P-Funk 1: London Perambulations

THE P-WORD:

Like many other folk these days, I drop the word 'psychogeography' with careless abandon.  Indeed this blog is littered with it, as are many others, along with numerous books, articles, films, lectures, seminars, websites, tweets, - and who knows what else?  It's a term (perhaps like 'Hauntology') which describes a recognisable sensibility within certain cultural expressions, but which has inevitably become devalued through its over-application to a increasingly diverse range of artefacts and activities.

Of course, it's not unusual for such invented, theoretical labels to become adapted to different uses and often disputed over, in the process losing any currency they may have once had through dwindling specificity or changes in intellectual fashion.  I don't want to embark on an extended discussion of the word's multiple applications and provenances here, but would once again refer anyone interested in the Psychogeographic tradition to Merlin Coverley's useful little overview, 'Psychogeography' [1.].  In his introduction, Coverley himself states, 

'Psychogeography'. A term that has become strangely familiar - strange because, despite the frequency of its usage, no one seems quite able to pin down exactly what it means or where it comes from.  The names are all familiar too:  Guy Debord and the Situationists, Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, Stewart Home and Will Self.  Are they all involved?  And, if so, in what?  Are we talking about a predominantly literary movement or a political strategy, a series of new age ideas or a set of avant-garde practices?  The answer, of course, is that psychogeography is full of all these things, resisting definition through a shifting series of interwoven themes and constantly being reshaped by its practitioners." [2.]

Self-Styled Comic Book Magus, Alan Moore

In the light of this, I was interested to see that Iain Sinclair, a writer who many may see as sitting at the head of the table of literary psychogeography,  now appears to reject the term altogether. This was made plain to me whilst reading the Quietus article, (already referred to in one of my subway-themed posts), in which comic book writer, Alan Moore, discussed his own psychogeographical interests in relation to Sinclair.

"Perhaps understandably, Sinclair has more recently attempted to distance himself from the term psychogeography. In the film, 'The London Perambulator', Sinclair urges that psychogeography had relevance when the Situationist used it as an aggressive way of dealing with the city, and then again when Stewart Home later resurrected it and brought comedic value to it, but eventually became a 'nasty brand name' used to describe almost anything to do with cities or walking. He has instead signed up to Nick Papadimitriou's notion of 'Deep Topography' which brings the tradition back to that of the British naturalist, the wanderer of edges who is not so preoccupied with the concept of his practice." [3.]

Iain Sinclair

To be honest, I'm happy to leave the semantic debate hanging.  Suffice it to say, for my money, 'Deep Topography' is a perfectly pleasing term - if no more or less useful than the term Sinclair is keen to replace.  Instead, the Quietus article led to me consider two other questions.  Firstly, who exactly is Nick Papadimitriou?  Secondly, why did it take me so long to get round to watching 'The London Perambulator'?



PERAMBULATOR:

Nick Papadimitriou.  Still From John Rogers (Dir.), 'The London Perambulator',  2009

'The London Perambulator' is a documentary film, made in 2009 and directed by John Rogers.  It takes as its subject the activities of outsider/Deep Topographer, Nick Papadimitriou, a man who, (even more than any of the other names dropped here), could be labelled a genuine and rather marvellous eccentric.  Certainly, his whole life now seems to be subsumed into an endless cycle of wanderings and detailed explorations of those parts of Middlesex that most people would automatically overlook.  His chosen patch is archetypal Edgeland territory, with all that that implies.  The film includes significant contributions from Iain Sinclair, Will Self, (for both of whom he has worked as a researcher in the past), and, slightly surprisingly, comedian, Russell Brand.  

Comedian (And Self-Styled Revolutionary/Sex Machine/Media Messiah), Russell Brand

Papadimitriou himself clearly had a troubled early life, serving time for burning down his own school as a teenager, and, bizarrely, becoming the subject of a poem by serial killer Dennis Neilsen whilst incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs.  He has also has a past history of drug abuse, - something he shares with both Self and Brand [4.].  Indeed, I can't help wondering if, for some, all this restless walking and obsessive documentation of seemingly insignificant landscape details might not be a search for deeper engagement with one's existence in a puzzling, fascinating world without narcotics.  Could, all this ceaseless motion and repeated striking out, be a search for a variety of transcendence whilst keeping one step ahead of their vices?  In one of the film's notable scene's, Papadimitiou and Self discuss the diminishing returns of heavy drug use, something that is antithetical to the kind of focus they now seek.  Elsewhere, Sinclair discusses walking as the core psychogeographic activity for its ability to raise consciousness.

