February 28, 2005
Emotional GPS: Psychogeography
networked_performance writes about psychogeography and cognitive mapping, a Mobility Paterson project, offering two suggestions for recording wireless experiences, using a term they coined, emotional GPS.
Whereas traditional GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and GPS (Global Positioning Systems) tend towards an empirical representation of the world, emotional GPS is biased towards the personal, temporary, and imaginary. In most cases, the prevailing impact of wireless on the definition of a place is not so much on its static form as the potential experiences that this place can afford.
One's city is composed of the places in which one lives, plays, works, and remembers. It is made of the routes and paths through which one makes connections. This personal city is also about the meanings ascribed to these places of inhabitance and transition, even those that are hated."
The idea of psychogeography was playfully employed by the Situationist Movement in mid-20th century France, inspired by Baudelaire's 19th century notion of the flaneur, the city walker who wandered.
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