Psychogeoforensics - A Toolkit

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Psychogeoforensics A Toolkit for Psychogeographers Version 1.2.5 25 Oct 2011 By the Singapore Psychogeographical Society http://psychogeoforensics.org

Transcript of Psychogeoforensics - A Toolkit

Page 1: Psychogeoforensics - A Toolkit

Psychogeoforensics

A Toolkit for Psychogeographers

Version 1.2.5 • 25 Oct 2011 By the Singapore Psychogeographical Society

http://psychogeoforensics.org

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CONTENTS

Contents

Introduction

History

Techniques and Methodologies

1. Dérives

2. Narrative Reconstruction

3. Pictorial Reconstruction / Artist Impressions

4. Map-Making

4.1 Physical, Hand-drawn Maps

4.2 Map Fingerprinting

5. Analysing Street Symbols

5.1 Functional/System Signs

Land Survey Markers

5.2 Ephemera

Yangtze Scribbler

6. Walking along Road Networks

7. Construction Site Archaeology

8. Questioning Designated Zones

9. Tracing Desire Lines

10. Guerilla Gardening and Guerilla Decorating

11. Writing and Rewriting Ideal Futures

Recommended Reading

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Psychogeoforensics

A Toolkit for Psychogeoforensics Introduction Singapore is a city that changes every other moment. We are faced with rapid demolition and reconstruction of the city at all times, with large government-operated agencies of national identity making being tasked with defining what is "historic" or "worth keeping". You can be sure that there is nothing sacred or indestructible in a city that has in the past, demolished its old National Library building to put a large vehicular tunnel in its place. Achievement and progress have come at the expense of losing context and history. What is Singapore, or more importantly, where is Singapore? Psychogeoforensics looks at the missing artifact that is also known as the urban city. Psychogeoforensics is about how we find ways to solve the mystery: reconstructing the narrative, and discussing the clues so that we might one day come closer to finding a satisfactory answer. The aim, however, is not to find a singular answer, or the one “definitive” story. There is no such thing as an absolute or an authoritative account of what happened here. The important thing is the journey and going through the process of sifting through the clues and piecing together the disjoined fragments. What can we make from the clues that we find along the way? What can we make from the fragments of pottery shards in the Singapore River? What can we make from the writing in the dust under the bridges of major expressways? From these clues left behind, and with our minds alone, we shall write history.

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History When the British colonised India and the East Indies, their architects sometimes employed Indo-Saracenic designs which catered not only to Western sensibilities but also incorporated “exotic” elements that were originally indigenous to Asia and the tropics. The act of exoticising the other and making a reproduction of an Asian architecture through the lens of eurocentricity has historically served to justify the dispossession of the colonised people, especially one made up almost entirely of many separate groups of migrant populations, where diasporic communities easily become estranged from their origins because of geographical distance. Within the span of one or two generations, dialects and family ties can be completely lost. Within decades, languages, stories and local knowledge are easily forgotten, and with that, the narrative of our origins is lost to us forever.

Construct & Scaffold #3: Scaffolding for a Chinese Opera1 Stage erected next to scaffolding for

construction work for a Business Park at 中山公园 (Zhongshan Park, Balestier) 1 One wishing to see the vestiges of “traditional chinese opera” here should certainly see the Chinese Opera Stage held during Chingay just across the border from us – in Johore Baru, where prosperous Chinese communities have organized utterly epic, festive opera stages representing each and every Chinese dialect in their community, allowing one to observe the various dialect operas all in one place. It is certainly something one may not see in Singapore. However, even on my last trip, the audience for these performances were scant, and even the ones who were present were mostly photographers, and a few young people, who in all actuality may not be fluent any of the dialects spoken by these opera performers.