Nick Papadimitriou: Reading Between The Lines.  Still From: John Rogers (Dir.),
 'The London Perambulator',  2009

Perhaps Sinclair and Self's disillusionment with the label often attached to them, stems in part from comparing the depth of their own activities and relationship to the landscape with that of  Papadimitriou's.  If they ultimately re-examine their own experiences through the detached filter of literature, there is a sense in which Nick is Deep Topography [5.].  It's one thing to sense physical underground streams and discuss how the engineering of such natural flows into the fabric of the city lends it a multi-layered aspect, (as the film opens), or to exhibit an obsessive interest with the Mogden Water Purification Plant [6.].  However, it is something altogether different to claim, "my ambition is to hold my region in my mind", as he does later, and to imagine his own identity becoming totally subsumed into the very fabric of Middlesex. For all his apparent superficialities, it may be that Russell Brand's slightly daffy air of wonder at encountering someone so singularly at one with his chosen subject, comes closest to pinning down Nick's essence.  Maybe this isn't really a surprise after all.  Brand is known for his quasi-spritual dabblings, and there's definitely something of the ecstatic mystic about some of Papadimitiou's utterances.  He would appear to come from Blakeian tradition more than a Debordian one.

If there is a tragedy at the heart of Nick Papadimitriou's life, it is revealed towards the end of the film where he questions whether it's all been a dispiriting waste of time to have been hanging about in the Edgelands when he could have been working or raising a family.  Ultimately, though, is this not the deal that all artists, (or full-time thinkers), must make to a greater or lesser degree? The other point worth making is that, for all his latent train-spottery  he has seemingly compiled an archive of material on his chosen patch, far deeper and wide-ranging than any other individual or institution could hope to.  If Papadimitriou's real legacy is to demonstrate a more intense and rewarding relationship with our surroundings than most  will ever experience, - well, someone has to do it.  To that end, I'd encourage anyone who's ever wondered what all this wittering about psychogeography (or indeed Deep Topography) is all about, to watch 'The London Perambulator', or its shorter companion piece, 'Inside Deep Library' [7.].

  


[1.], [2.]:  Merlin Coverley, 'Psychogeography', London, Pocket Essentials, 2006 

[3.]:  John Rogers (Dir.), 'The London Perambulator', London, Vanity Projects, 2009.

[4.]:  I have no knowledge of Sinclair's previous experience in this respect.  He's associated with plenty of counter-cultural figures over the years though, including notorious 'importer' Howard Marks, so I doubt he's a complete naif.

[5.]:  I think I'm talking about degrees of intensity and emotional commitment here.  Papadimitriou is, after all a published author too:
Nick Papadimitriou, 'Scarp, In Search Of London's Outer Limits', London, Sceptre, 2012.

[6.]:  Papademitriou's linkage of The Sewage Works' processing of externalised waste, with the impulse towards psychotherapy, is exactly the kind of thinking many of us lapsing into at any opportunity, (although not quite so passionately expressed, perhaps).  And, this focussing on what Self splendidly calls forgotten "Oxbow Lakes Of Urbanity", is little different from hanging around in Leicester's subway system, after all.

[7.]:  John Rogers (Dir.), 'Inside Deep Library', London, 2007

Time Tunnels 2

…Being the second installment of a meditation on subways and underpasses.

These subways are a major draw for me at the moment.  It seems to be the case that certain (often, seemingly insignificant or mundane) corners of the city can suddenly acquire a particular resonance for me, as if seen in a new light.  The specific location depicted here certainly fits that bill, being a small portion of Leicester of which I’ve been aware for many years, but which I’m currently relishing, as though encountering it for the first time on each of my recent visits with bicycle and camera.

