Year 3 | Semester 2 | 2014-2015

GEOG3061
Experimental Geographies (Ex-Geog)
Geography & Environment

Facilitators
Dr Bradley Garrett, Unit Convenor (Room 2055, Shackleton Building)
Will Self (Guest Lecturer, Brunel University)
Simon Robinson (Guest Lecturer, University of the Arts London)
Dr Jonathan Prior (Guest Lecturer, Cardiff University)

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON, Geography & Environment

Experimental Geographies

Year 3, Semester 2
2014-2015

GEOG3061: Experimental Geographies (Ex-Geog)

Unit Objectives
Ex-Geog will be a course with an intertwining focus on theory and methodology. As outlined by the aural
geographers Michael Gallagher and Jonathan Prior (2013), experimental geographies are explicit in reenvisioning the geographer not merely as a (critical) bystander, but as an active and creative producer of
space. Further, as the visual geographer Trevor Paglen (2009) outlines, experimental geography [is a]
practices that recognizes that cultural production and the production of space cannot be separated from each
another, and that cultural and intellectual production is a spatial practice. In short, this course is not about
analyzing other peoples creative outputs as much as creating your own. Further, the methods that we will
use in the course will be more-than-textual and, arguably, have a wider range of practical application after
graduation.
In the spirit of multi-sited, multi-modal creative engagement, you will have the ability to submit course
material in a range of critical and creative formats including video, audio and photography. This course will
engage, as Harriet Hawkins (2013) has called for, changing epistemological assumptions regarding places,
and the associated methodological demands for multi-sensuous and affective explorations. Prerequisite for
the course is a desire for participation, for there can be no passive spectators in experimental geographies. It
is in the process of making work together that we learn what it means to do socially engaged creative
research.
We will have three guest lectures in the course. The first will be from Jonathan Prior, a sounds artist and
sonic geographer at Cardiff University. Dr Prior will teach us how and why we listen to, record and share
sound. The second will be from Simon Robinson, a filmmaker from University of the Arts London who is
interested in concepts of place, landscape and edgelands. Simon will walk us through the production of his film
Estuary England, which premiered at Tate Britain in 2014. Finally, we will meet up with psychogeographer
Will Self to take a walk through historic Nicholstown, the old Southampton Red Light District, followed by a
public lecture.
Your independent research project will take place on the on 6th March, roughly halfway through the course.
We will be venturing into an abandoned building on campus, Stoneham House, a Grade II* listed former
manor house and 12-story derelict Brutalist high-rise. You will tell us stories of these spatially marginalized
places, past, present or future, through audio, video or photography. This work will be shared in class and
you will complete the course by writing a short reflective critical essay about your creative work.
At the end of the module, you will be able to:
Use a still camera, video camera and audio recorder on full manual controls.
Understand how audio/visual research tools can be used critically on geographic research projects.
Contribute to current debates about the limits of current research dissemination methods and to think
critically about the future of research outputs.
Understand the significance and debates in geography in regard to non-representational theory and how
these research forms inform those debates.
Critically analyse theory and empirical examples of experimental work through time, where it has
succeeded, where it has failed and what we have learned from it all.
Make your own piece of independent work which will incorporate creative methods broadly.
Appreciate the ways in which geographical theory can help us understand experimental and creative
work and how this work shapes the way we think and act.
Debate current issues around this topic at the cutting edge of technology.
2

Marshal and retrieve information from the library, internet resources and audio/visual material.
Critically evaluate literature about experimental geographies, including inter-disciplinary literature.
Appreciate the role of audio, video and photography in and beyond geography.
Reinforce and enhance debates around how geographies can specifically use these tools to inform
notions of space, place, mobility and place-based creativity.
Understand the history of experimental work in and around geography and how it has changed through
time.

