Bibliography

My on going bibliography for my practice and my PhD research:



Bibliography
(for research interests across practice and PhD research)

Ackroyd, P. (2000) London: The Biography London: Chatto and Windus

Aragon, L. (1999) Paris Peasant US: Exact Change (Watson-Taylor, S. trans. Original work published 1926)

Auge, M. (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity London: Verso (Howe, J. trans)

Ballard, J. G. (2006) Kingdom Come London: Harper Perennial

Ballard, J. G. (2004) Millenium People London: Harper Perrenial

Benjamin, W. (1997) Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism London: Verso

Bourriaud, N. (2005) Postproduction New York: Lucas and Sternberg

Bourriaud, N. (2002) Relational Aesthetics Dijon: Presses du reel (Pleasence, S. et al trans)

Breton, A. (1972) Manifestoes of Surrealism Michigan: Ann Arbor (Seaver, R. and Lane, H. R. trans)

Breton, A. (1999) Nadja London: Penguin (Original Work published 1928)

de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life Berkeley: University of California press (Rendall, S. trans)

Cohen, M. (1993) Profane Illumination: Walter Banjamin and the Paris of Surrealist Revolution Berkeley: University of California Press

Coverley, M. (2006) Psychogeography Hertfordshire: Pocket Essentials

Debord, G. (1992) Society of the Spectacle London: Rebel Press (Knabb, K. trans. Original work published 1967)

Gadamer, H. G. (1975) Truth and Method London: Continuum (Weinsheimer, J and Marshall, D. trans)

Gadamer, H. G. (1981) Reason in the Age of Science MIT (Lawrence, F. G. trans)

Harvey, D. (1973) Social Justice and the City Oxford: Basil Blackwell

Harvey, D. (2005) Paris, Capital of Modernity London: Routledge

Harvey, D (2006) Spaces of Global Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development London: Verso

Kester, G (2004) Conversation Pieces: Community and Communication in Modern Art Berkeley: University of California Press

Knabb, K (ed)(2006) Situationist International Anthology Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets

Lefebvre, H. (1991) Critique of Everyday Life Vol. 1 London: Verso (Moore, J. trans. Original work published 1947)

Lefebvre, H. (2002) Critique of Everyday Life Vol. 2: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday London: Verso (Original work published 1961)

Lefebvre, H. (2005) Critique of Everyday Life Vol. 3: From Modernity to Modernism Verso: London (Elliott, G. trans. Original work published 1981)

Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space Oxford: Blackwell

de Quincey, T. (1994) Confessions of an English Opium Eater Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics (Original Work published 1821)

Roberts, J. (2006) Philosophising the Everyday London: Pluto Press

Roberts, J. (1998) The Art of Interruption: Realism, Photography and the Everyday Manchester: Manchester University Press

Ross, K. (1989) The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Rumney, R. and Woods, A. (2001) The Map is not the Territory Manchester: Manchester University Press

Sinclair, I. (2003) London Orbital London: Penguin

Sinclair, I. (2009) Hackney, That Rose Red Empire London: Hamish Hamilton

Self, W. (2007) Psychogeography London: Bloomsbury

Soja, E. (1989) Postmodern Geographies: Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory London: Verso

Solnit, R. (2006) Wanderlust: A History of Walking London: Verso

Vaneigem, R. (2006) The Revolution of Everyday Life London: Rebel Press (Nicholson-Smith, D. trans. Originally work 1967)

Statement, July 2009.

A statement written for the Degree Show catalogue:

My practice is based on walking, that is, walking as a fundamentally creative spatial practice – a process of experience and documentation that produces narratives. The word ‘psychogeography’ is a useful term in describing this practice, in that it is concerned, primarily, with experiences of urban and suburban environments – I am fascinated by buildings, public spaces, monuments, and how memory and narrative become manifest in physical spaces. The work is informed, creatively and theoretically, by a number of spatial practices that can all be described as, or have some aspect that is, psychogeographical.

This body of work presents an experience of an urban environment. It is in many ways an exercise and experiment in shifting perceptions of the city. However, the work does not seek to politicise (although there are political aspects), nor to present a particular message (although there messages buried within the work). This is not what concerns me here. Instead the work seeks to question, and in turn, to open up new ways of experiencing urban environments. It is here that the practices gathered under the term psychogeography are most relevant, as it is psychogeography that symbolically transforms our everyday experiences of these urban spaces.

In short the work is a direct response to the built environment - the photographs compose themselves, texts written by semiotic stimulus. Through the creation of disjunctions and discordance within the work, just as in the changing of our reasons for movement through the city, our perceptions of the representations of these spaces can be changed.

