The London Psychgeophysics Summit

Psychogeophysical Scrying Plot – Martin Howse

The London Psychogeophysics Summit has been and gone – the dust has settled. If this dust were measurable the Psychogeophysicists would surely have recorded and annotated its behaviour with a DIY contraption of their own making. Titled ‘Sites of Execution and Memory’ the week long summit consisted of daily workshops to create experimental devices for the forensic study of geophysical phenomena surrounding noted past execution sites and related locales.

Psychogeophysics enhances the classic notion of the Dérive with earth science measurements, sonology and geophysical archaeology. Add to this a geohistorical context and a species of atemporal psychogeography comes in to being. Taking the science of imaginary solutions into the physical domain, and making verifiable readings of the environment in relation to these conjectures, adds a welcome Pataphysical ingredient into the mix.

Psychogeophysics.org documented the week’s proceedings in detail:

Socialfiction facillitated one of his algorithmic dot walks in Greenwich Park, which utilised the minimalist Brainfuck programming language as a generative navigation system. Using ‘The Physics of the Outdoors’ by Marcel Minnaert as a starting point urban adventurer Petr Kazil exposed an array of deep observation techniques to enhance any kind urban interfacing. Other activities included geographical emotion mapping, Psychogeophysical scrying, remote viewing sessions, Thoughtography [Projected Thermography ] and the construction of a Persinger Helmet. The latter was put to use at the Crossbones Cemetery in Southwark, an unconsecrated graveyard dating back to the middle ages.

Flickr documentation of the summit can be found here