Timetable
This unit will run throughout the second semester, meeting once a week on Wednesday from 12-1 in Building
04, Room 4053 for 1-hour lectures and on Fridays in Building 07, Room 3019 from 3-5 for 2-hour making
sessions. Please note that during your independent research project day (6th March 2015) and the walk with
Will Self (1st May 2015), longer hours will be required. We will discuss this at the first lecture. Further, the
module is going to require much experimentation on your own time and my office is open as a practical lab for
creating and editing - making use of it is up to you.
Web Resources
Copies of this document, PowerPoint slides for the unit and selected readings can be found on the relevant
Blackboard site.
Assessment
20% of your mark is participation. Being involved in this class is key. That does not mean you have to be vocal
but you do need to be present and engaged. I have no problem during the making sessions with you going off
on your own and working with things, but I do want everyone in the same room so we can field questions as
they come up and work through ideas together.
50% of your mark on you creative ruin project: a 5-7 minute video, 10-12 minute audio recording or 20-photo
essay to be submitted. This project can be done in a group or alone. You will gather material for this project on
6th March and hand it in by the end of day on 6th May. On the 8th of May, we will watch/listen to everyones
work and have a discussion about it.
30% of your mark will be on a 2000 word essay written as a critical reflection to your creative work. This must
be sole-authored. We will discuss how to write this in class. This essay will be assigned on the 24th April and
needs to be written over week 33, the final week of the course. The essay is due 14th May 2015.

Lecture Outline Semester II 2014-2015

_____________________________________________________________
Week 1, 28 & 30th January 2015
No 3rd year teaching this week
_______________________________________________________________
Week 2 Lecture, 4th February 2015 | Week 2 Making, 6th February 2015
Lecture 1: Introduction to Course, Expectations, etc.
Making 1: Discussion of reading and playing with kit
_______________________________________________________________
Week 3 Lecture, 11th February 2015 | Week 3 Making, 13th February 2015
Lecture 2: Photography as Geographic Method
Making 2: Learning how to make images critically
_______________________________________________________________
Week 4 Lecture, 18th February 2015 | Week 4 Making, 20th February 2015
Lecture 3: Sonic Geographies
Making 3: Listening to sound, making sounds, recording sounds (with Jonathan Prior)
______________________________________________________________
Week 5 Lecture, 25th February 2015 | Week 5 Making, 27th February 2015
Lecture 4: Videographic Geographies
Making 4: Critically analysing and making moving images (with Simon Robinson)
______________________________________________________________
Week 6 Lecture, 4th March 2015 | Week 6 Making, 6th March
Lecture 5: Sorting Digital Rubble Fieldwork Preparation
***Making 5: Fieldwork in an abandoned building (all day)***
_______________________________________________________________
Week 7 & 8, 9th March 17th April
No teaching Please sort through your creative material over the break!
_____________________________________________________________
Week 9 Lecture, 22nd April, 2014 | Week 9 Making, 24th April 2015
Lecture 6: Editing, Audiencing and Publishing
Making 6: Editing Photography, Audio and Video
***Final essay assigned today***
______________________________________________________________
Week 10 Lecture, 29th April, 2015 | Week 10 Making, 1st May 2015
Lecture 7: Technology and the Body
Making 7: Walking with Will Self psychogeography
______________________________________________________________
Week 11 Lecture 6th May | Week 11 Making 8th May
Lecture 8: No lecture this week so you can focus on your creative project.
Making 8: This weeks making will be where you share your project and finalise your essay.
______________________________________________________________
Essays are to be handed in by 14nd May 2015