Compton Road

Sunshine on windscreens in the street,
populated by the semiotics of property.
'The big season kick-off preview',
tribalised by black and gold,
united by carling and vodkaredbull violence.

new works, thoughts on degree show, PhD.

some things I'm working on:

- I'm planning to make a film using the nightvision button on the camcorder. I plan to head over to West Park once it gets dark, sometime next week, and shoot some stuff, either walking around the park (as you cant go in at night) or shots with a static camera. I'll either leave it without sound, or maybe add walking sounds, or the sound of lots of people, whatever seems to fit.

- Drawings made by walking. I've recently discovered the artist Tim Knowles, who creates contraptions that produce drawings (www.timknowles.co.uk). I want to do something similar, but for walking. I want to make something that will record the action of walking. I figure I can do thing with a box, lined with paper, either with a pen on a spring that would make marks as you walk, or a tin of paint with a small hole in the bottom that would make lines as you walked. I'm a little concerned as its not a very original idea, but I think it'll produce some interesting drawings so i'm going to do it anyway.

- I'm also writing poem-type things. Inspired by particular places. Dunno what they are or what they're doing yet.

- Found Abstracts. Pretty self-explanatory - photographing abstract things found on the streets whilst walking about (lampposts are a rich mine of these).


For the degree show that is looming, I'm planning an installation. A series of slides (some general city shots, some found abstracts, some monument shots) set to a soundtrack. I want the soundtrack to be quite long, with various different types of sound recorded in different places.

As for my PhD funding applications, the AHRC have decided whether or not to give me some money, but I have to wait till the get round to sending me the letter. Wolves uni are also offering 5 PhD studentships, so I'm going to have a go at that too. I reckon I should be in with a shout as my proposal has already been accepted.

A Poem (of sorts)

Staffordshire House, Fold Street

5.30, waiting.
An alienated pedestrian,
please see reception.

as drivers follow
one way systems between interiors
lone motorists ignore lone pedestrians

Attention: delivery drivers visiting this
site must reverse under supervision.

Everyone is liable for prosecution

Degree Show Plans

following the meeting yesterday, I now have, provisionally, two projection booth type spaces in which display some work. As I've written in previous posts, the work I'm planning to exhibit is a kind of srtipped down montage: images and sound, but from two different sources. In one of the booths I'm planning to display a projection work/film about a Russian war memorial in Riga that I photographed. For the soundtrack I was planning on writing something (a history of the occupation of Latvia, a poem etc), or using a section from a text, then getting my grandma, who speaks fluent Latvian, to translate it into Latvian. I would then read it out and record it.

As for the other booth I'd like to do something with Matt. We've collaborated previously and share common ground when it comes to practice, so I think it'd be a good way to finish our MA's if we were to collaborate on something. What I'd like to do is again along the lines of images and sound, something about urban experiences. I'd like Matt to make a soundtrack and me to put images to it. Something along those lines

I'm also working on a series of photographs - found abstracts. I'd like to, if there's space, display some of these in the show.

Plans for my Final Semester

Some things Alistair said to me whilst half-cut last Friday: firstly, that I'm doing the right thing pursuing a theory based PhD, and secondly that, in the meantime, I cant forget that I'm still on a practice based MA course. My research proposal for said theory based PhD (90k words - I'm really in for it) has been passed and approved, my funding application (which everything is now hanging on) is in, so I've got a whole summer ahead of me to fill with practice. Here are my plans:

- Found abstracts: an idea thats been kicking around for a while, so I thought I'd do something with it.

- black and white super 8 films. an idea I had when I was thinking about hand processing some super 8 stock. I wanted, originally, to film out of a train window at night then process it as a negative, but Idont think this'll work because of reflections, so it might now be a film, still in negative, of streetlights and car headlights. In negative so the lights appear as black spots on a white and grey background. I might also make the film where I video west park at night using the night vision function on the camcorder; film looking into the park at night through the fence, then adding some kind of soundtrack. I recorded a conversation some people were having in the post office queue the other day, so maybe that.

- I'm still making films (a series of images with a soundtrack of some sort, a kind of stripped down montage), and I think this is the main contender for the degree show in september. Though I dont want to display it as a film as such. I want to separate out the images from the sound. I want to use slides for the images as I think there's something about a darkened room with a slide projector whirring away, along with recorded sounds, and I'd like to capture this in this work if I can. I'd also like to collaborate with Matt on this as there's common ground here.

