Category: Psychogeography

Film, Landscape, Psychogeography, Uncategorized

All The Lonely People: Chantal Akerman’s Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)

Chantal Akerman’s first series of features in the 1970s have one defining aspect in common: all are suffused with loneliness. In her first fiction feature, Je Tu Il Elle (1974), a character wanders between lovers old and new but is always confused as to what she really wants. In Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels (1975), we follow a woman trapped in the monotony of … Continue reading All The Lonely People: Chantal Akerman’s Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)

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Film, Landscape, Literature, Psychogeography

Echoes & Imprints: Towards A Sebaldian Cinema

This is an edited transcript of a talk given at Norwich Castle on Tuesday the 27th of August 2019. Detail has been edited, aspects taken out and points clarified from the original talk. My thanks to Dr. Nick Warr and Philippa Comber in particular for the help and information given both before and after the talk. Introduction Considering the wealth of imagery on the walls … Continue reading Echoes & Imprints: Towards A Sebaldian Cinema

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Psychogeography, Uncategorized

And I Miss You… The Nostalgic Womb of Tracey Thorn’s Voice

A strange act of temporal travel occurs for me when hearing the voice of Tracey Thorn. Thanks to exposure at an impressionably young age to two songs which feature her voice, her soft tones still to this day have an overly powerful effect on me. For the most part, this power is melancholic, for it reminds that the home life which surrounded my childhood self … Continue reading And I Miss You… The Nostalgic Womb of Tracey Thorn’s Voice

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Literature, Psychogeography, Uncategorized

Georges Perec’s Les Lieux d’Une Fugue (1978)

When Georges Perec was 11, he decided to wander. In fact, escape is perhaps a better way of describing it; a jailbreak from his Aunt’s house in Rue de l’Assomption to wander Paris with who knows what planned other than avoiding school. It was such a defining experience for the writer that he later composed a text surrounding the feelings and places he encountered on … Continue reading Georges Perec’s Les Lieux d’Une Fugue (1978)

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Film, Psychogeography, Uncategorized

Cartographic Time In Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont Du Nord

In 1946, Jorge Luis Borges published the micro-short story, On Exactitude In Science. The piece is a fictionalised fragment, supposedly taken from Viajes de varones prudentes, Libro IV, Cap. XLV, Lérida, (1658) written by the equally fictional Suárez Miranda. The piece addresses the role of perception in cartography, relying on the irony of mapmakers attempting to make a 1:1 scale map of a place; the … Continue reading Cartographic Time In Jacques Rivette’s Le Pont Du Nord

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Literature, Psychogeography, Uncategorized

Phantom Coincidence in W.G. Sebald’s “Remembered Triptych…”

I was sat on a couch in Strasbourg reading essays by Teju Cole, the volume Known And Strange Things published quite recently by Faber and Faber. It was night and I was alone, glancing up occasionally, as I often do when in my partner’s flat, to stare at the city’s famous cathedral lit up at night. I was at the point of the book when Cole … Continue reading Phantom Coincidence in W.G. Sebald’s “Remembered Triptych…”

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Literature, Psychogeography, Uncategorized

A Wander With Georges Perec

What can Georges Perec see out of the window? He’s sat as usual in Café de la Mairie, 8 place Saint-Sulpice in the 6th arrondissment, lodged at his single table by the window looking out. The Latin Quarter is passing by outside as always; it never really stops, merely lulls. On his small, plastic coated table, he has a pad and pencil bought from a … Continue reading A Wander With Georges Perec

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Literature, Psychogeography, Uncategorized

Wanders: Angela Carter’s House

“The notion that one day the red dawn will indeed break over Clapham,” wrote Angela Carter in a letter to Lorna Sage, “is the one thing that keeps me going.”  From having read several of Carter’s works over the years, all of which have had a variety of profound effects upon my own writing, her relationship to London has since intrigued me.  When first on the train … Continue reading Wanders: Angela Carter’s House

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Landscape, Literature, Psychogeography, Short Film, Uncategorized

Short Film – Greenteeth

Above is Greenteeth, my film adaptation of the short story by Gary Budden which can be read in his upcoming volume of short stories.  It is currently up for a fantasy award and follows the pressures on a young woman in a struggling part of north London whose social worries begin manifest in more folkloric ways through the legend of Jenny Greenteeth.  The film came … Continue reading Short Film – Greenteeth

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