Background Reading
What we are doing on this course is relatively new ground for geography (we will of course talk about why).
Accordingly, there is not a lot of literature to read (and of course even less video to watch!). Please engage with this
material I will use it in the lectures, alongside creative outputs themselves, and this will help you formulate how you
are going to tackle your own creative project. It will also be key literature in the essay.
ANDERSON, B. (2004). Recorded music and practices of remembering. Social & Cultural Geography 5(1): 3-20.
ANDERSON, J. (2013). Active learning through student film: a case study of cultural geography. Journal of Geography in Higher
Education, 37(3): 385-398.
BAUCH, N. 2010. The Academic Geography Video Genre: A Methodological Examination. Geography Compass, May, 475484.
BROWN, K. M., DILLEY, R. & MARSHALL, K. 2008. Using a head-mounted video camera to understand social worlds and
experiences. Sociological Research Online, 16.
BUTLER, T. (2007). "Memoryscape: how audio walks can deepen our sense of place by integrating art, oral history and cultural
geography." Geography Compass 1(3): 360-372.
CRANG, M. (2009) Visual methods and methodologies. The SAGE handbook of qualitative geography. London: Sage, pp. 208225.
DESILVEY, C., et al. (2013). 21 Stories. Cultural Geographies 21(4): 657-672.
GALLAGHER, M. (2011). Sound, space and power in a primary school. Social and Cultural Geography 12(1): 47-61.
GALLAGHER, M. & PRIOR, J. (2013). Sonic geographies: Exploring phonographic methods. Progress in Human Geography,
38(2): 267-284.
GARRETT, B. L. 2011. Videographic geographies: Using digital video for geographic research. 35, 521-541.
GARRETT, B. L. 2013. Worlds through glass: photography and video as geographic method. In: WARD, K. (ed.) Researching
the City. London: SAGE.
GARRETT, B. L., ROSA, B. & PRIOR, J. 2011. Jute: excavating material and symbolic surfaces. Liminalities: A Journal of
Performance Studies, 7, 1-4.
GARRETT, B & HAWKINS, H. 2014. Creative Video Ethnographies: Video Methodologies of Urban Exploration in Video
Methods: Research in Motion edited by Charlotte Bates.
INGHAM, J., et al. 1999. "Hearing place, making spaces: sonorous geographies, ephemeral rythms, and the Blackburn warehouse
parties." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 17: 283-305.

HAWKINS, H. 2013. For Creative Geographies: Geography, Visual Arts and the Making of Worlds, London, Routledge.
KANNGIESER, A. 2012. A sonic geography of the voice: towards an affective politics, Progress in Human Geography, 36(3): 336353.
LATHAM, A. & MCCORMACK, D. P. 2009. Thinking with images in non-representational cities: vignettes from Berlin.
Area, 41, 252-262.
LAURIER, E. 2009. Editing experience: sharing adventures through home movies. Assembling the Line:
http://www.ericlaurier.co.uk/assembling/resources/Publications/editing_experience.pdf
LAURIER, E. & PHILO, C. 2006. Possible geographies: a passing encounter in a caf:
https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/2301
LORIMER, J. 2010. Moving image methodologies for more-than-human geographies. Cultural Geographies, 17, 237-258.
MATLESS, D. 2010. Sonic geography in a nature region. Social and Cultural Geography 6(5): 745-766.
MERCHANT, S. 2011. The Body and the Senses: Visual Methods, Videography and the Submarine Sensorium. Body & Society,
17, 53-72.
PAGLEN, T. 2009. Experimental geography: From cultural production to the production of space, The Brooklyn Rail: Critical
Perspectives on Arts, Politics, and Culture, New York. http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/03/express/experimentalgeography-from-cultural-production-to-the-production-of-space
RELPH, E. 2007. An inquiry into the relations between phenomenology and geography. The Canadian Geographer / Le
Gographe canadien 14(3): 193-201.
RICHARDSON-NGWENYA, P. E. 2013. Performing a more-than-human material imagination during fieldwork: muddy
boots, diarizing and putting vitalism on video, Cultural Geographies, 21, 293-299.
ROSE, G. 2001. Visual Methodologies. Sage Publications, London.
RYAN, J. 1997. Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
SELF, W. 2012. Walking is Political. The Guardian. London. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/30/will-selfwalking-cities-foot

SELF, W. 2011. Diary, London Review of Books, 33(20): 38-39.

