Karl Jung is a Grass: Psychogeography in Liverpool & London

Fancy exploring your city in a completely different way? This weekend, grab your camera and your sketchbook and let artists take you on a psychogeography walk…

When did you last walk around the area that you live in with a camera? When do we really ever consider our own backyards, our lifestyles and our interactions with the city around us?

This was the starting point for a new collaboration with London-based artist Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau and Liverpool-based historian Colin Dilnot. For the last six months, the two have been challenged by The Royal Standard to explore their respective cities and discover new approaches to urban walking as a form of research, to understand Liverpool and the streets that surround us.

The result is a plan to use psychogeography (defined in 1955 by theorist, writer, filmmaker and situationist Guy Debord as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals”) to form an alternative walking tour, discussions, screenings and performance. Today (from 3pm) screenings will include La Société du Spectacle (from Guy Debord’s book of the same name), middle-class set street comedy Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and In the Suburbs, a US 1950s film promoting suburbia as a lifestyle and an extension of the American Dream.

Both Giraudeau and Dilnot will offer an insight into their research as well as comparing and contrasting their approaches to psychogeography, followed by a discussion hosted by Bryan Biggs, creative director of the oldest building in the city centre, The Bluecoat.

On Sunday (3pm start) Dilnot and Giraudeau will be joined by 2010 Liverpool Art Prize winner and peoples’ history artist, David Jacques, and Emma Cummins, an artist and writer inspired by urban environments. Leading small groups to take photographs, notes and sketches, the idea is to form new psychogeographical readings of the areas around Vauxhall Road, Everton, where The Royal Standard is based.

Madeline Hall, Director at The Royal Standard, said: “Its great to work with Matt Giraudeau, back after his residency in 2010. Its been a really interesting collaboration that has produced a really great dynamic. The aim is that this weekend will open up pyschogeography as a form of artistic research to anyone from the Liverpool area who wants to get involved.”

For times and information about today and tomorrow’s events visit The Royal Standard website