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In a city like Singapore, after decolonialisation, the story of Singapore does not simply resume writing itself as per usual. There is no guide for where we should pick up the story from here because Singapore itself began as a construct, a metaphor; a conflux of different communities, ideas, architectures, and a re-production of so many other things. When Singapore began as a country, it had nothing but people and ideas. These ideas about how we should build ourselves is what led Singapore to be what is it today: a country with many aspirations – to be the best, to be a financial hub, to be a global city for the arts. However, the success of Singapore was indeed recognized to be something that was more than just intrinsic. In order for Singapore to be successful, it had to be considered successful by others outside of Singapore2. The creation of Singapore was thus, the biggest branding exercise ever in this country. How do we install/reinstall tradition in a place which looks outside for cultural legitimacy, asking foreigners to pick and guess, “What is your Singapore?”, rather than answering the question from within? It is no coincidence that a large portion of Singapore is made up of what appears to be generic transitory spaces, as if there are ongoing attempts to try to postpone the actualization of Singapore’s meaning by filling it up with architectures that are oddly void of meaning:

Hypermarkets Supermarkets Shopping Malls Underground Tunnels between Malls MRT Stations LRT Stations Walkways between different MRT Lines Bus Interchanges Bus Stops Highways

Expressways Bridges Under Bridges Airports Lounges Void decks HDB corridors Stairwells Carparks Generic Food Courts etc…

2 Le Kuan Yew’s National Day Speech, 9 August 1966: “And when this time last year, before the news was broken to the world, my colleagues and I carried that heavy burden in our hearts of having made the decision on your behalf, we consoled ourselves with this thought: that whilst thereafter, the multi-racial society that we had set out to create could be implemented only within the confines of Singapore, we knew deep down that ultimately, its impact must spread far beyond its shores. No geographic or political boundary contain the implications of what we set out to do when we succeed.”

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Marc Auge writes that “If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.” It is demoralizing to think of Singapore as a non-place, like a vacuum. Like a black hole which absorbs and sucks in all the light around it, the blank, plastic slate of Singapore seems to exist as a placeholder for everything yet to come.

But clearly it invites signification, and attracts questions. And we must learn how to ask the right ones. Asking questions is the first way to find out more about the case at hand. Asking the right questions is one of the main tools of psychogeoforensics. What happened here at this very spot? Can we reconstruct the story? If exoticism is read as the re-appropriation and re-presentation of one culture for the consumption of another culture, and if we also cannot hope for “tradition” to magically reinstall itself, then we must take action on our own, and do something about it. In his Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography (1955), Guy Debord defined psychogeography as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.”

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To extend that idea, in Psychogeoforensics, we view the Singapore as the scene of the mystery. To combine psychogeography – an appreciation for various ambiances in a city that seem to influence the lives of individuals living within it – along with the domain of forensics3 seems almost logical. The missing artifact is Singapore, and we are reconstructing the narrative of Singapore, and going through all the possible clues of Singapore’s whereabouts, so that one day we may find out where Singapore truly is.

3 Forensics refers to things or events that are to be discussed in a court of law, although in common parlance it refers to processes in which we investigate a questionable incident, perhaps one where a mystery is yet unsolved, or a crime has potentially occurred. The origin of the word “forensics” comes from latin, and refers to that “which belongs to the forum” – something that is put into public discussion (as one would discuss a case in a court of law). Law today, however, is not public discussion. We read the word “forensics” broadly, and take it to meaning that things are to be put into discussion.

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Techniques and Methodologies All methods suggested here are proposed as potential and experimental approaches and are not the only possible approaches. You should adopt the ideas which make sense to you, discard those which you do not agree with.

1. Dérives

One of the most basic situationist practices is the dérive4, in which one rapidly passes through places of different ambiences while maintaining an awareness of the different psychogeographical effects. “Derive” literally means to “drift”.

Drifting is not about slumming it out or aimless wandering about like a homeless person; it is most definitely not about romanticizing poverty either. It is not just a casual, leisurely stroll through the city with the mind emptied of all thoughts. Drifting is serious business.5 You make time for drifting, and allow yourself to be naturally drawn to places, or repelled from places.

It is not a game of chance – “from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.”

The goal in drifting is not to colonise, not to appropriate or reappropriate; the goal is simply to see things as if you have not seen them before.

4 See also: “Theory of the Dérive” by Guy Debord

5 A word of caution: “The dérive (with its flow of acts, its gestures, its strolls, its encounters) was to the totality exactly what psychoanalysis (in the best sense) is to language. Let yourself go with the flow of words, says the psychoanalyst. He listens, until the moment when he rejects or modifies (one could say detourns) a word, an expression or a definition. The dérive is certainly a technique, almost a therapeutic one. But just as analysis unaccompanied with anything else is almost always contraindicated, so continual dériving is dangerous to the extent that the individual, having gone too far (not without bases, but...) without defenses, is threatened with explosion, dissolution, dissociation, disintegration… It could be continuous like the poker game in Las Vegas, but only for a certain period, limited to a weekend for some people, to a week as a good average; a month is really pushing it. In 1953-1954 we dérived for three or four months straight. That’s the extreme limit. It’s a miracle it didn’t kill us” (Ivan Chtcheglov, French theorist, in an excerpt from a 1963 letter to Michèle Bernstein and Guy Debord, reprinted in Internationale Situationniste #9, p. 38).