SIMPSON, P. 2011. So, as you can see...: some reflections on the utility of video methodologies in the study of embodied
practices. Area, Early View, 43 (3): 343-352.
SIMPSON, P. 2012. Apprehending everyday rhythms: rhythmanalysis, time-lapse photography, and the space-times of street
performance. Cultural Geographies, 19: 423-445.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON, Geography & Environment

Experimental Geographies

Year 3, Semester 2
2014-2015

Detailed Course Structure

Week 2 Lecture, 4th February 2015

LECTURE 1: Introduction to Course

There are three goals for the first day. The first is to provide you with important information about the aims,
objectives and method of assessment in the course. The second is to find out what kit (photo, video, audio and
software) we have available and what experience people might already have with these tools. The third is to
provide you with a broad background to what constitutes Experimental, Creative and Artful geographies. I will
be assigning you two short key readings on the day:
PAGLEN, T. 2009. Experimental geography: From cultural production to the production of space, The
Brooklyn Rail: Critical Perspectives on Arts, Politics, and Culture, New York. This article can be freely accessed at
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/03/express/experimental-geography-from-cultural-production-to-theproduction-of-space
GARRETT, B and HAWKINS, H. 2014. Creative Video Ethnographies: Video Methodologies of Urban Exploration in
Video Methods: Research in Motion edited by Charlotte Bates (I will hand this out).
The second reading, by Harriet Hawkins and myself, will be more difficult than the first. However, it practically
applies the work of the Paglen. It is essential you do these two readings so that I can gauge how much you know about
the topic as a group when we meet again in two days time.

Questions:
How has text come to dominate academic thought?
What are the benefits and limits of text?
What is experimental about experimental geography?
How do other disciplines approach these methodologies?
Where is this work being undertaken and distributed?
What are the dangers of relying on particular technologies to tell stories?
Week 2 Making, 6th February 2015

MAKING 1: Seminar and Reading and Kit Break Out

In our first 2-hour making session, we will begin by discussing the two readings in a group. In the second
hour, we will break out various bits of kit and talk about how they work and what their limitations are. By the
end of this session, everyone will understand how everything works on a basic level.

Week 3 Lecture, 11th February 2015

LECTURE 2: Photography as Geographic Method

In this lecture we are going to think about making still images, the process of scribing light. We will discuss
how images came to take on a critical capacity in academic work and what role images have played in visual
sociology and visual anthropology. We will also talk about the history of colonialism and exploration in
geography, how it was connected to photography and how this has led to geography never developing a visual
geography subdiscipline. We will then move on to new research utilising images in ways that are not just
illustrative and discuss why this is important. Finally, we will discuss how to critically dissect an image and
how we can apply that critical eye to the process of making. I will show you how I did this in my research with
urban explorers.
I will be assigning you four key readings on the day:
CRANG, M. 2009. Visual methods and methodologies, in The SAGE handbook of qualitative geography. London:
Sage, pp. 208-225.
DESILVEY, C., et al. 2013. 21 Stories. Cultural Geographies 21(4): 657-672.
GARRETT, B. L. 2013. Worlds through glass: photography and video as geographic method. In: WARD, K. (ed.)
Researching the City. London: SAGE.
LATHAM, A. & MCCORMACK, D. P. 2009. Thinking with images in non-representational cities: vignettes from
Berlin. Area, 41, 252-262.
**EXTRA READINGS**
ROSE, G. 2001. Visual Methodologies, Sage Publications, London.
RYAN, J. 1997. Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire. Chicago, Illinois, University
of Chicago Press.
SIMPSON, P. 2012. Apprehending everyday rhythms: rhythmanalysis, time-lapse photography, and the space-times
of street performance. Cultural Geographies, 19: 423-445.

Questions:
What do images do that text cannot?
Do images have a different political life to text?
How has changing camera technology changed how we use images?
What problems can arise from treating images as illustrative?
How do we account for what is outside the frame of an image?
How do images capture movement?
Week 3 Making, 13th February 2015

MAKING 2: Learning how to make images critically

In our second 2-hour making session, we will begin by discussing the readings as a group. In the second hour,
we will work with different types of cameras to capture images and make attempts at using different techniques
such as long exposures and light painting. By the end of this session, everyone will understand how a Digital
Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera works on full manual settings.