- 12 Photographs (the Center of the Universe). Being the title of a project (see previous posts). I'm thinking that this will now be a book.

Is it Enough That Something Merely Looks Good?

Some images I made with my mobile. I like them, but I dont know if thats enough.

12 Photographs (the Centre of the Universe)

An idea Helen and I bounced around whilst we were out for a walk yesterday: from my flat, walk for a set amount of time (10mins, half an hour, 2 hours whatever) in all 12 directions of the compass. Once I reach that point I take a photograph of whatever I see (using a decent dslr this time I think). The images are then displayed, along with notes made along the way, recordings etc. On Kawara springs to mind. I like the idea. The problem I have with it though, is that its, again, about a journey I've made and will the viewer be able to engage with it? I dont know if this matters, I think sometimes you can loose sight of the fact that when you are productive and producing work, viewed as a practice it is interesting.

Filmmaking, Research, Walking and 'Blogging'

I haven't updated for a while, so here's a synopsis of the goings on with me:

- Filmmaking. It seems I'm making films again. My current practice consists of walking and documenting. My original intention for this documentation was to produce an installation with images, texts, drawings, projections etc covering the walls, recorded sounds playing, the idea being that the viewer would enter the space and be able to explore, constructing their own journeys from my documents. This still may happen, but on advice from Alistair, I threw together some images, stuck a voiceover on it and made a film. The film seemed to achieve some of what I was planning for the instalation, in that it took the viewer on their own journey through wolverhampton. So I'm now persuing the film idea: a series of images with a voiceover, all produced by walking. The success of the film - and indeed what I need the installation to be - is that it is no longer merely documentation (and why should anyone care about a journey i went on and recorded?) but becomes an 'artwork' that accomodates the viewer and allows them to go on their own journeys.

- Research. I am currently persuing a PhD. I've put in an application for funding, which is currently making its way through the long bureaucratic procedures it has to pass through, and I'm writing a research proposal. The idea for the research comes from my practice, but is separate from it. Its very liberating to be able to separate the theory from the practice, as it was getting to the stage where they were hindering rather than helping one another. The title for the progect is: The Spatial/Cultural Politics of Walking: Psychogeography, the Everyday and Post-Object Aesthetics'. What that means is, I'm interested in examining the potential of psychogeography and its interventions in the everyday for, what I've termed, post-object aesthetics. The main objects of my research are Henri Lefebvre's theories of space and the everyday and the Situationist International. The aim of the research is to get to what it is that makes the practice interesting. The PhD will be theoretical however; 90,000 words, no practice. This wont mean me giving up on practice completely (although it will be difficult to continue with it), and I do have genuine academic ambitions. How theory affects the practice will be an interesting one.

- Walking. I'm still walking, sticking my pins in the map and documenting, though not as much as I should be. I'm using twitter as a log of my walks, plus I have a large map of Wolverhampton that Matthew got from the planning dept on which I mark where I've been.

- 'Blogging'. Another outcome of my walks will (hopefully) be a website, or blog. I want to produce something that, again, allows the viewer to make their own journeys, and a blog or website seems like a good way to 'activate' spectatorship. Working along the lines of the map - territory dialectic, I want to produce a site that the viewer has to navigate via the documentation; ie, without navigation menus etc, the only way to get around would be to click on images etc.

'Look Both Ways' (Boyle Walk no. 3)

the latest in my series of random wanderings around the city of Wolverhampton. This time its things I've read on the way:

Paradise sundays the red house look both ways unit to let furniture warehouse one way all traffic academy of dance only instore finance headquaters the diner bell street metro-st Georges mehan bargin centre loose materials babywear panahar peacocks 1/2 price sale is fast food slowing your kids down? image sale shopmobility east west original oriental grocery the bag shop telephone we are open sundays oceana first port 2 for 1 drinks bank's timpsons game clarks key cutting shoe repairs engraving motor industry cash aid reaction minder coming soon 1 minute walk beauty pharmacy dental surgery final clearence ideas your photos in seconds baking here now bannuttal loyds bank limited evening mail art gallery charlies fish bar baego's beer and burger time to invest in me smart ply funeral care open pawn broking adult bookshop

Boyle Walk no. 2

The Second in my series of 'Boyle Walks', inspired by various artists including the Boyle family. I walked through an industrial area of Wolverhampton, around the Chapel Ash area, near where I live. The photo's have come out really bad; they were shot on 100iso slide film and have come back all washed out, riddled with camera shake, as I didn't use a tripod. Next time I'll use faster film. Some of the images I've been able to rescue and I think there's something to them.