Session 4 Abstracts

Transforming Environments: Utilizing the Techniques of Psychogeography in Creative and Professional Practice.

John Green, Faculty, Theatre, Columbia College Chicago
Mary Filice, Professor, Business and Entrepreneurship, Columbia College Chicago
Johann Robert Montozzi Wood, Professor, Duke University
Prof. Ariel Gutierrez Torres, Arthaus International Training and Research Centre for Devised Theatre & Performance, Berlin.

The radical French movement Situationist International advocated for the transformation of the urban landscape, from a site for routine consumption and work to a utopia that would eliminate barriers between function and play. They wanted to know what the city felt like, which areas excited the senses and the body, developing the process of psychogeography which involved individuals mapping states of consciousness and emotional responses, while walking purposefully through selected areas of a city. For the past six years, Psychogeography has been utilized by the graduate theatre program as a research tool for expanding creative practice. Students devise performances based on their immersion in and study of Chicago streetscapes. This model of psychogeography also inspired arts management faculty to develop an assessment model designed to empower people as they reimagine and redesign their workspaces into more inclusive, creative, and collaborative communities of engaged and satisfied employees