OURSPACE

Can artists exploit the psychology of space? This is a central notion informing my installation art practice. What is the Psychology of space? The Psychology of space or as it is sometimes known as Psychogeography is “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals.”(Debord, 1955) it has also been described as “a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities. Just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape.” (Hart, 2004)
 Psychogeography first came to light within the journal entitled Potlach, by Letterist International. The forerunner for what become known as unitary urbanism, psycogeography and the derive was Ivan Chtcheglov. Chtcheglov was born in Paris Of Russian Parents, the essay he wrote which marked the start of psychogeography was entitled Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau (Formulary for a New Urbanism) in 1958 at the age of 19. This essay was a great inspiration for the Letterist International and the Situationists International. Chtcheglov later tried to deconstruct the Eiffel Tower; he was arrested and committed to a Mental Hospital by his wife.

 In his essay Formulary for a New Urbanism, Chtcheglov stated “Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams.”(Chtcheglov, 1953). The Situationists forced themselves into a certain system of interaction with their environment, finding contemporary architecture both physically and ideologically restrictive, combining with outside cultural influences creating an undertow. “Cities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones”. (Knabb, 1995).
 The way I understand Psychogeography is it’s about understanding and exploring landscapes, Psychogeography is an act, an act of walking, drifting coming across finding and even changing. The Situationists used to navigate through the Harz Region in Germany using a map of London, trying somehow to break through to the other side, not knowing what’s coming up next.
 The Situationists used to create designs of new urbanized space, promising better opportunities for experimenting through mundane expression. Their intentions remained completely as abstractions. Debord’s main intention was to unify two different ambiences that he felt, determined the values of urban landscape. The soft ambience, i.e.: the light, sound, time and the association of ideas with the hard ambience which was the actual physical construction.

CLICK ON THUMBNAIL IMAGES FOR FULL-SCALE VIEW

Fig. i. Lewis Hughes-Evans, Untitled, 2008

Within my own art practice I create large scale architectural installations; I transform existing spaces with constructions made primarily from found objects. The spaces that I create are hideaways, built from an imagined person’s perspective. The narrative I create explore how a person becomes attached to a certain space, the atmospheres I create within these spaces reflect the way that these people feel within them, these constructions could be seen as physical representations of these “outsiders” mental states. 

In fig i (click on image for full size view) you can see my installation for Conjunction 08 an art festival for Stoke-on-Trent, this installation was for a shop space and the space I was allocated was a walkthrough space leading to a further piece at the back, I manipulated the way that people experienced my work by changing the way the viewers actually saw it, the hallway roof was lowered to five foot six inches forcing the majority of people to crouch as they walked through it whilst the side walls to the installation also got narrower meaning that the only way through was to crouch and turn sideways reflecting the un-comfort that the outsider felt whilst working in this space.

Fig. ii. Lewis Hughes-Evans, Untitled, 2008

My statement for this piece was as follows: “My world isn’t comfy it’s weird and broken confusing and things, it’s a little house thingy very rusty but I like it, very old, this is my world I can’t see yours”. A second view can be seen from fig ii.
 
I work intuitively within the space, allowing the physicality, and the history and the atmosphere of the space to inform my construction process.
 The artist Mike Nelson’s methods of production are very similar to mine, in the way that he uses materials from near the sites where his work is located to make a spontaneous response to the site. This causes a jarring in the viewer and perhaps references Freudian notions of the architectural uncanny. The viewer may have an emotional response to the site when viewing Nelson’s work and this to some extent reflects my intentions within my work.

LEFT TO RIGHT Fig iii, Fig vi, Fig v. Lewis Hughes-Evans, Untitled Wooden Installation, 2008.

 In fig iii, you can see a more recent installation and as before I have dealt with the ideas of manipulating the ways in which the viewer experiences my work. It consist of a front door as shown in fig iii, and behind is a fifteen foot long corridor which the height decreases the further down the corridor you go the corridor can be seen in fig iv. The corridor leads to an old fashioned school desk which contains all my studio work and my back up work which is an expression of how I feel when I have to study as a dyslexic. I find that aspect of my artwork a massive struggle and when I need to sit down and do my work I feel a little claustrophobic and that is what I have tried to capture within my installation by the tunnel getting narrower and narrower and also lower and lower as seen in Fig v.

My latest experiment 2009 consists of a rough wooden hut in a dark room. The hut has a strobe light inside it that blasts light between the uneven gaps between the planks that make up the hut. The viewer can look inside but the flickering light that emanates through the gaps in the planks also casts patterns on the ceiling and the wall. A video of the installation is shown below:

Lewis Hughes-Evans, Strobe Hut, 2009 from artphilosophy on Vimeo.

Bibliography

Debord, G, 1955. Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Les Levres Nues #6 1955, p1

Joseph Hart, “A New Way of Walking,” Utne Reader July/August 2004

Ivan Chtcheglov, Formulary for a New Urbanism, 1953 http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Chtcheglov.htm

Knabb, Ken, ed. Situationist International Anthology, Berkley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1995. pg 50.