Week 4 Lecture, 18th February 2015

LECTURE 3: Sonic Geographies

For this lecture, Dr Jonathan Prior from Cardiff University will be sending us an audio recording, which we
will listen to and discuss (appropriately!). We will then talk about listening, making sound and recording as a
critical practice. I will assign you another group of readings on these creative practices:
ANDERSON, B. (2004). Recorded music and practices of remembering. Social & Cultural Geography 5(1): 3-20.
BUTLER, T. 2007. Memoryscape: how audio walks can deepen our sense of place by integrating art, oral history and
cultural geography. Geography Compass 1(3): 360-372.
GALLAGHER, M. and PRIOR, J. (2013). Sonic geographies: Exploring phonographic methods. Progress in Human
Geography, 38(2): 267-284.
KANNGIESER, A. 2012. A sonic geography of the voice: towards an affective politics, Progress in Human Geography,
36(3): 336-353.
**EXTRA READING**

GALLAGHER, M. 2011. Sound, space and power in a primary school. Social and Cultural Geography
12(1): 47-61.
INGHAM, J., et al. 1999. "Hearing place, making spaces: sonorous geographies, ephemeral rythms, and the
Blackburn warehouse parties." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 17: 283-305.
MATLESS, D. 2010. Sonic geography in a nature region. Social and Cultural Geography 6(5): 745-766.
Questions:
What sorts of geographies does listening open out?
Does recording change listening?
What about listening to a recording?
Given how much learning is about speaking and listening, why is it underconceptualized?
How do sounds inform notions of space, place, mobilities, etc.
Week 2 Making, 20th February 2015

MAKING 3: Listening to Sounds, Making Sounds and Recording Sounds

Dr Prior will be joining us today to listen to sounds, make sounds and record sounds. We can begin by fielding
any questions about the readings, though we will not have a long discussion to enable more time for making
and doing. Dr Prior will lead us with high-quality audio recorders in recording some sounds. We will then
download them and play them back and learn a bit about editing sounds together. By the end of this class, you
will know how to make and edit broadcast-quality sound.
After this making session, I am going to assign you a viewing and reading that will take you no more than 30
minutes in total. It is a film called Jute that I produced with Dr Prior and Dr Brian Rosa at CUNY. Please
watch the film and read the article for the next session. Be prepared to discuss the sonic and videographic
qualities of this geography project:
GARRETT, B. L., ROSA, B. & PRIOR, J. 2011. Jute: excavating material and symbolic surfaces. Liminalities: A
Journal of Performance Studies, 7, 1-4. http://liminalities.net/7-2/jute.pdf The video is available here:
https://vimeo.com/17235930

Week 5 Lecture, 25th February 2015

LECTURE 4: Videographic Geographies

A video is a compilation of still images synced with sound. Accordingly, it is the next step in our
understanding of experimental methods. It is also, arguably, the most difficult to use and the most ridden with
ethical complications. We will talk about the history of film in anthropology and geography today, including
ethnographic films, and think about what constitutes a geographic film. I will outline various forms of filmic
outputs and we will watch clips from Los Angeles Plays Itself, Surveillance Camera Man, Holy Men and Fools,
Survivorman and London. We will then discuss how geographers make films in the context Jute, which should
have watched by this point, and another of my films called Crack the Surface (which I will play in class).
BAUCH, N. 2010. The Academic Geography Video Genre: A Methodological Examination. Geography Compass,
May, 475484.
BROWN, K. M., DILLEY, R. & MARSHALL, K. 2008. Using a head-mounted video camera to understand social
worlds and experiences. Sociological Research Online, 16.
GARRETT, B. L. 2011. Videographic geographies: Using digital video for geographic research. 35, 521-541.
LORIMER, J. 2010. Moving image methodologies for more-than-human geographies. Cultural Geographies, 17, 237258.
RICHARDSON-NGWENYA, P. E. 2013. Performing a more-than-human material imagination during fieldwork:
muddy boots, diarizing and putting vitalism on video, Cultural Geographies, 21, 293-299.
SIMPSON, P. 2011. So, as you can see...: some reflections on the utility of video methodologies in the study of
embodied practices. Area, Early View, 43 (3): 343-352.
**EXTRA READING**
LAURIER, E. & PHILO, C. 2006. Possible geographies: a passing encounter in a caf:
https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/2301

