Psychogeography: South Korean Maps, Derive Theory, and Urban Analysis

This essay delves into the realm of psychogeography, examining its influence on urban spaces and the human experience within them. It begins by introducing the concept of psychogeography, highlighting its focus on the psychological impact of urban environments and the emotional transformations they induce. The essay then explores the 'derive' theory, a core element of psychogeography, emphasizing the act of aimlessly wandering through a city to observe and document its physical and psychological aspects. A significant portion of the essay is dedicated to analyzing South Korean maps through a psychogeographic lens, contrasting ancient and contemporary mapping techniques to reveal how these maps reflect the unique characteristics and political landscapes of different Korean regions. The essay discusses the evolution of psychogeography, from the Situationist International's use of the 'derive' to contemporary applications in art and literature, and how it critiques the rationalization of urban life. The essay concludes by emphasizing the importance of psychogeography as a means of collaboratively rethinking cities and understanding the complex interplay between urban environments, community life, and human psychology.

Introduction
Common people tend to get overwhelmed with the physical factors including the image
and measurement of a building in the urban places as stated by Colin Ellard (2005). According to
the statement people neglects the psychological impact of this kind of environments. Space has a
mental impact upon the mindset of an individual. Mental impact refers to emotional
transformation or initiation of specific behaviors.
The essence of the urban locality directs towards removal of enormous historical strata.
For instance, the unconscious memory is the place to generate condensation and substitution of
meaning considered as a written parchment piece of the urban parchment. The example of
geographical study can also be used in this regard. It utilizes the study of impacts of natural
forces including the soil composition, condition of the climates depending on the social and
economic construction, and also the psychogeographic studies incorporating the natural and
artificial geographical environment. The concept of psychogeography considers the mood of the
location as its primary focus. This field of studies deals with the aspects such as conflicts
between the urban places, overcrowding and related confusion, self-consciousness as an
outcome, and reversely decreasing the senses. Hence, psychogeography can be termed as
transcendent reflection that observes the memory of space.
As a mental record there are psychogeographic maps for the geography of urban areas
that are created in accordance with the methodology of psychogeography. There is no connection
between psychogeography and cartography from scientific or objective perspective. The factual
profile of any geographical environment is less important than the conducting pattern of the
psychogeographical map. Hence, it can be said that this discipline of study is the process to
visualize the psychological areas. To put is simply, it can be said that this topographical map

presents the psychological areas that are usually invisible by the biological eyes. Traversing the
urban place is situated at the core of the psychogeographic studies. There is a possibility to
consider the concept of urban space as a matter to be taken for granted. However, the interesting
part of this domain is the process of handling the nature which is a debatable topic for many
researchers. It provides a clear indication of being ideological in nature. As a matter of fact,
every individual city and town has unique nature of demarcations, gang of territories, sub-
cultural gang, and gang of religious territories. Consequentially, the architecture planning never
considers a place as isolated.
As a matter of amaze, it is interesting to state that the presence of psychogeographic maps
are observed in the historical maps also. The only difference is that it contains ancient cultural
features of every country instead of using the detailed and precise database system as used by the
recent maps.
According to the history, there were no scientific process of creating map during the
ancient period of time. The ancestors used to travel across the world and note down all the
visible routs and sceneries on a big piece of paper that was considered as a map. For example,
Guy Debord mentioned in the ‘derive (drift)’ theory, mentioned that a map can be created by
walking aimlessly across the city and documenting all the physical facts of a specific place.
Korean study used to incorporate this perspective of psychogeography in their map creation.
However, there are some difference between the ancient created maps and the contemporary
maps of South Korea. The recent psychogeographic maps of South Korea used to use the direct
feeling of thought and beliefs and emotions of the community within the map. Along with this,
the Korean people used to add their own symbols and signs within the maps reflecting the own
political areas. This is a peculiar habit of Korean people and all the Korean maps provides the

reflection of various characteristics unique for different political places of that time. They use
their own technology to copy the maps for example for the map of Jung Ho Kim they used Dae
Dong yeo Jido.
Hence, the following discussion is based on the analysis of old South Korean maps with
the exploration of features of psycho-geography and its use.
Psychogeography and derive
The formative situationist international from the initial part of 1950 could still take the
significant inequality of Paris for granted. They used the psychogeographic drift to create the
maps. Following these mass desire and instinct the South Koreans used to practice the
exploration or urban wandering.
As mentioned, Debord in the ‘In a derive (drift)’ mentioned that, a person can drop the
planning of movement and action or leisure performance by being amazed by the terrains the
person encounter there. During the earlier phase of nineteenth century, a person who saunters
around to observe the surrounding society was termed as flâneur, which is mentioned in the
works of Charles Baudelaire. The drifter was found deterred by the homogenizing modernization
instead of being propelled by the unscheduled journey viewing the complexity of the geography
and aestheticism of society positioning as a reverse nature of the flâneur.
As mentioned by Debord, every society that belong to the dominance of productive
condition, the population is appeared as extremely large accretion of spectacles. Every individual
thing that belong to their lives reflect in their minds also.
The degenerated characters claimed that, distinguish of labor and leisure is similar to the
interrelation of goods and consumption. The reconciled visual image of the human lives were

