Diagramming The System

The Bartlett

The process of creating an alternative map of London was continued by making a coherent, closed, and fully synthetic system out of the urban routes and locales unearthed in the Psychogeometric Cartography and Ley Mapping exercises.

This was done by subjecting the system that emerged from those phases to objective codification by diagramming and charting it. A series of walks was then undertaken around this circuit, using only a GPS device pointing to the next waypoint to find the way. Calling to mind Duchamp’s concept of the “Stoppage,” this revealed the gap between the nominally ideal path described by the Ley Lines and the real path required to navigate the city as it actually exists.

These routes, through the performance of their navigation and their exposure of the gap between the ideal and real, became charged with a meaning as a wholly synthetic system regardless of any pre-existing relationships of qualities.