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Psychogeography Workshop on May 26th

On May 26th I am going to be running a psychogeography workshop at the Artist Residence Hotel in Brighton. This will be part of the Different Ways of Seeing series being run by resident artist Kate Shields. Previous events have centered around life drawing (see here, here and here) but the May sessions are a little different. May 12th sees a Introduction to Automatic Drawing and on the 26th I will be running an event on Psychogeography:

Psychogeography is a way of looking at cities to see the magical and the surprising in familiar places. Following a brief introduction, this workshop will feature a number of creative experiments. Whether you’re an artist, poet, writer or just a pedestrian, learn to see Brighton in a new way.

I'm really looking forward to this workshop, as it's going to be very different to any I've done before. Tickets are £5 and are available here. If you'd like more information about psychogeography my site has an introductory PDF.

3 problems I have with the ‘New Aesthetic’

My post yesterday about the New Aesthetic was positive – I don't like being snarky on my weblog. But, after speaking to my housemate, I thought I should list a few issues that I have. I'm not saying these are novel or particularly inciteful, but they may be of interest.

Note that I've not spent a great deal of time looking for evidence to back-up or refute these issues. They are simply some misgivings I had while researching yesterday's post. It may be best to look at them as comments on my response rather than the 'New Aesthetic' itself.

1 - There is something elitist about the New Aesthetic. It's almost always unintentional, but it is there. Re-reading Sterling's essay, there is a constant separation of people into those who will get it and those who won't. His essay is explicitly aimed at "you" – "the people who marinate themselves in 5,000-word critical exegeses about contemporary aesthetics" – not the ones who get distracted by tumblrs. He talks about "attempted imposition on the public" of the term.

There is something interesting about the way 'you' and 'we' are used when talking about this New Aesthetic. I loved James Bridle's talk, We Fell In Love In a Coded Space. However, at one moment, he shows some graphs, and says that 'we all know what this is'. Who is the 'we'? I certainly didn't recognise the image, and also had to google Kevin Slavin. While a talk is aimed at a physical audience, watching on video the question of who 'we' were was more pointed. Who is the New Aesthetic for? Who does it belong to? (UPDATE – see below)

Also, most of the articles I've read seemed to focus as much on the personalities as the aesthetic. In addition, Sterling's essay seemed somehow paternalistic – there is something odd about how the 'Viridian pope' sets out to canonise Bridle as the "Andre Breton-style Pope of the New Aesthetic".

2 - Something Sterling points out is the risk of anthropomorphising technology. Are the machines and spambots really our friends? How do the politics of the New Aesthetic respond to surveillance culture, and Britain's export of it? What does the New Aesthetic mean for people with less access to technology? It's a fairly obvious point – I'm sure that the politics of the New Aesthetic have already been discussed and will be in the future. (UPDATE – see below)

3 – Most important, what is the New Aesthetic for? The term groups together some interesting things, but people like Kenneth Goldsmith have been exploring these areas for some time. The New Aesthetic will ultimately be judged in how good a tool it is – what can we do with it?

One last issue I have: should the term New Aesthetic be capitalised? In quotation? Maybe I should use a monospace font? To avoid any further risk of faux-pas, I'll stop now.

UPDATE (11/4/12) – Adam Rothstein has written about the politics of the New Aesthetic, with a response by James Bridle here: "I’m disappointed that the politics of NA… have not been so evident that those interested should think they have to start that “module” from scratch"

Also, the Kevin Slavin graph that Bridle refers to in his Lift talk was featured in Slavin's talk at Lift, so it is fair to expect the physical audience to recognise the image.

The New Aesthetic and (Uncreative) Writing

I’ve been seeing references to the ‘New Aesthetic’ for a while but never really understood the term. A rainy Bank Holiday Monday seemed a good time to try and understand what this is all about.

Following a recent panel discussion at South-by-Southwest, Bruce Sterling wrote An Essay on the New Aesthetic. Much of this feels as if Sterling is declaring that he, for one, welcomes our New Aesthetic overlords. There’s a slightly bullying tone to the article, an us-and-them separation which occurred in several pieces I've read about the New Aesthetic.

It is 5 paragraphs before Sterling attempts a definition: “The New Aesthetic is image-processing for British media designers”, apparently. Sterling sees this as an art movement, referring to Cubism, Impressionism, Constructivism and Futurism. "This is one of those moments when the art world sidles over toward a visual technology and tries to get all metaphysical. This is the attempted imposition on the public of a new way of perceiving reality," one that "concerns itself with 'an eruption of the digital into the physical'"

Sterling’s essay left me bemused. He seems more interested in the New Aesthetic as a movement than a category, which seems to be a common trope. But I didn’t want to dismiss this (after all, it took me weeks to decide that deconstruction wasn’t just clever pedantry). New things often take time to grasp. But it’s hard to find a clear description of the New Aesthetic – it is too new or else judged to be too insignificant for a wikipedia page.

