A New Way of Walking

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Psychogeography encourages us to buck the rut, to follow some new logic that lets us experience our landscape anew, that forces us to truly see what we'd otherwise ignore. "Chance and randomness," says Ray, "are what's exciting." (The Web site of Ray's art group, Glowlab -- www.glowlab.blogs.com -- is a great source of information on psychogeographic happenings.)

For Dave Mandl, a photographer and avid psychogeographer who attended the Conflux, this transformative power lies at the heart of what makes psychogeography worthwhile. "When you remake your environment, or find wonderful things in it," he says, "it breaks you out of the machine."

The word psychogeography was coined in the late 1950s by the letterists and the situationists -- French artists and social theorists who adopted the playful-serious agenda of the dadaists and surrealists in an effort to break through the crust of postwar conformity. But modern psychogeographers are equally influenced by earlier strains of urban adventure, including the 19th-century concept of the flaneur, the idle man-about-town who observed and commented on the urban scene. The most flaneur-like style of psychogeography, of course, is algorithmic walking -- that "first right, second left" approach. I first experienced it last year, shortly after I first discovered Ray's projects online.

I'm a fan of urban history and adventure and am happiest poking around in the city's blind alleys, forgotten haunts, and dusty corners -- physical and historical. So "generative psychogeography" made sense in light of what I know to be true about the city: Surprises lurk around every corner. In practice, algorithmic walking proved even more interesting and just plain fun than I had expected when I tried it with a group of writer and artist friends.

We chose Albert Lea, Minnesota, for our walk. It's a small town on a lake not far from the Twin Cities, and I had never spent much time in it. We began in the downtown area with our algorithm: first left, second right, first right, repeat. We also decided that if we ran into a dead end, we would turn around and restart the algorithm. At the end of the first leg of our journey, we found ourselves outside the Masonic temple -- and at a dead end. Left to my own devices, I would have headed down toward the lake and a pleasant swath of green grass that I spied through the buildings. Instead, we dutifully followed the algorithm: made a U-turn, and soon found ourselves creeping down a dusty alley toward a busy four-lane highway.

I'll admit I had some doubts about the wisdom of our walk as we hustled, heads down, through the stream of traffic. But after we had made it across, the algorithm proved itself. On a semi-deserted dead-end street we discovered a massive fiberglass statue of a farmer, complete with seed cap, neckerchief, and overalls. Surprise! A little further on, past some elegant gang graffiti and a crowded swap meet, we stumbled upon another surprise -- a set of square concrete lane dividers painted all over with ornate Nordic runes. Six or seven of them were positioned in an empty warehouse parking lot, each slathered with bright paint depicting primitive masks, warrior figures, and cryptic hieroglyphics.

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