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2. Narrative Reconstruction

“Heritage and ecological sanctuaries are all well and good but the best way of conserving something is to act on it.” (Vincente Guallart)

What I propose, through psychogeoforensics, is to encourage narratives to form. Where none seem to exist, invent them, and make them up as you go along. Plant a seed of thought, of urban myths, or parables6, of rumours if you have to.

Our goal is to narrate places and buildings back into being. Let the telephone box on the street corner testify as witness, or actor in the story. Let the trees speak to you. Let the crack in the wall tells its secrets to you. If there are streets that you pass every day, imagine the ghost of yourself passing through the same space yesterday. Or the day before that. So what changed since then? Imagining your own ghost through cities is a good way to start. Spatial shifts occur without having to change the architecture. If the viewer is moved, then the city and its architecture changes.

But at the same time, be self-aware of what story you are trying to tell. It is always necessary to question, whose imagination are we materialising. Are we building stages for stories that have already been performed? What are the stories that need to be told?

Here is a list of possible roles you can take on in your journeys:

Detective Researcher Adventurer Pilgrim Disruptor Performer Audience member Revolutionary activist Criminal Sojourner

Victim Guinea Pig Test Subject Activator Critical Mirror Errorist Student on a Field Trip Archivist Librarian of Live Experiences7 etc.

6 Lee Kuan Yew’s National Day Speech, 9 August 1966: “It is in the nature of things that we must talk in parables. And the older I become, the more I am convinced that sometimes perhaps, the Prophets spoke in parables because they had also to take into account so many factors prevailing in their time. But, I would like to believe that we are a people sufficiently sophisticated to understand parables and the value of ever searching for new solutions, new ways to achieve old targets.” 7 From: “An Architecture of Interaction” – a book which is also full of lists like these. Credit for the inspiration of making similar lists must go to the writers of this excellent, collaboratively produced book.

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3. Pictorial Reconstruction / Artist Impressions

“The main currency of architecture is photography, not the building.” There is immense value in making images of the city. The construction of places through their representation is practically instituitionalised today, because people know that it is important to control this economy of images.

Photography, sketches, and illustrations help document the scene so you can examine it closer later. This can help reveal hidden maps and boundaries.

4. Map-Making

The main difference between hand-drawn maps and commercially available street directories or maps is that hand-drawn maps selectively omit extra information that is not directly on the route taken, where as commercially produced maps often present data to a great degree of precision and painstaking detail. This detail may prove essential in some cases where one wants to locate very specific details on a map, but in most cases, the amount of detail may be more than the traveler will actually require for navigating a particular route/journey. For the purpose of each singular journey, the extra information not relevant to one’s journey is only visual clutter, which is more confusing than actually useful.

4.1 Physical, Hand-drawn Maps By sketching one’s own maps, one produces a map that reflects only the most essential information required for navigation along one particular route, omitting all other excess detail that is not essential for the successful navigation to one’s destination. However, scale and precision does suffer in the hand-drawn map. Angles at which roads intersect may be misrepresented or simplified into straight roads or curved roads, and lengths of roads are unlikely to be depicted to scale but are more likely to be drawn relative to each other. There will always be some "topological invariance" (Lynch, Image of the City). It is this topological invariance that we are interested in learning about. Why is the city seemingly elastic? Are there wrinkles in the spatial continuum?

