I began the day connected by several moving points on a grid, in a constellation of live objects, in a house of memory. My body was a container for the conversations occurring on the floors above and below me, the messages being left on my phone, and the letter I held in my hand. I was a shape but one where everything inside me was in motion and I was trying to hold it mathematically, trying to be a pattern in the world.
-Renee Gladman, Calamities
“protean map” is not a phrase i coined myself. it’s the name of a companion piece to the 2016 video game Proteus - namely a deck of cards inscribed with 48 brief-yet-evocative sentence fragments, such as “a glimpse of the future,” “connecting threads,” and “a yawning chasm.” when a handful of cards are selected and arranged in a sequence, they serve as the broad strokes of a surreal landscape, prompting the reader to cull a scene from the fragments. it operates on the same axis as many divinatory systems, such as the tarot or the i ching, by creating an amorphous framework of symbols onto which the reader can project their imagination, experiences, beliefs, and sensibilities.
the name “protean map” captivated me independently of the cards themselves. i love the tension within it, between the ever-changing and the static. we usually think of maps as fixed signifiers, but the things we try to map are anything but - geographies, bodies, knowledge, etc. for me, “protean map” came to be a code for a vast and fluid body of symbols, tying together memories and dreams, landscapes and objects, stories and images. the protean map is a place as much as it is a representation of one. the protean map is a confluence, between here and there, then and now. location becomes locus.
i’m fascinated by how our minds map out the world around us, and the complex interplay between landscape and psychology. as a scientific discipline, this is referred to as cognitive geography, though i prefer the word “psychogeography” - a term originally associated with the revolutionary groups Letterist International and Situationist International in the 1950s, and deeply rooted in Marxist and anarchist theory. Guy Debord defines psychogeography as the study of the “effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviors of individuals.” the Situationists were particularly interested in how capital and systems of state power directed movement through urban spaces, and how a psychogeographically-informed urbanism could cultivate a more vibrant and egalitarian society.
although psychogeography is a decidedly urban concept in its origin, i believe the underlying principles can be applied to any kind of environment with which people are interacting. a core tenet of psychogeography is the politicization of walking - specifically of wandering, which has been rendered largely obsolete within capitalism. psychogeographers employ the concept of “dérive,” or drifting aimlessly, as a method of both study and subversion. while the psychic constraints of capitalism and other societal structures are most tangible within the urban environment, these effects are omnipresent. much like the city, the countryside is also a social and political construct. even in spaces of “wilderness,” our movements are shaped by the presence of trails, and our experiences of the outdoors tend to be flattened into one-dimensional paths. forays into trail-less spaces are often discouraged by law and the existence of private property.
by attempting to transcend some of these constraints, we can examine more deeply the relationship between the mind and the outside world. why take this street instead of that one, when they lead to the same place? what place does this garden remind me of? what is the composition of trees here, and what emotion does it conjure? what history does it suggest? does this place recall a distant childhood memory, or is it the memory of something imagined? what connects the disparate places that are stitched together in my dreams?
in my own experience, the practice of walking and wandering has a deep psychic component. landscape can act as an extension of the brain, with certain landmarks and environs holding vivid memories and complex amalgamations of thought. on subsequent visits to a place, i might find myself spontaneously re-experiencing a piece of music or conversation that i experienced there previously, as if some fragment of that thing exists there physically. the border between internal and external worlds begins to blur. prevailing systems of power seek to isolate us, and to position concepts of “individual” and “collective,” or of “human” and “nature” as irreconcilable opposites. while these dialectics can be useful in describing aspects of reality, there is no fundamental truth to them. an individual is not a monolith, but a patchwork. the mind exists in space.
as a traveler moves through the world, they leave a trail of psychic crumbs - seeds for a protean map.
i invite you to browse through the are.na channel i created to accompany this site, and to contribute to it if you are so inclined. thank you for reading!