A recent Quietus piece focuses on the parallels between comic book Magus, Alan Moore, and modern Psychogeography’s presiding literary genius, Iain Sinclair.  It seems to point towards a particular way of looking and reading cities to which I would generally subscribe.  In it, Moore states,

“…it was the the remarkable quality of Iain’s writing that blew me away as much as the concepts he was utilising; it was his approach to language itself; this incredible intellectual density, which I think a lot of people find off-putting at first, but the richness, that Iain can bring to a crack in the pavement.” [1.].

And later, speaking of his own ‘Jerusalem’ [2.],

“…it’s a work that is not just focused on Northampton but on the half a square mile of Northampton in which I grew up, and is approaching half a million words, and I can imagine that my next book will be a million words and focused entirely on one paving slab…” [3.].

In my previous post on the subway theme, I embarked on a somewhat woolly reflection on the socio-historical significance of such sites, before concluding that, once the theories are all stripped away, my core response to is as much subjective or poetic as conceptual.  In reality, I think what I really want is for the spontaneous recognition of some resonance of place to coexist on equal terms with the subsequent possible associations and theories that may adhere to it.  It’s a kind of internal/external or micro/macro perception of the world around me, I guess, and some kind of justification for the way my own lens keeps focusing in, somewhat obsessively, on the grimy details and eloquent patinas of the places I document.  I certainly can’t claim to be working on the same elevated plane as Sinclair and Moore, and certainly lack their intellectual rigor, store of acquired knowledge, or research skills, but Moore’s references to ”A crack in the pavement” and “One paving slab”, certainly strike a chord with me.

Anyway, I’ll devote the rest of this post to exploring what exactly excites me so much about one shabby little spot in Leicester.

This particular place is a combination of pedestrian subways and road underpass beneath Leicester’s St Margaret’s Way.  It’s actually a few yards from another favourite haunt, shown on here more than once, where that main artery is borne over the River Soar.  However, here, it’s Friday Street that passes beneath, - a relatively quiet, slightly eerie thoroughfare, linking one drab warren of industrial units with a more varied, but hardly less glamorous zone to the east, where numerous businesses occupy premises varying from the contemporary shed, to larger, crumbling edifices from Leicester’s industrial heyday.  It thus forms an important link in exactly the kind of overlooked ‘Interzone’ [4.] that regularly captures my imagination.

I love the way the excavation creates a small pocket of resonant underworld that most people are oblivious to as they soar above it on the dual carriageway.  Like many towns that experienced significant post-war redevelopment, Leicester has numerous examples where such newly swollen roads were driven through pre-existing street plans, often creating intriguing non-places and a sense of truncated communities where established neighbourhoods were bisected.  A disheveled metallic plaque commemorates the opening of the subways in 1971 and the site seems to symbolise the way that the planners of that age envisaged an environment in which pedestrian access was deliberately separated out from motor transport, whilst unquestioningly assuming the new primacy of the car in modern towns.

On a more immediate level, however, what I really respond to is the opportunity to literally scratch beneath the surface of the city, and to experience a dynamic, sensory environment rendered as a deterministic physical statement.  Such places only really resemble themselves, and there are a whole set of instinctive responses often pertaining to them.  For me these include a distinct thrill at the hard angled edges and monumentally functional architecture of sculpted concrete.  It’s almost like a kind of bold Land Art in which dramatic topographical interventions are made in order to find out what it feels like to traverse this passage, descend beneath that level or pass between those high, overbearing walls.

Seen through unjaded eyes, there is actually a sense of a vaguely futuristic playground about it all and, as with all good ones, a touch of implied jeopardy lies at the core of its appeal.  There’s a palpable edge of claustrophobia as one descends beneath ground level, and our hard-wired unease at entering the unknown is magnified by the broken sight lines created amidst 180-degree switchback ramps.  Only having emerged at right angles into the underpass proper does one really get a view of what lies in wait and the light flooding in at each end. 

Friday Street and its accompanying footpath perform a short, parabolic swoop through what is effectively a tunnel of corrugated concrete walls and a ceiling formed by the underside of the main road.  It would be disingenuous to pretend that some of my attraction to this place isn’t partly due to my child-like enjoyment of navigating it by bike.  The ramps and changes in grade and direction provide a mild technical riding challenge and some scope to go ‘wheeeee!’ once the brakes are released.  Consequently, I’ve deliberately built this place into my route on those days when I cycle to and from work.

