press release


PSY-GEO-CONFLUX 2003
New York City, May 8-11, 2003 (exhibition runs through May 29)
Opening reception at ABC NO RIO, May 8, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Closing party / music and video evening at SUBTONIC, May 11, 8:00 p.m.

PSY-GEO-CONFLUX 2003 marks the inauguration of an annual event dedicated to current artistic and social investigations in PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY ("the study of the effects of the geographic environment on the emotions and behavior of individuals"). Part festival and part conference, it brings together visual and sound artists, writers, and urban adventurers to explore the physical and psychological landscape of the city.

PSY-GEO-CONFLUX will feature no fewer than eight experimental walks and a mobile-phone-guided drift through the streets of New York; a life-sized chess game using humans as pieces; several talks and presentations; a noise parade; an art exhibition; and a night of psychogeography-inspired live music, DJs, and video. All events are FREE and open to the public.

The exhibition, talks, and presentations will take place at ABC NO RIO, 156 Rivington St. (bet. Clinton and Suffolk): 212-254-3697. The closing party / evening of music and video will be held at the SUBTONIC LOUNGE, 107 Norfolk St. (bet. Delancey and Rivington): 212-358-7501. Walks and other outdoor activities will start at various places around the city.

A complete schedule, event details (including location information for walks), links to participants, contact information, and much more can be found at: http://glowlab.com/pgc

We have also set up a (low-volume) mailing list for schedule updates and other news about PSY-GEO-CONFLUX. you can subscribe by going to: http://lists.interactivist.net/mailman/listinfo/psygeoconflux

PARTIAL LIST OF EVENTS:

WALKS:
- CAN .WALK WILL COMPUTE [Wilfried Hou Je Bek]
- City System [Lee Walton]
- Free Words [Sal Randolph]
- LOST [Kathe Izzo]
- New York Body 'n' Soul Map [Karen O'Rourke]
- PING [Kate Armstrong]
- Serenade [Toyshop]
- Surveillance Camera Outdoor Walking Tour [Surveillance Camera Players]
- Urban Chess [Sharilyn Neidhardt]

TALKS:
- Divided Cities [Margrethe Lauber]
- Game Thresholds: How game design
can affect psychogeographic practice [Peter Lasell]
- Kant: Walking the Talk [Colette Meacher]
- Essays, stories, and poems by various readers, presented by Flaneur magazine

EXHIBITING ARTISTS:
- Laurel Beckman, Germaine Koh, Dave Mandl, Christina Ray, Jeff Stark, others TBA.

(Many more events to be added between now and May 1; please check the PSY-GEO-CONFLUX website for updates.)

PARTICIPATORY EVENTS:
URBAN CHESS
Volunteer to be a human chess piece on Sunday, May 11, 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. The pieces will be moving from block to block on a grid in the Lower East Side. Moves will be transmitted to them via mobile phone from ABC No Rio, where two chess experts go head to head. If you have a mobile phone and want to play, sign up! Contact Sharilyn Neidhardt: dbasr@yahoo.com

LOST -- a walking towards each other
An exploration of trust, love and true connection. Without any preliminary contact except an exchange of cell phone numbers, participants will collaborate with love artist Kathe Izzo in an elaborate plan of losing and finding each other through both telepathy and a system of phone calls, cryptic gifts and hidden messages. These walks are on a one-to-one basis and are made by appointment only. This is an all-day event taking place Saturday, May 10. Contact Kathe to make an appointment: katheizzo@hotmail.com

NEW YORK BODY 'N' SOUL MAP
New Yorkers! Send us your tiresome commutes, your everyday errands, your wrong turns, bike rides and bus routes, your shopping sprees and secret shortcuts. Write your paths through the city and we'll map them for you!
An online marketplace for the exchange of itineraries? A method of charting urban travels online? A Web application capable of transforming subjective experiences into images and sounds? A "Carte du Tendre" drawn by surveillance technology? "NEW YORK BODY 'N' SOUL MAP" is all of these.
Don't believe it? Try it!
SEND US YOUR DAILY ROUTES THROUGH THE CITY:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/korourke/map/index-questionnaires.html

CAN .WALK WILL COMPUTE
Desperately in need of some extra computing power? Need to render some data but your hardware can't handle the algorithms? Want to calculate one of those insane numbers? The psychogeographic computer can help you. Submit your computational needs to us before 25 April 2003. Socialfiction.org will select from all reactions the problem most important for the welfare for all of mankind. During Psy-Geo-Conflux we will program a pedestrian computer that will be made up from the congregation of international psychogeographers that will .walk to compute for you. So send in your needs to: psychogeography@socialfiction.org


PSY-GEO-CONFLUX is produced by ABC No Rio, Glowlab, and the Brooklyn Psychogeographical Association. Sponsored in part by Artists Space Independent Project Grant. Exhibition funded in part by the New York State Council on the Arts. For further information, please contact Christina Ray (Glowlab): ray@glowlab.com, Dave Mandl (Brooklyn Psychogeographical Association): dmandl@panix.com, Steven Englander (ABC No Rio): steven@abcnorio.org.