The New Aesthetic is often defined by its strong visual element, as demonstrated on the Official Tumblr Feed. This visual style is summarised by Damien G Walter as "glitches and corruption artefacts in digital objects, render ghosts, satellite views, retro 80′s graphics" (the New Aethetic's love of 'retro 80's graphics' has prompted an interesting response by Dan Catt).

There is no recording availble online from the SXSW panel, although there are some good summaries. James Bridle, the panel's chair, writes: "One of the core themes of the New Aesthetic has been our collaboration with technology, whether that’s bots, digital cameras or satellites (and whether that collaboration is conscious or unconscious), and a useful visual shorthand for that collaboration has been glitchy and pixelated imagery, a way of seeing that seems to reveal a blurring between “the real” and “the digital”, the physical and the virtual, the human and the machine". Bridle's related talk at the Lift Conference, We Fell in Love in a Coded Space is well worth the 20 minutes it takes to watch.

But the article that really persuaded me about the New Aesthetic was one by Russell Davies, another of the SXSW panellists: SXSW, the new aesthetic and writing. Starting from a simple typo on a printed notice, Davies goes on to say that "lots of what's great about reading and writing is the direct connection between reader and author, but what's exciting me at the moment is the idea that there's a third party in there too – machines, software, bots".

And it’s in the world of writing where this makes most sense to me. Writing is always mediated by some sort of technology, and different technologies have different effects. The poet Kenneth Goldsmith stated that, with the Internet, writing had met its photography, that the effect of being able to publish, distribute and generate text on such a scale would have as significant an effect on writing as photography did on painting.

Goldsmith responded to these issues, among others, in his book Uncreative Writing. One can see many other bizarre and fasinating examples of what modern technology does to writing. The company Narrative Science are working on software to automatically write news stories. Realtime website analysis is leading to media companies such as Gawker and the Mail Online optimising their stories to most efficiently produce advertising revenue, with fascinating effects on their style and content. There are content farms automatically producing ebooks and selling them on amazon. Recently Google Ngram was used to spot anachronistic language in Downton Abbey (what happens when word-processors add real-time detection of such things?). And then there is robo-poetics, poetry written by software to be read by software. Writing is becoming stranger than ever.

I don't know if all of the examples above fit within the New Aesthetic (is there an inspection council? A grading system of some type?). The issues questioned by the New Aesthetic are obviously not new, but it's good that those things have a name, and thus a means to collect and analyse them.

UPDATE: I've written a brief follow-up

Photos of the ‘Beatles Ashram’ in Rishikesh

In 1968 The Beatles went to India to study at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh. While there, the Beatles wrote much of the White Album: 'Dear Prudence' was written to coax Prudence Farrow out of her meditative seclusion; 'Bungalow Bill' was apparently inspired by the son of an American visitor who went tiger-hunting; 'Mother Nature's Son' (and the unreleased 'Child of Nature') were based on a lecture by the Maharishi; and 'Why Don't We Do it In the Road' was written by Paul McCartney, inspired by the carefree mating of some monkeys in the ashram.

Lennon and Harrison stayed for a couple of months, leaving after a disagreement with the Maharishi, probably arising from accusations of sexual impropriety. The falling-out is referred to in the song 'Sexy Sadie'. It was originally titled 'Maharishi' but changed either to avoid libel or at Harrison's request. There is apparently a vicious outtake full of obscenities aimed at the Maharishi.

The ashram's land was rented from the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department. The site is 14 acres and features a couple of large buildings, various smaller structures and dozens of egg-shaped two storey stone huts. Starr later compared the ashram to "a kind of spiritual Butlins". In 1997 the site was returned to the Forest Department and left to grow wild. The buildings are slowly falling into ruin. There is some footage of the site in its prime on an old Pathe newsreel.

Officially the grounds are out-of-bounds and signs on the gates read 'No Entry'. But it's fairly common knowledge that a 50 rupee payment to the guards will get you access. There are also guided tours available but I didn't manage to organise one in the time available.

While there are no traces of the Beatles themselves, the ashram has an amazing atmosphere. I love ruins and this site is incredibly atmospheric, with lots of stairways and long, dark corridors. I have an over-active imagination and would probably have had a heart attack if anyone had jumped out at me. I waited until returning with my friends Emily and Caspar before exploring some sections.

