Absurd Shards #9 - The Psychogeographic Theory of Straight Line Walking

Log 7: 

I have completed my preliminary investigations and begun researching a variety of locations in which to proceed with active field studies of my theory.  To provide an abstract or summary, I have decided to explore the psychogeographic technique of straight line walking, one that to my mind at least has been ill-served by past practitioners.

It isn't so much the lack of scientific inquiry inherent in Guy Debord and the Situationists’ inebriated drifting across Paris with only a map of say, Vienna to guide them, but more the Marxist discipline of dismantling the urban ‘spectacle’ that I seek to avoid.  I seek to become immersed at an almost machine level with the landscape, using the act itself to unlock hidden philosophical algorithms of my core being.

It is my contention that this has only really been explored effectively in the experimental art scene, with Richard Long and his repetitive traversing of the landscape; demarcating some kind of trace thereby subtly altering the space itself, almost representing an apparition of the physical act.

Here then, are the explicit conditions to which my experiments must adhere:

Condition 1:

At the experiment site I must pick a direction using a random method over which I cannot exert any undue preference or yield to personal bias.

Condition 2:

I must proceed to walk in a linear direction, my focus being centred on an invisible line of travel ahead of me.

Condition 3:

Crucial to the success of the experiment is that I do not deviate or adjust my trajectory in any way.  This will demand a strict level of meditation that with sufficient mental training should yield dividends.

Condition 4:

Where there are physical impediments to the straight line I must follow the parameters of the obstacle with the utmost fixity until I am able to rejoin the line unobstructed once again.  (This is only to be applied where there is such structural rigidity as to render continuation of the walk physically impossible, all other features must be traversed in adherence to the straight line; this applies to roadways, reasonably-sized bodies of water, private property, sites of dereliction, countryside, and so on.)

Condition 5:

After the predetermined time allocation for the walk has expired I will compile my notes of the experiment, from which analysis, comparative study and philosophizing can then proceed.

Now that the handful of basic and simple conditions have been established, I am able to proceed at once with the first of my chosen experiment sites (see Appendix A.4)...  

To be continued.