Questions:
What does a geographic film look and sound like?
How does pace and rhythm in film affect a sense of place?
What does a film that foregrounds audio do?
How can editing be used and abused?
What are some ethical difficulties unique to filmmaking?
How do we made academic outputs on video?
Week 5 Making, 27th February 2015

MAKING 4: Critically Analysing and Making Moving Images

We are going to be joined this session by Simon Robinson, a filmmaker from University of the Arts London
who is interested in concepts of place, landscape and edgelands. Simon will walk us through the production of
his film Estuary England (https://vimeo.com/109749457) and contextualise it with some of the other things we
have watched and more. He will then assist us as we deploy video cameras and learn how to record moving
images. As with the audio recordings, we will return the classroom with about 30 minutes left in the session to
download a few clips and edit them together in Adobe Premiere. By the end of the session, you should feel
confortable recording high-quality moving images with high-quality sound. We will bulk up our editing skills in
further in making 6.

Week 6 Lecture, 4th March 2015

LECTURE 5: Sorting Digital Rubble: Fieldwork Preparation

In the last 3 lectures, we have covered an wide range of material. In this lecture, we are going to slow down a
bit and sort through what we have done. However, we will continue to do so with a critical eye as we think
about the ethics and aesthetics of editing sorting and organising media material. We are also going to talk
about accessing archival material and how to organize and use it. In the second half of the lecture, we are going
to prepare for our fieldwork with equipment checklists and plans. Your assignment today is to do reading and
collect material about Stoneham House, our field location. You can start here and work your way out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Stoneham_House
I would suggest you access the university library for photos, videos and sound files that may be helpful or
relevant. You will have more time to do this over the Easter break.
Questions:
How can we find audio/visual material about his site?
How can we use that material to work through multiple layers of history?
Will you choose audio, video or photography or a combination of methods to tell this story?
Week 6 Making, 6th March 2015

MAKING 5: Fieldcourse: Documenting Dereliction

This is the big day in our making sessions, where we will collect our data. Estates and Facilities have been kind
enough to allow us to use this building for a period of time. I have filled out all necessary health and safety
forms and we will go over these. Ethics approval will not be necessary since we are not speaking to human
subject, though we can discuss this possibility.
You will need to apply the skills you have learned to effectively collect material inside the location. You can
work by yourself or in a group and use one method or multiple methods. The tools you use are up to you, be it
an iPad, a DSLR or a GoPro camera. However, you must collect data with geographic questions in mind,
using techniques outlined in class. Is this an archival mashup like Los Angles Plays Itself? Is it a Situationist
dtournement soundwalk, a landscape documentary or photo essay? You must collect with intention! That
being said, dont be afraid to try weird stuff and fail this is experimental geographies and do remember
experiments can and should fail, you will not lose marks for this!

10

********
Week 7 & 8, 9th March 17th April 2015
Over the break there will be no teaching please sort through your creative material and start thinking about how you are
going to put it together. You should also be accessing archival material over this time if you need to. Be ready to edit
seriously when you get back.
My office is available over this time by appointment if you need to use my computers or access equipment.
********

