Saturday 28 August 2010

Psychogeographically speaking...

I realised a few years ago after reading several books by Iain Sinclair [ 'London Orbital' and 'Downriver' in particular] that I've always been psychogeographer. I mean by this that wherever I go I'm exploring the feelings that arise in me in response to where I am. This goes beyond the physical experience of the place. I also get synasthetic or psychic sensations that I struggle to put into words, because, I suppose there are no words available for me to use in such a context.



I have had to develop my on private vocabulary. For example, there's what I call 'The Midlands Feeling', 'The Hull Feeling', and 'The Essex Feeling'. The latter I can subdivide into 'The Canvey Feeling', 'The Rayleigh Feeling', ' The Benfleet Feeling' and so on. It's all rather clumsy, I admit, but it is inevitable if one is trying to get beyond the strait jacket imposed by 'normal language' which reflects consensus reality.



Literature, art and music help us out of this strait jacket, when they are doing their job properly. Thus 'Great Expectations' invokes the atmosphere of the Thames Estuary, as does Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. It may surprise many people to find that the area has such a rich and dramatic psychogeoraphy. Manichean forces swirl about at dusk. The woods and scrubs harbour Witches and the Black Dog, a complex geometry of ley lines channels punches into the landscape like acupuncture needles.

A recent expression of the energies present is embodied in the volcanic power of Doctor Feelgood. The original members of the band were deeply rooted in the nether lands of Canvey Island; they had to be to avoid being washed away. Geology affects character. Living on a mud bank reclaimed from the sea makes people sensitive to the power of the Moon; it makes them self reliant; it makess them sympathetic to others in similar places. Thus Canveyites [is that the correct term?] are predisposed to feel an affinity with the Dutch and, of course, with the lands of the Mississippi.

1 comment:

John Medd said...

I think that's why we're finally moving from Nottingham to North Yorkshire; for years we've had that North Yorkshire feeling - without knowing it's full potency. The closest comparison is told in Jim Mullen's (that's the author, not the guitarist) Village Idiot.