Features Editor: Joe Hunter Friday February 27th 2009 22 Features [email protected] varsity.co.uk Psycho Semantics HIS WORKS MAY BE CELEBRATED AS FOUNDATION STONES OF MODERN PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY, BUT IAIN SINCLAIR REFUSES TO BE SEEN AS THE GENRE’S NEWEST PROPHET. HE TELLS PATRICK KINGSLEY ABOUT THE FOOTPRINT LONDON 2012 WILL LEAVE ON HACKNEY or an author who supposedly per- walk. But the purpose of psychoge- But if Sinclair doesn’t identify lacks “anything that could really be of it” - in general he is despondent. soni!es its revival, Iain Sinclair is ography has always been unclear. For himself in psychogeographical terms, described as psychogeographical”, is “What I once thought was a disaster startlinglyF ambivalent about psychoge- some, it’s a means of examining how how exactly would he de!ne his writ- based on a series of walks through is now much worse than that: it’s a ography. “It’s nothing to do with me,” buildings a$ect our behaviour; for ing? Very simply, as it turns out: “I Sinclair’s native ground in north- catastrophe.” he says so"ly, swivelling on a Union others, it’s the more intangible ‘read- buy into a union between writing and east London (one of which features Yet perhaps there are encouraging chair a"er last week’s Olympics debate. ing’ of a city. For the French, it was a walking. I think there is as much of Emmanuel’s English DoS, Robert comparisons between the Olympic “It’s a nuisance. It’s something which political medium; for the British, it’s that going on – or more – than what Macfarlane). It’s a timely celebration site and Sinclair’s old Hawksmoor existed in the late 50s and early 60s more of a literary phenomenon. And could be described as psychogeogra- of Hackney, an area already massively churches? Will the former not contrib- that disappeared for many years and whereas Guy Debord and his gang of phy. I have this notion that there are a$ected – for the worse, Sinclair feels ute to London’s palimpsestic nature then was reinvented simply as a pro- 60s Parisian Situationalists said it was two kinds of writers: there’s one called strongly – by the new Olympic site. in the same way as the latter? “No, vocative device. And now it’s become subversive – a rebellion against typical, ‘pods’, and there’s another called %e book argues that while “Hackney I don’t think so. I don’t think any of pretty much anything you want it to itself is magni!cent, it’s always battling this will last long enough to do that. mean.” “[PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY]’S NOTHING TO DO WITH with a level of input from whoever’s %e actual Olympic structures are Sinclair’s attitude is unexpected: trying to control it from above, for so tawdry that they’ll be gone soon, the man is an icon of psychogeog- ME. IT’S A NUISANCE... AND NOW IT’S BECOME generation a"er generation.” whereas the Hawksmoor churches are raphy. He has published nearly 30 For this particular generation, so massive that even though they went works associated with the subject, PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING YOU WANT IT TO MEAN” Sinclair suggests, the battle is with through periods of neglect, somehow he’s shot Super-8 films about it, and the Olympic developers and their they hung on. %e Olympic site, by one of his early works, Lud Heat, workaday city activity – Peter Ackroyd ‘peds’. Peds are the kind of writers lackeys on the local council. “There contrast, will be a totally transitional went on to exemplify the London (author of London: "e Biography) who very de!nitely have, within their is suffering on an enormous scale landscape. It has no notion of perma- psychogeographical resurgence. argues the opposite: for him, psycho- writing, this rhythm of journeys and because of [the Olympic develop- nence. It’s built to be destroyed, to be Peter Ackroyd calls him a “vision- geography is simply a way of recognis- walks and pilgrimages and quests. ments]… Local people have been revised.” ary” of the genre. Will Self describes ing the way the city controls our every And pods are these other writers who kicked out, the building works Sinclair’s forthright views have seen Sinclair’s books as must-reads. And action. In short, then, psychogeogra- sit in a room and just draw the world have released toxins into the water, him