiguity about which turn
to take next, they should resume the algorithm as reasonably as possible. This
is not the best solution we can think of. One of the strongest points of our
directions is, that if repeated under the same circumstances the same route
should emerge, subjective factors will harm this quality. On the other hand
we feel a certain hesitation to modify our set of rules if this hurts the elegance
of its present simplicity. The best solution for this is yet to be found.
Another essential part of the generic principle we have to address in our 2002
experiments is the factor of interplay between different agents. In most generic
situations, the agents proceed in their specific way by reacting to changes
in the environment. In the game of Life for instance, the surroundings of the
agents are other agents who also obey the same rules. In our experiments the
agents behave according to simple rules in a surrounding which is subject to
its own rules. Occasionally different groups of psychogeographers run into each
other. Should this influence their stroll or should they just say hello &
resume their separate ways? We tend to think that the environment provides enough
complexity to the game, but perhaps an extra rule that regulates the interplay
of agents may add to the flavour. We have also considered a stroll without any
directions other than interplay between participants, applying the principle
behind the birds or boids swarm to the city survey. This might actually be great
fun, but for now we restrain
from this method out of the consideration that this probably doesn't s help
our real purpose: the exploration of public space. Besides, people might just
be too stupid (or too smart?) to follow 3 simple rules which regulate personal
behaviour on the behaviour of others. We are not interested in giggling.
Finally some words on the patterns that emerge when executing the algorithm.
Even though closed loops do seldom occur, half loops & spirals do happen
quite often. Especially spirals tend to emerge with some regularity & that
is a wonderful thing. Spiralling means that you are strolling around the same
streets generation after generation without ever making the same combination
of
streets twice. This pattern offers great psychogeographical effects because
in this way a certain, 'objectively' chosen area (note: not subjectively as
the situationists chose their areas) can be mapped & experienced thoroughly.
After a while the route suddenly pushes you into another directions, perhaps
your route then prescribes an tenfold of turns, if luck will have it, you have
to cross
large bridges, or you have to wait a long time for the next turn in some endless
straight street, making you cross large distances. What also might happen with
some probability is that you'll walk half loops, which if you look back at the
map afterwards are only small deviations from a large loop. Future explorations
will show what patterns emerge with what predictably.
Furthermore we look forward to testing our method in areas with a different
structure than the ones we've tried. Perhaps the psychogeographical effects
differ widely when applied in the grandiose setting of Berlins Unter dem Linden.
We are also looking forward to give it a try in the centre of Italian Cities
like Venice & especially in Sienna with it's peculiar structure. Contact
us for more information at psychogeography@socialfiction.org
address: psychogeography@socialfiction.org