As you can see from Johnny Vagabond's photos, the old yoga center shown below is regularly repainted.

All around the site were small two-storey huts. In one was writter the words 'John Lennon was here', but I suspect that graffiti was not original. The huts were small but cosy, and I'm surprised no-one has tried to turn the site into a hotel.

There were two large buildings with egg-like structures on the top. These were the most interesting part of the trip with the roof reached by some spooky stairways (to see the graffiti better click on the photo to load a larger version):

There are ladders on the side of the 'eggs' which lead to a hole in the top. Inside the top half of the egg is a chamber. People were chanting inside one of them when we passed.

I loved visiting this place. On my second visit with Emily and Caspar there were more tourists around, and many of them were hanging out on the roof. It was a fantastic atmosphere.

How not to have a dull life

I love non-fiction books that are written about a very specific area yet have something to say about life in general. A good example is Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn. It's about how buildings adapt after they're built, but has a lot to say about things like the importance of maintenance versus repair. Another example is Keith Johnstone's Impro. Subtitled 'Improvisation and the theatre', Johnstone also takes the opportunity to discuss the influence of his art on his life.

I discovered the book through Michael Coveney's biography of Ken Campbell, The Great Caper. Coveney describes a bizarre weekend course inspired by Johnstone's Impro and the Dice Man that Campbell put on during a period of "volative personal life". A quote from Impro led me to buying the book and I was not disappointed.

Johnstone writes in great detail about acting but he is never overly technical or boring. He also makes some curious and fascinating asides. My favourite comes during a discussion of blocking in improvised scenes. Johnstone describes how many actors 'close down' a scene, ignoring the possibilities introduced by other players, giving detailed examples of actors blocking the 'offers' they receive. He then concludes:

"People with dull lives often think that their lives are dull by chance. In reality everyone chooses more or less what kind of events will happen to them by their conscious patterns of blocking and yielding. A student objected to this view by saying, ‘But you don’t choose your life. Sometimes you are at the mercy of people who push you around.’ I said, ‘Do you avoid such people?’ ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I see what you mean."

It's a single paragraph at the end of the discussion but a thought-provoking one. Johnstone suggests that life itself can be seen as an improvisational game. Having an interesting life is not something that happens by chance, but a skill that can be learned.

A strange job

The photograph above shows a tank near the Jodh Bai palace in Fatepur Sikri. A group of men were sat in the sun and, when they saw me, shouted that they would jump into the water for 150 rupees (£2). I declined. Later, a group of tourists gathered and one of them did leap into the water. I don't know how they collected the man collected his fee, or if they did. It seemed like a strange way to make a living (but I also saw much worse jobs in India).

A day-trip to Agra

Often the major tourist destinations in a city are less interesting than some of the more obscure places. On my first trip to Agra I visited the Taj Mahal and found it slightly underwhelming. The Taj is beautiful, but somehow the experience of being at one of the world's great tourist attractions overwhelms the location's glory. (I wonder what it was like to visit the Taj Mahal in the 50s when Allen Ginsberg could sleep overnight in the compound?)

On my second trip to Agra I went on a Friday, when the Taj was closed. Instead my destination was Fatepur Sikri, a ruined city about 30km away. This was founded as the capital of the Mughal Empire in the 16th century but was soon abandoned due to water shortages. We took the early train from Delhi and hired a driver from the state tourist office. We had chai then set off for the main site.

The buildings are truly incredible, although there are some very hardworking touts. Even the most persistent of them couldn't detract from the amazing buildings. Below is the gateway to the Jama Masjid:

Behind the main palace was the Caravanserai where visiting merchants stayed. It was an evocative location, impossible not to imagine the people who might have gathered there. Behind the Caravanserai is the lighthouse-like Hiran Minar. This is said to be a monument to the Emporer Akbar's favourite execution elephant and is decorated with hundreds of stone elephant tusks.

Fatepur Sikri was an incredible place to visit, yet there were very few tourists there. On the way back we visited some other locations, including Akbar's Mauseoleum:

Near sunset we went to the Mehtab Bagh gardens, across the Yamuna river from the Taj. There is a small, free viewing area nearby but we paid to enter the gardens for a respite from the touts. Between the gardens and the riverbank is a muddy no-man's land. One tourist had found their way onto it and we watched a Ballardian scene as they were intercepted by guards and led back to the road.

Climbing in Hampi

I had an enjoyable small adventure while I was in Hampi. Dad and I were exploring the Royal Center and saw some temples on a hill in the distance. We followed a path into some scrubland to get a better look when we realised a guard was following us.