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Certeau writes: “In walking it selects and fragments the space traversed; it skips over links and whole parts that it omits. From this point of view, every walk constantly leaps, or skips like a child, hopping on one foot. It practices the ellipsis of conjunctive loci . . . Make maps whenever you can: whether it is to to record where you’ve been, or to show someone else the way. Make maps for complete strangers and leave them where they will find it. 4.2 Map Fingerprinting In the 1930s, Esso produced a map of pump stations around the New York area, with an additional imaginary location named Agloe in it as a “copyright trap”. Years later, based on that very map, someone set up a general store in the very same location with the name Agloe after having taken reference from the Esso Map, and thus accidentally making Agloe a reality. In October 2006, it came to public attention that the Singapore Land Authority had inserted a few imaginary features into their official maps of Singapore, when Virtual Maps Pte Ltd became embroiled in a civil lawsuit with SLA for having infringed the copyright of vector map data provided by SLA in 2004. These additional imaginary features were used in a court of law by SLA to prove that the map was theirs. List of additional features added by SLA in Singapore’s Map Data8: 1. a non-existent building labeled “TP” (Temple) besides Block 891A

Woodlands 2. a non-existent dead-end street extending from Jurong West Street

23 3. a non-existent building numbered “92” at the Junction of Pitt Street

and Jalan Besar 4. a non-existent building numbered “6” along Edgedale Plains

opposite Block 131CP 5. the distinctive and idiosyncratic representation of Fort Gate, which

was SLA’s surveyor’s own rendering but rather inaccurate.

8From "GROUNDS OF DECISION IN THE SUBORDINATE COURTS OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE. [2007] SGDC 216. District Court Suit No 3535 of 2005. DCA 19 of 2007, Singapore Land Authority (Plantiffs) VS Virtual Map (Singapore) Pte Ltd (Defendants)" - read from page 62 onwards.

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Fort Gate on the Virtual Maps website, and Fort Gate as drawn idiosyncratically by SLA. Please visit Fort Gate to see what it really looks like.

The imaginary features and phantom or “ghost” buildings are not meant to mislead normal users of the map - they are simply the “fingerprints” of a map that identify it to its owner. In other countries, many other cartographers also have the practice of adding imaginary roads (Lye Close, Trap Street, Geek St) or imaginary features to their maps in order to be able to identity their own maps from others (and to catch those who blindly copy features from their own maps. Making up new features in the maps you make is the graphical equivalent to narrative reconstruction. In any case, to some degree, the “topological invariance” caused by drawing a map by your own hand will already introduce some of your own personal “idiosyncrasies” or your artistic or emotional interpretation of the space.

Found map. Along Marina Bay.

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5. Analysing Street Symbols

How can people live in a city and be contented with not understanding the signs written all over a city? We see them everyday on the street, on the ground, embedded in our walls, and yet most people walk past them without a further thought. How did society get to the point where we are oblivious to the workings of the city itself (plumbing, drainage, electrical wiring, etc)

SEW9. DRY RISER10. WET RISER11. C90912. H64. What do these letters mean? Are you curious about who makes these markings, who reads these markers, and who uses the information provided by these markers?

I believe that we should seek to understand all the signs in our environment, or at least to question who put them there, and why, or what could it mean. We should also be encouraged to leave our own signs, and to create our own languages, symbols and markings.

9With regards to SEW or sewers here, there are two common types of manhole covers. One is the Access Chamber (small holes for inspection) and Inspection Chambers (larger chambers which have space for maintenance equipment and crew to go into). The large holes are also known as “PolyPropylene Inspection Chambers”. Also it will be interesting to note that apparently there are two systems - foul water sources (kitchen, toilet, bath, industrial) and surface water sources (rainwater, road). There are also mixed water sources. If inspecting inside a drain, if you see white bits (tissue paper used in toilets) then it is probably a foul or mixed water source. Please do not walk into open sewage without protection. 10A “dry riser” is a main vertical pipe intended to distribute water to multiple levels of a building or structure as a component of the fire suppression systems. The pipe is maintained empty of water. The dry riser is the opposite of a "wet riser" or "wet standpipe" system where the pipes are kept full of water for manual or automatic fire fighting operations. Dry risers have to have fire engine access within 18m of the dry riser inlet box. In Singapore it seems more common to see dry risers, likely due to fears that a physically damaged wet pipe system will leak, while dry pipe systems will not. However, dry pipe systems will only provide a slight delay prior to water discharge while the air in the piping is released prior to the water filling the pipe