considered as fiction to those characters. It was not merely a way to attack the media including
the marketing advertisements in television images or capitalist communities. Rather, it was the
way of criticizing the fact that the entire livelihood of the community is determined by the
spectacles at the time of estranged or deprived from all the praise of a set of rich world.
At this point, Debord pointed out the importance of criticizing the spectacle system to
provide a solution to the popularity subjected to be left alone or deprived. In this regard, Debord
refused to be trapped in the group of Avant-garde that was into practice during the initial stage.
Rather than this, he grew believe for criticizing the urban life in terms to degrade the human
being as spectators.
‘Drift’ functions as an act to break the totalitarian nature of the city life. It was being
criticized for allowing the foundation for the urban planning of functional rationalistic with the
hidden ideology of mainstream for the integration of regular lives and securing them in any
particular circuit. This fact also deals with investigating about new places within the city as a
means of new experiments for probable revolutions infused in daily experience. The matter is
neither about mere sightseeing of the locality nor a mere activity of moving commodities corner
generated by any particular shopping center. On the other hand, the core aim of this study is to
investigate about a place within the entire environment. It incorporates the participation of the
life and emotion of the community excluding the physical division of the place. The situationists
were provided with enough help to identify the qualities of urban places that possess the worth of
‘diversion’ within ‘constructed situations’ of ‘unitary urbanism’.
‘The Naked City’ is one of the famous example to utilize the drive theory to its
excellence.

The Naked City was considered as an initial psychological or psychogeographical
probationary and survey reasoning the use of reconstructive city. It pursues to emancipate the
holders from being alienated of the lives under the concepts of capitalism, functionalism, and
rationalism.
The concept of The Naked City was inherited from Paris and the entire group of cities
concentrating of redevelopment activities. It did not cater to subjective or collaborative
experience of the humanity considering the design from the beginning to the end.
The Naked City has borrowed the title from the documentary film with working
detectives in New York. It recorded the investigation activities within the areas including Ville
de Paris being crossed by the grand boulevards of retail as well as traffic. The only threat for this
was the thought of redevelopment. In this regard the examples can be driven from Henri IV’s
Paris that refuged the situationists including Guy Debord and Michele Bernstein. The activity
appeared as a picture with chunks moving towards north-east edge of the map. The mentioned
Marais were commonly recognized as a subject to be converse about. The Conseil municipal de
Paris also argued about their fate that made it as a part the ‘spectacular’ heritage.
According to the history, there were no patronage extended to the Marais’ neighbor
during the period of 1950. The center of The Naked City was equipped with decaying Beaubourg
and the market place namely Les Halles. These places were still exhibiting the labor class
tradition not the nature of the then proletariat and vise. The presidents preferred street walk
rather than motorized movement. The commercial altercations were still there crossing over
transitory market stalls or smaller stores neglecting the fashionable boutiques or departmental
stores. However, these market place were subjected to demolition during the year of 1971 to
clarify the way of RER train interchange. It was the center of shopping, entertainment, and

Pompidou and acknowledged as the epitome by many critics from the group of spectacles
belonging to the Parisian culture.
Apart from discussion about the two contradictory terms preservation and destruction,
The Naked City had an appearance of epistemological device. It means The Naked City had a
greater implication than merely an original understanding about geography and cartography.
Opposing the existing urban planning, the recently added title ‘Derive’ for
psychogeography pays more attention on the concept of the performers meet with the city’s
terrain. Along with this, asking for critical recognition about the potential of the city and the
ability to create an original environment.
As a matter of intrigue, Debord used the example of the communal geography of Paul-
Henri Chombart De Lauve at the peak of awareness about the complexity of the social structure
of the place that was customarily indiscernible from the political maps. On the opposite side, the
rationalist planning of urbanization decreased the intricacy of city life to extremely simple level.
Guide Taride de Paris inclined to make The Naked City as an emphasis on the
unsuitability of Cartesian reasoning with the existed actuality of the city. Debord and Jorn drove
down some group of the map within an odd angle approximately 45 by its mean. According to
the postwar trends the suggestion was turning pinball course of drifting striders succeeding their
own lines of desire.
A dominant circulation pattern was visible among the description of the situational maps.
The weights of the maps vary from each other and suggested the power of the passage of
psychogeography.

The Naked City present a sole objective geographical analysis with dialectical strain and
subjective experience and occupation of geography.
The activist politics of the map considers it as critically important for the culture of the
community. It holds the self and its incapability to get divorced from the urban atmosphere, on
the other side, the psychogeography as a useful means of collaborative rethinking of the city.
As its practitioner, the psychogeography directed them to obscure location to form the
environment with community life and within the psychology simultaneously. There was no
academic intonation within this epistemology and the situationists aspired to begin the unitary
urbanism.
In the recent time, the situational international concept has become extinct. However, the
subversive spirit existing in the psychological movement remaining till date. During 2000s, with
the emerging problems of redevelopment of the contemporary metropolises a growing niche for
psychology evolved. The term were in trend in the work of visual artists and various writers of
different forte. For instance, the work of Merlin Cavalry named ‘psychogeography’ exhibit the
analysis of the current communal phenomena with the concept of revival of contemporary
psychology with accurate sources. Cavalry was a familiar London-based narrator and was
famous for rediscovery set of novels. His initiation incorporates with the concept of bringing
back the Parisian psychology in England in particular, London.