Although urban exploration requires careful planning while psychogeography is designed to create sudden moments, both ideas share a common theme: emotions. However, psychogeography and urban exploration contradict and coincide. Sites must be mapped and scouted before explorers can even begin to think about the actual exploration itself, due to both the physical and legal danger the activity presents. While psychogeography looks at emotional connections with urban areas as sudden, unplanned experiences, urban exploration is almost always carefully planned with forethought and diligence. This is where urban exploration and psychogeography differ. Psychogeography revolves around emotional attractions that are sudden and ephemeral, often relating to aimless wanderings. A more common, yet abstract, definition for psychogeography describes it as “the hidden landscape of atmospheres, histories, actions and characters which charge environments” (Smith 1).

Psychogeography seeks to understand the way each individual interacts emotionally with the environment around them. As videos and stories regarding urban exploration continue to enter and fascinate mainstream media, more and more scholars explore the psychology behind the phenomenon.Įach day we pass by the world around us, in a rush to get to school or work and to complete our daily routine, often failing to ‘stop and smell the roses’. Also known as “Urbex”, “Site Hack4ing,” and “Infiltration,” urban exploration is the exploration of derelict structures that have long since been abandoned and are typically rotting, crumbling or deteriorating in some manner, but can also be sites that are under construction or still in use. Psychogeography is currently a burgeoning topic alongside urban exploration. The term originated with Thomas Penson De Quincey, an English essayist from the 19th century, as well as Walter Benjamin, a German literary critic and philosopher, and his geographical experience in Paris (Garret 1). The purpose behind psychogeography is to provide individuals with new, exciting, and engaging methods to interact within their everyday environment (Hart 1). One must simply explore their environment in an unplanned fashion, and find a new world that they may not have fully seen or experienced. “Psychogeography includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape” (Hart 1). Individuals are encouraged to take a closer look at the world they pass by each day, and to explore its inner workings in a new and adventurous way. Psychogeography: “The practice of exploring the urban environment while being led by curiosity and a paused sense of time and place” (Urban Dictionary).

Urban explorer definition