11 A wet riser is a constantly pressurised water pipe supplied by a storage tank with pump, a mains pump or from a mains pressure supply. 12 For a number of weeks back in 2009, I puzzled over a bunch of symbols spraypainted on the old shophouse buildings next to my office that said C909, and C908 when you crossed over to the other side of the street. After extensively documenting these mysterious numbers, I realized that the different numbers could be illustrated as a sweeping line between shophouses on one side of Cross street, and shophouses that were on the other side. Some weeks later, while searching on the internet, I learnt that C909 was the construction company’s abbreviation for “Chinatown Station” on the new Downtown Line MRT that was being constructed. C908 stood for “Cross Street Station”. The mystery of the painted numbers on the old shophouses was finally solved. When I walk around the CBD, I am aware of these numbers and always find it interesting to see which areas have been grouped under certain stations. “So, this is what they defined as the “Chinatown Area”…

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5.1 Functional/System Signs

List of common systems of signs in a city: Electrical Wiring Symbols Fire Sprinkler System Symbols Telecoms Wiring Symbols Plumbing Symbols Sewage and Drainage System Symbols Land Survey Markers.

Example: Land Survey Markers Here is an example of a personal survey marker collection. They were collected over the years 2009-2011 in the following cities: Singapore, Johor Bahru, Jakarta, London, Berlin. From these images and other markers you see on your journeys, make up your own explanations about what it could mean.

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Survey Marker Collection

(2009-2011)

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Survey Marker Collection

(2009-2011)

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Survey Marker Collection (2009-2011)

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5.2 Ephemera List of Common Human Ephemera in a city: Numbers stenciled into streets and sides of buildings Urban Graffiti spraypainted into walls Marker/Pen Graffiti scribbled onto temporary or impermanent features Phone numbers in stairwells Stickers on lampposts Notices at Busstops Misplaced notes, postits, receipts, bus tickets, maps, plans, and dreams.

Example: Yangtze Scribbler

These mysterious symbols were on the walls of the old Yangtze Cinema in 2010. You are free to make what you will of these symbols, and to explore old buildings like the Yangtze further. I do not know if the markings still exist to this day.

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6. Walking along Road Networks

Walking on Benjamin Sheares Bridge

This may seem counterintuitive at first glance: to walk along highways instead of driving on them? The long distances are difficult for most walkers to manage, so it already restrict’s one’s access to the place. While in a car, one sometimes sees workers who mend these expressways, walking up and down in a place which seems to us altogether inaccessible. Imagine yourself in the middle of nowhere, miles away from the next toilet, miles away from the next convenience store, miles away from home. However, do not misread this as a picture of barrenness or bleakness. It is a picture of boundless potential for exploration. Roads and expressways are particularly interesting because “roads act as photographic and spatial metaphors for ‘distance’ and ‘proximity’”13 (David Kendall)

13 David Kendall’s work, Always let the Road Decide, was one such project studying the city of Dubai, where most things are accessible by highways and walking seems to be discouraged. After observing migrant workers who worked on the construction of these words, and also have no choice but to walk on the roads instead of driving (because of limited social rights and hence mobility), he notes the following:

“Climbing onto the road allows participants to dictate the pace of their collective movements, subvert spatial dynamics, and create informal meeting points or spaces within a hostile environmental climate/cityscape”.

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Re-examine what you consider near and far while walking long distances along such roads. Consider the question of what you is truly accessible to you on your two feet.

7. Construction Site Archaeology

The city lies in modern ruins. Construction sites are sites for study and archaeology, sites at which we can peer into the inner layers that lie beneath the city. Look for the footprints, sift through the dirt and soil to see what it might tell us about those who came before us.

Incomplete construction work under Benjamin Sheares Bridge, 2011

(Besides construction sites, do not forget to look at manholes as well. Short of waiting for a construction crew to come in, a manhole provides the most obvious gateway to the world underneath the streets of a city!)

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8. Questioning Designated Zones

We arbitrarily designate zones in many places – “eating zones” in malls, “shopping zones” on streets, “study zones”, “parking zone”, “no handphone zones”, etc. Sometimes I don’t even understand what they are for. Like for example, since food is so portable, why can’t everywhere be an eating zone?

You should question why these zones exist, and if possible (and if you are so inclined to), mix up the zones and conduct activities in zones where you would not expect them. Observe the reactions of others and document this. If there are people to enforce the rules of conduct within this zone, question why they have been put in place. Sometimes there are very good reasons for rules - but sometimes there are no reasons, and it is the product of bureaucratic processes.

