psychogeographies

Venice

By pangeafoto August 3, 2008

A gallery from the Psychogeographies series

The camera can be the catalyst for exploring a new and exciting overlap between psychology and geography. The lens has the uncanny ability to articulate how places affect our emotions and how we feel about them at a deep, almost unconscious level. Psychogeography helps me see places in new and unexpected ways; it puts discovery back into the mundane. The idea of roaming - better described by the French word errance – pervades my Psychogeographies series. I cross environments, man-made or natural, following seemingly random path lines. This errance always brings a deep sense of freedom, very much the reason why I do it.

This is the challenge. Get a map of Venice. Cross off every significant sight and monument, which will surely be highlighted on your tourist map. Get a pen and draw an arbitrary route down and across small canals, alleyways and hidden piazzas, taking care to avoid the places that you have just crossed off. Now follow that route. You will discover a place which, like a syncopated living score, ticks at a different pace from that of touristy Venice. Get lost, for that will sharpen your senses. Play football with some local children and try not to kick the ball into the water. Cross a canal precariously standing on a flimsy trajetto; when you get to the other side stay on the boat and go back to where you started. Do it all again. Sit on a square in the Jewish quarter and start a conversation with some locals. Pretend you live in Venice and join the early morning commuters from Lido. Read the local paper, as they do; even if you don’t speak Italian you can still read it. Then you will be able to say that you have been to Venice.

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