The article, “Psychogeography: A Purposeful Drift Through the City”, discusses psychogeography and the flaneur in relation to art. Psychogeography can be explained as the examination of effects of geographical location on individuals emotions and behaviors. Psychogeography can also be seen as an alternative way of reading or mapping a city. Flaneaur is a term used to describe someone who is familiar with their geographical location and frequents its streets with no urgency. Both of these concepts are portrayed within art throughout history.
An artist I remember from the Modern Art history course who dealt with themes of the flaneur is Edgar Degas. Although it is not compositionally similar to the way psychogeography cuts up city-space, his piece Place de la Concorde highlights the passing by of the flaneur. Another artist who’s style reflects the visual, organizational aspect of psychogeography is Mark Lombardi. I briefly studied him for the Contemporary Art course I am currently taking. The bulk of his work chronicles almost every major political or financial scandal occurring in the mid-1970’s through the early 90’s. He depicted the networks of the actors in each scandal through what he calls “narrative structures”. Tiny circles with names connected through curved line to several other tiny circles with names. I felt that visually, the method of mapping used by Lombardi was extremely similar to those seen in psychogeography.
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