Sometimes these zones do not even have a marker. Not all walks or places have a guidebook, or a map. Most people do not approach spaces which do not look built up or completely furnished. You should fly in the face of such expectations and walk away from the malls and out into the parts which do not look like they have been constructed for people to explore. Do not allow society’s preconceptions of “suitable places to deter you from exploring new places and corners.

Having an enjoyable, leisurely stroll in Seletar.

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9. Tracing Desire Lines

“Desire Lines” refer to paths and shortcuts which people take in unpaved areas, forming a line in which the grass may be worn out by human passage, or the mud may be packed down in that area. People cannot always be told where to walk, so even if real pavements are constructed, sometimes these desire lines appear. Urban

Desire line in Changi, leading to another path

Even if you do not know where they lead to, trace them and see where they lead you to. Perhaps to other mysteries, which will bring your city to life?

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10. Guerilla Gardening and Guerilla Decorating

In a part of Shoreditch near the place where I once stayed, there was a plot of land belonging to Hackney Council that was essentially a neglected lot, and this attracted passerbys to dump unwanted things on this area, making it both unsanitary and an eyesore to all who passed by. The reason for this sad state of affairs was that no one took an interest in this space. The space was finally “activated” and made into something for the people who lived there by activists who cleaned up the space, introduced garden gnomes to the area, and put plants on the neglected public lot, making the corner feel safer because it was clear to all who passed by that people really cared about the place. They report that it was easiest to conduct their activities in broad daylight rather than sneaking around at night where people tended to be more suspicious.

In areas which face gentrification due to development schemes, “(guerilla) gardens (and other similar interventions) may yet play a role in asserting public will in the face of institutional change”. Build with the things you find.

Gardens by the Bay – Under construction (2011)

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11. Writing and Rewriting Ideal Futures Psychogeographical Game of the Week Unattributed Potlatch #1 22 June 1954

Depending on what you are after, choose an area, a more or less populous city, a more or less lively street. Build a house. Furnish it. Make the most of its decoration and surroundings. Choose the season and the time. Gather together the right people, the best records and drinks. Lighting and conversation must of course be appropriate, along with the weather and your memories. If your calculations are correct, you should find the outcome satisfying.

Pull all the elements together to rewrite the narrative. Observe this example of a book blurb taken from the back cover of a generic guidebook entitled “Gardens and Parks of Singapore” (published in 1992).

When Stamford Raffles and William Farquhar sailed into the Strait of Singapore in 1819, they found an island whose muddy coastline and estuary were the only accessible areas. Crocodiles infested the waters and tigers and wild boars roamed the thickly forested hills. The sparse population of Chinese and Malay fisherman, tradesmen, and pirates lived in attap-covered huts along the riverbanks, or on floating villages. Now less than two centuries later, Singapore is a thriving, cosmopolitan city with nothing left of its wild beginnings. Even the farmlands, the plantations, and the kampongs have disappeared to make room for more high-rise buildings and highways. Fortunately, in the last twenty years, Singaporeans and their government have come to the realisation that cultural inheritance is not the only aspect of the island's legacy. By preserving the magnificent variety of tropical trees, plants and flowers, the exotic mangrove swamps, and the drastically reduced fauna, Singapore is working towards a healthier environment as well as a more aesthetically pleasing one.

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This is first draft of the Guide to Psychogeoforensics. Share this document, write your own story, draw your own maps, and share your findings with others. Future Revisions of this text can be found at

http://psychogeoforensics.org Recommended Reading

The Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord)

The Theory of the Dérive (Guy Debord)

The Pleasure of the Text (Roland Barthes)

The Door in the Wall (H. G. Wells)

A Pattern Language (Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein)

Geo-Logics: Geography Information Architecture (Vicente Guallart)

Geometry of the Unconscious: An Uncertain Truth in Architecture (Kong Jyanzi)

Mythogeography (Phil Smith)

The Production of Space (Henri Lefebvre)

Form Follows Libido (Sylvia Lavin)

The Poetics of Space (Gaston Bachelard)

Arcades Project (Walter Benjamin)

Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Tuan Yi Fu)

Flatland (Edwin A Abbott)

The Blackwell City Reader

Critical Cities: Ideas, Knowledge and Agitation from Emerging Urbanists

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