Steve Dutton ‘A Spell on the Equinox. VERSION 1’ (2022). Digital image @ Steve Dutton
Steve Dutton ‘A Spell on the Equinox. VERSION 1’ (2022). Photo credit: @ Steve Dutton
Drawn to the linguistic shaping of thought and its relationship to personal stories that semantically shift over time, Coverley traces the term ‘Psychogeography’ back to its origins with the actively exploring Lettrist [1] and Situationalist [2] groups that collectively mapped the ’emotional effects’ provoked by the impact of the urban environment. Characterizing psychogeography as a ‘collision’ between geography and psychology, Coverley documents the shifting nature of this term over time, as having been ‘reshaped’ by various practitioners across ‘interwoven histories’.[3]
Turning to Coverley’s reference of Rimbaud’s coining of the verb ‘robinsonner’, which, as a ‘stationary traveller’ brings a static sense of exploratory nature to life by way of a mental journey, Coverley illustrates how the ‘urban labyrinth’ could be wandered through in the form of a ‘sedentary journey’, by substituting ‘the hostility of the modern city’ and retreating within the safe boundaries of the home, within a safe space, in which we can explore a sense of internalisation, where a journey can be brought to life by re-imagining and recounting previous encounters.[4]
Suggesting the wandering of hostile terrain as a provocative and subversive act [5], Coverley recounts the adventurous escapades of Dafoe’s character Robinson Crusoe, as a tale in which Crusoe’s character is equipped with the ‘ability to survive in hostile territory’. Referring to Dafoe’s unique reflections as having been bestowed by the authors ‘extraordinary career as journalist and spy, pamphleteer, poet, travel writer, satirist, economist and merchant’, Coverley defines Dafoe’s experiences as having real insight, in which he ‘blends fact and fiction’ [6] by drawing upon his own lived ‘impressions’ to enliven his character, so much so, that Danny Heitman’s article ‘Fiction as Authentic as Fact’ reports that many readers believed Crusoe’s character to be a real person and conceived the book to be a ‘travelogue of true incidents’.[7]
The exhibition 2015 ‘Wanderlust’, exhibited at the Royal Academy of the Arts explored the imaginary world of travel created in Joseph Cornell’s practice.
An artist renowned for visually documenting his mental voyages by staging his imaginary worlds through assembled collections of found objects and paper cut-outs, Cornell’s miniature environments encapsulated behind glass fronted boxes contained treasured souvenirs for the vivid events which he explored within his mind. [8]
Beyond the framed boundaries of Cornell’s miniature worlds, British artist Brian Griffiths talks about the multitude of objects he collects and creates in a tour of his London studio;
We make ourselves and we remake ourselves via the objects we surround ourselves with…objects…become a sort of material fact from which to start from…assemblages…put together in a very sympathetic way…an artificiality… fabricat[ing] things which appear to be found…almost method actors…but on closer inspection…they fall apart…things stop, resist, collapse, fracture…They become souvenirs of a fabricated history.[9]
Brian Griffiths ‘The body and ground (or your lovely smile)’ (2010). Photograph credit: British Art Show 7, Nottingham Contemporary, 2011
Responding directly to the scale and parameters of the space it resides, looking to fill, if not suffocate the volume of its environment, Griffith’s harnessed, billowing bear head is both aspirational and tragic. Reminiscent of nostalgic family holidays, Griffith’s brings worn tents back to life by suspending a childlike image of an imaginary fantasy.
Brian Griffiths ‘Beneath the Stride of Giants’ (2004). Photo credit: Installation view Camden Art Centre
Referencing Griffith’s artist profile on the Saatchi gallery, his ‘monumental scale sculptures’ are described as ‘portals for adventure’, through which he ‘trades on the secret histories of the second-hand conversation pieces, using their authenticity to falsify an exotic, more ‘ancient’ history of his own’. Describing this adventure and ‘his galleon’ as being ‘more than just a sculpture – it’s a monumental attempt to create something with real possibility’, like Cornell, Griffiths appropriates ‘matter over mind’, creating narrative forms that tell tales of ‘mystical voyage[s]’ and ‘epic…fantasy and legend’. [10]
[1] Merlin Coverley. ‘Psychogeography’. Harpended: Pocket Essentials. 2010. p12 and p22
The Lettrist International group, based in Paris in the 1950’s under the stewardship of Guy Debord, are defined by Coverley as ‘playful’ activities, first devised as a tool to aesthetically transform urban life and later more concerned with tackling political issues.
[2] IBID., p23
The Situationalist International group was lead again by Debord, formed in 1957, as the forerunning Lettrist group disbanded into smaller groups. With its roots based within psychogeography, Coverley defines this group as being ‘more serious minded’, with a ‘more rigorous and scientific approach…for measuring the emotional impact of urban space’.
[3] IBID., p9-11
[4] IBID., p20-21
[5] IBID., p12
[6] IBID., p35-39
[7] Danny Heitman. ‘Fiction as Authentic as Fact’. Online Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323936804578227971298012486. Jan. 11, 2013. Source cited: July 2016
[8] ‘Wunderlust’. Online Source: https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/joseph-cornell. 2015. Source cited: July 2016
[9] Brian Griffiths. ‘Tate Shots: Brian Griffiths‘. Online Source: http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshots-brian-griffiths. Source cited: July 2016
[10] Brian Griffiths. ‘Selected works by Brian Griffiths‘. Online Source: http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/brian_griffiths.htm. Source cited: July 2016