banned, hilariously, from his local Merlin Coverley notes, in his intro- phy’s only de!ning feature is its lack of to them in whatever ways they want we’ve lost allotments, we’ve lost the library (where he was scheduled to ductory survey of the subject (called de!nition. If the man who reinvented to. And there is a very distinct gap football pitches in Hackney Marshes, give a talk) by the Hackney council. simply Psychogeography), that “if the concept can state that he “never between the two.” we’ve lost fourteen swimming pools, Publicity-wise, this was a blessing: there is one person who is respon- was a psychogeographer” and even By his own de!nition, Iain Sinclair cycle lanes…” And while Sinclair “It proved the thesis of the book and sible for the current popularity that deny “much sympathy or interest in is clearly a walking writer, a ped. And does see some advantages to the re- it was a catastrophic piece of PR [for psychogeography enjoys, then it is [the subject’s] manifestations”, perhaps it follows that his latest work, Hack- building – “quite conservative people the council]. Instead of being a very Iain Sinclair.” this is only !tting. ney, "at Rose-Red Empire, while it have become very active as a result small event with ten or twelve of us Why, then, is Sinclair almost scorn- TOM DE FRESTON sitting around a library chatting about ful of the genre? Perhaps psychogeog- a book, I’m on the Today programme raphy’s transition – from a marginal, defending the freedom of speech.” %e almost occult fascination to a very underlying argument, however, still marketable, middle-class brand – has causes Sinclair rancour – “the whole caused him to dri" away from the thing was about mendacity, and spin, subject. But Sinclair himself denies and lies” – and he’s still visibly irritated even this: “I never dri"ed into it! My by it all when his debating partner use of it was pretty minimal in terms Andrew Gilligan, a hack who certainly of my writing. At the start of my book, knows about spin, swaggers into the Lights Out For "e Territory, I did do room. a V-shaped walk which was a sort of Gilligan joins in the Olympic psychogeographical project. But the grumbling. “I am simply going to leave walking round the M25 [in London town,” he promises, before reiterat- Orbital] – that wasn’t a psychogeo- ing points he made during the debate graphical project. It was just a project itself: the Games will clog up the city; of human perversity, a geographical they’ll be expensive. Sinclair smiles: project about deciding what London “We’re more or less obliged to have a topography was and where London major terrorist attack to justify the ex- !nished.” pense.” Gilligan, ever the journo, turns And what of Lud Heat, which to me: “%ere’s your quote.” explored the behavioural effect Hawksmoor’s London churches had Iain Sinclair’s latest book, Hackney, on their neighbouring, non-Chris- "at Rose-Red Empire, is out now. tian population in the 70s? “That was not psychogeography; that was much more to do with an English tradition belonging to people like Al- fred Watkins [a nineteenth-century archaeologist]. Though Lud Heat has become this psychogeographical text in retrospect, psychogeography was Psycho paths never even heard of or thought of at that time. The subject didn’t occur to 1943 Born in Cardi! me when I was writing it. I was writ- ing it simply from the perspective of 1970s Studies at Trinity College, a gardener.” Dublin. Works as gardener Yet perhaps it’s not surprising that in East London. the #ag-bearer for such an ambiguous genre has such an ambiguous attitude 1975 Publishes Lud Heat to it himself. A"er all: what is psycho- geography? No one seems sure. It’s 1991 Publishes Downriver a very hazy idea. It concerns cities – traditionally London and Paris – and it 1997 Publishes Lights Out for involves walking: this much is certain. the Territory And it involves recording, with words or photography, what happens on one’s 2002 Publishes London Orbital

VOMIT ADVENTURE (STARTS ON PAGE 13): Yes, it’s so e!ective that it actually sickens you. "at’s the real reason why you’re vomming le#, right and centre. Anyway, back to the adventure: you decide to go along to the hustings to give Norah back her virus. You need to attract her attention. !p29 Ask her a pertinent question. !p30 Vomit all over CUSU.