Like all such places, acoustic qualities contribute massively to its impact on the visitor.  Indeed, the relative paucity of traffic on Friday Street mean that one can really appreciate the sonic spaces between each sound event that emanates from both above and below, before reverberating from the surrounding concrete.  I’m also struck by that slight sense of mistrust one always has of those travellers in less frequented thoroughfares.  Often, the quieter places are the most forbidding in cities, as one speculates on exactly what brings those occasional visitors that are in evidence, to them, [5.].

Illumination is another important element in my apprehension of this place.  This is most obviously experienced in the juxtaposition of the shadowy netherworld of the underpass and the daylight flooding in from either end.  As ever, a little time spent in such places reveals that they are not, as often thought, dead, grey environments, but that the concrete can both absorb and reflect light in a number of intriguing ways specific to itself.  To this is added the dramatic reflections that can bounce from puddles of standing water after heavy rain [6.].  Inevitably, the whole place also takes on a completely distinct quality after dark when greyish concrete is lit up by the alien, (and potentially alienating), glow of yellowish public lighting.

As so often witnessed in such portions of under-maintained infrastructure, the intermittent flickering of faulty lighting creates a deliciously unbalanced quality.  I’m always reminded how often David Lynch has used that particular effect in his films to suggest moments of psychic fracture or unidentified threat.  Whilst we’re on with sinister motifs, it’s impossible to ignore the bulbous spiders eagerly devouring their prey from webs they construct in the illuminated halo around each light unit, (another Lynchian device, I now realise).

In terms of illumination, my favourite time to visit is twilight, when the juxtaposition is most dramatic between the artificial light from within the little subterranean complex, and the increasingly blue light infiltrating from beyond.  There are usually a few magic minutes when I can force my hand-held exposures far enough to capture a few elusive and distinctly hyper-real images.  I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy the wholly fictitious, fiery glow resulting from my camera’s struggle with its White Balance in such situations.

There is one other affecting way in which light and colour manifest themselves in the subways, namely through the rather startling sky blue tiles cladding the walls of the ramps.  Although stained and regularly augmented by tags, these retain a kind of tired beauty, particularly when reflections are caught by their still glossy surfaces.  The grouting between has also absorbed a sporadic polychromatic residue where graffiti has been removed from the impermeable tiles themselves.  I find something poignant in this slightly tawdry attempt to beautify an otherwise functional environment on the part of the architects, and their faith in the quality of tough, hard-edged materials to do so.  It may have all been fairly pragmatic in construction, but it still hints at a now faded belief in the wholly rational ideals of Modernism to create a better world.

In an age when the only justification for any new contribution to the built environment is the bottom line, such idealism, however misplaced, actually seems rather quaint.  There’s no doubt this idea of a failed Utopian vision exerts a powerful hold over my imagination in such places.  It is, after all, a world into which I was born, and yet one in which once-lofty ideals only engendered a seeming alienation that has become, largely, just taken as read by subsequent generations.

All Images:  St Margarets Way, Leicester, April. July & August 2014

[1.], [3.]:  Nick Talbot, ‘”A Funny Kind Of Relationship” Alan Moore On Iain Sinclair’, (A Quietus Interview), www.thequietus.com, 7 June 2014.

[2.]:  Alan Moore, ‘Jerusalem’, (A sprawling novel about Northampton.  Still, as yet unpublished, - as far as I can ascertain).

[4.]:  I can’t claim ownership of this particular term.  William Burrows, Joy Division and Will Self have all employed it at different points, to my knowledge.  My own fascination is often as much with the kind of liminal zones of connecting vacancy or supposed insignificance that often lie well within city boundaries, as with the more peripheral locations with which it is often associated.

[5.]:  I can only speculate about how suspicious I myself might look to others, lurking around under there with my camera.

[6.]:  In fact, although it’s a nominally dry environment, water plays a distinct part in my impressions here, be it the sinister greenish ooze extending across the footpath from a manhole at the foot of one subway ramp, or the spontaneous, slightly alarming spring witnessed spurting from between two sections of the underpass wall after a recent deluge.