11

Week 9 Lecture, 22th April 2015

LECTURE 6: Editing, Audiencing and Publishing

Now that you have collected your material, you are going to move on to the next phase of experimentation in
the edit. Here we want to think about the politics of sorting material and think carefully here about what gets
left behind and why. We also are going to consider what happens when an audience begins to participate with
our creative creations, and how that affects them and us. We will learn how to negotiate putting media in the
world and having it exceed us as it is remixed by others. Finally, we will think about how working with morethan textual methods challenges traditional notions of publishing and how publishers, who are inherently
propriety in their co-option of our work, must contend with formats they have less control over. Basically, we
are going to talk about how to break academic publishing as we know it. You have three key readings:
ANDERSON, J. 2013. Active learning through student film: a case study of cultural geography. Journal of Geography
in Higher Education, 37(3): 385-398.
LAURIER, E. 2009. Editing experience: sharing adventures through home movies. Assembling the Line:
http://www.ericlaurier.co.uk/assembling/resources/Publications/editing_experience.pdf
Review GARRETT, B & HAWKINS, H. 2014. Creative Video Ethnographies: Video Methodologies of Urban
Exploration in Video Methods: Research in Motion edited by Charlotte Bates.

Questions:
What does the process of editing digital material mean compared to editing text?
Is there a politic of the edit?
In what ways can our work exceed our intensions when we publish?
Where do we publish in these forms?
What are the benefits and limitation of publishing more-than-textual work?
Week 9 Making, 24th April 2015

MAKING 6: Editing Photography Audio and Video

You will by now all have seen me work with Audacity (audio), Adobe Premiere (video) and Adobe Lightroom
(photography). Now we are going to work with some of the material you have collected to make sure that you
have the tools you need to edit your creative project. After this session, you should have everything you need to
complete your creative project. If not, as always, drop into my office and we will get you up to speed.
At the end of this class, I am going to assign you your final essay. This is a good time to start gathering
literature and writing. The essay will be due on 14th May but Youre welcome to hand it in anytime between
now and then.

12

Week 10 Lecture, 29th April 2015

LECTURE 7: Technology and the Body

This lecture will take a step back from technology. It is important to recognize that the technology is only part
of the assemblage between the experimental geographer and that which they seek to work through.
Phenomenology, rooted in the work of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and
Jean-Paul Sartre is a philosophical conception of being-in-the-world that foregrounds the experience of the
individual. One of the phenomenologists most powerful tools, from Husserl to the Situationists, has been
walking. Walking, the body and the senses can be a starting point here to put down the recording device, the
prop for engagement, and simply be in the world with our full faculties activated.
MERCHANT, S. 2011. The Body and the Senses: Visual Methods, Videography and the Submarine Sensorium.
Body & Society, 17, 53-72.
RELPH, E. 2007. "An inquiry into the relations between phenomenology and geography." The Canadian Geographer
/ Le Gographe canadien 14(3): 193-201.
SELF, W. 2012. Walking is Political. The Guardian. London. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/mar/30/willself-walking-cities-foot

SELF, W. 2011. Diary, London Review of Books, 33(20): 38-39. (I will provide this in class).
Questions:
In what ways is being present a political act?
How can walking be a form of activism?
What are the essential tools of experimental geographies?
How does working with these tools affect how we sense the world?
Week 10 Making, 1th May 2015

MAKING 7: Walking with Will Self

Will Self is one of Britains most well-known journalists and writers. Will is famous for taking long urban
walks, such as when he walked into London from Heathrow, and insists that philosophy pied (on foot) is the
purest form of engagement. Will brought psychogeography, a term coined by the Situationist International,
into common parlance in the UK. We will shed the technological props today and walk with Will to
Nicholstown, the historic Red Light district of Southampton, and see what we find whilst engaging our senses
critically.
Upon return from our walk, we will be hosting Will in a large public lecture in the Shackleton Building
(location TBA). I very much hope you can make him feel welcome and inspired by the work we are doing in
this course.

13

Week 11 Lecture, 6th May 2015

LECTURE 8: No Lecture
There will be no lecture today, as I want you to focus on finishing your creative project.

Week 11 Making, 8th May 2015

MAKING 8: Sharing Our Work

In our final session, we are going to share our projects with each other, discuss what worked, what didnt, what
weve learned and what we might take away and/or do differently in the future. In the second half of the
session, we review the film and essay Jute and discuss how to write up a critical reflection on our creative
outputs.
As a reminder, this final assignment will be due on the 14nd May and will, sadly, mark the end of Ex-Geog.

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