References bank on the Art of Wandering (1st meeting)

Athens Branch
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A beautiful article about the real world foundations of the notion as well as psychogeography: https://myloscar.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/experimental-walking-and-writing-surrealists-and-situationists/

Quotation: “An artistic/performative practice, which enables the stroller to not only territorialise unknown spaces of a planned city but also allows them to ‘awaken’ the city, able to project their desires for a city to come, a city with potential to change; radical thinking is made possible through walking and changing the technocratic formulations of a built city”.

Αστυμαγεία/Megapolisomancy (fiction): Without a link, but easily approached with a google (or duckduckgo) search, Mpalanos and Gianoulakos (greek esoteric/unknown phenomena writers οf the 90/00s) promoted the theme in the greek logotechnic sphere infused with an urban myth/occult fantasy vibe, suggesting that crews of “urban mages” constantly fight around the energetically charged spots of cities, influencing it’s growth and crossing to otherworlds either via consious wandering or via complex astrological and psychogeographic city maps.

Our Lady of Darkness of Fritz Leiber, 1977 (fiction): The influence of Mpalanos and Giannoulakos.

Quotation: In Our Lady of Darkness, the primary practitioner of this pseudoscience is fictional occultist Thibaut de Castries, whose seminal work, Megapolisomancy: A New Science of Cities, concerns the physical, psychological and paramental (spiritual) effects of certain substances, including steel, electricity, paper, and so forth as they accumulate in cities. This book was primarily a book of occult theory; De Castries preserved all of his actual methods for practicing megapolisomancy in a second book, which he referred to as his Grand Cipher or Fifty-Book. The latter book contained a series of 50 astrological and astronomical signs and other cryptic sigils.

Randonauting: Is the latest trend/evolution of the art of wandering, in which a techological bot (through generating random numbers in the overlay of a map) suggests a specific place near your location - the act of walking towards which is supposed to create synchronicities and connect the “randonaut” with the urban environment. A directional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMFAEhW5tGA

If the post is in the right place, feel free to add more references, techniques, ideas fuel or to actually quote things that spark your intrest to start a discussion :3

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Super interesting stuff! The idea of randonauting is a nice way of integrating the practice with tech (although the act of wandering seems extremely centered around physical space and interaction in physical world) I would love to see (or create) a project with an actual wandering robotic device that broadcasts a video feed or something as it moves around a city using GPS etc. (maybe hacking one of those food delivery robots or something similar).

This also reminds me of an amazing digital project where someone modded Grand Theft Auto 5 (a video game famous for its attention to detail and vast and open world) to follow an autonomously controlled deer as it wanders throughout the game’s fictional world. Definitely highlights the intersection of wandering and digital/simulated worlds. Here is a link to some archived footage (the original project was a continuous live stream San Andreas Deer Cam: offline footage on Vimeo)

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Great references @GiorgosPapavasileiou and in the right place (those who wander are never lost :footprints: )
A further reading that will assist us before our next meetup:
Theory of the Derive by Guy Debord (1985)

Technology has definitely provided alternate ways to drift. We will explore at least two of them on our next meeting.
@jsenzel so interesting that you mention GTA. I remember years ago, I had the protagonist (I think it was Niko of GTA IV) drifting by foot and at some point I had a crazy deja vu with my actual drifting memories while I was living and drifting in Glasgow. When I mentioned it to a friend he reminded me that GTA creators are actually based in Scotland!

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Hi again just also wanted to share a somewhat tangential note to this. The derive we did got me thinking in some ways about longer pieces of music and how composition and structure is influenced by the environment/context of the intended listener. So one of the things I’ve been doing in the last 3 weeks is writing a piece loosely based on the idea/flow of something like a derive. It’s been a really interesting perspective create something based on the act of wandering because I feel like it gives a lot more leeway in terms of allowing things to be very slow and gradual. If anyone is interested the piece is here (it’s an hour long but there are 6 different sections so the listening experience is more like a collection of pieces rather than one long one) MUSIC FOR WANDERING I.mp3 - Google Drive

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thank you for sharing, I will listen to it as I am walking towards Technopolis for our meetup today.
Mauve Zone is also creating music for cities and we have used his pieces in various derives. It would be great to use your collection as well!

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idea on sound in public space

Hi, I am in cusco café in Exarchia, reading through all your interesting posts and listening to Jonah’s piece (nice one!!!). Maybe thinking is also a way of wandering arround…

I like the idea of having sound/music for walking arround a lot. I was thinking of a way of how that could be done without wearing ear-plugs (because they make you a little bit more disconnected from the others) and at the same time without carrying a soundbox with you (because like that you bring the sound to everybody - no matter if they want to hear it or not).

idea: Maybe something like a sound-umbrella would work? An umbrella you carry and that provides the sound. So mainly you can hear it, but others can join you…?

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