We expected to be told that we had to turn back. Instead the guard said he had to check some temples and did we want to join him? He led us through a gap in the barbed wire fence and up into the hills nearby.

(Yes, I was wearing a hoodie in the desert. It keeps the sun off)

We were led towards a group of buildings among some rocks. Up on the hill it was incredibly quiet – cars are banned from the heritage areas of Hampi, making it very peaceful. Dad waited in the shade of a large boulder and I headed for the temples.

I'm not much of a climber so the section below was quite a challenge. The man I was following told me to take my DMs off as I'd get better grip in bare feet. With his help I managed to scramble up onto the top of the hill.

I wasn't sure about the climbing (I suspect my insurance didn't cover me for such escapades), but I was glad I took the chance. The views from the top of the rock were incredible. Now I'm back in Brighton there's a part of me that would love to be in Hampi instead.

Hampi

One of my favourite places on my trip to India was Hampi. This village lies within the site of a city destroyed in the 16th century by an invading army. Temples and ruins are scattered throughout the surrounding landscape.

The area is also supposed to have been Kishkinda, the monkey kingdom of the Ramayana, where Lord Hanuman was recruited to help Ram (the Ramayana is brilliantly re-told in the free-to-view/download animation Sita Sings the Blues). Legend says that the rocks and boulders in the landscape were placed by the monkey warriors flinging them in tests of strength. Dad and I spent a few days in Hampi, but I could have happily spent a week there.

I went on one of the most amazing hikes of my life in this countryside, trying to reach a temple that is reputed to be Hanuman's birthplace. We had to cross the river twice – first with the standard 20 rupee ferry crossing near the ruins of the new bridge. The Lonely Planet states that the bridge "mysteriously collapsed, taking away with it all hopes of cycling across" Which I guess works out well for the ferrymen.

The second crossing was made on the way back, when we were a little lost. We found someone with a group of coracles, who took full advantage of the fact we were lost and tired when negotiating. The fact that the river was only about 50 feet wide made no difference. It's hard to negotiate when you're on the wrong side of a river.

The aim of our walk was the Hanuman temple at the top of Anjanadri Hill. Reached by a 570-step climb, this is reputed to be Hanuman's birthplace. The hike took us through beautiful countryside and while we were never truly lost, we always had that pleasant feeling of not being quite sure where we were.

Apparently, in the 90's Hampi only had four guesthouses, and hippies used to sleep in the caves. Now there are a lot of guesthouses and restaurants. One of these (whose menu announced 'Fell Like Home') had a number of dishes containing 'Huhn'. When I asked what this was, the waiter said "Chicken, but we don't have any." All meat is banned from Hampi for religious reasons, and I appeared to have found myself in a possible meateasy.

A beautiful article about programming for non-programmers

While I was on holiday, I had a conversation with my friend Emily about programming. She's not a particularly technical person and felt overwhelmed by the things she didn't know about computers. She could use them but she didn't understand them.

While computers are embedded in everyday Western life, most people don't know how to program. I guess it's a manifestation of the two cultures problem. When I was studying for my BSc in Theoretical Physics at Sussex there was an Arts/Science programme. 5% of science degrees were assessed on a pair of arts courses. I was told that a similar Science/Arts programme had never got off the ground because the humanities departments were so resistant.

Personally, I think that an understanding of ideas like evolution and the big bang, basic statistics knowledge and a concept of how a computer works are as important as knowing the story of Hamlet, familiarity with canonical poems such as Ozymandius and Dulce and Decorum Est or a working knowledge of English history. I don't expect everyone to be able to program, but everyone should know enough that they feel they could if they needed to.

Apparently Slate allow their writers a month each year to work on an ambitious project. Annie Lowrie used this opportunity to learn to program, resulting in Where's _why an amazing article about programming, which threads together the story of _why the lucky stiff with a discussion of an non-programmer's first steps in programming.

You may not want to become a programmer, but the article is worth reading. One particular quote from _why sums up the sort of excitement I felt when I first compiled a C program: "[Programming] will teach you to express your ideas through a computer. You will be writing stories for a machine … All you need to know thus far is that Ruby is basically built from sentences. They aren’t exactly English sentences. They are short collections of words and punctuation [that] encompass a single thought. These sentences can form books. They can form pages. They can form entire novels, when strung together. Novels that can be read by humans, but also by computers.”

Journalism as a trade is in a lot of trouble, as demonstrated by Nick Cohen's excellent book Flat Earth News. At the same time, we are in the midst of a golden age of journalistic writing, as showcased by sites like longform (where I found this article). Annie Lowrie's piece could, I think, stand among the pieces collected in Wolfe's New Journalism collection.