From Ivory Towers to Passionflowers: Tina Richardson Interviews Fenella Brandenburg

 

My interview with Fenella Brandenburg coincides with her move from academia into the world of a full-time writer-author. Here we talk conference storm-outs, academic superegos, psychogeography and passion projects. I hope you enjoy our dialogue: as C. S. Lewis said ‘Fenella is on the move’!

I find Dr. Brandenburg sitting - not coincidentally, I’m sure – in the Islington café she insisted we meet in, called ‘Tina, We Salute You’ (her little psychogeographic joke). When she told me we were meeting here, I honestly thought she was making up the name. I’ve included the photo above to prove its existence.

Dr. Brandenburg, who was promoted to Reader just before her retirement from academia (it turns out this was her way of saying ‘f**k you’ to Higher Education), looks very unlike the person I saw last at the 2017 4WCOP Psychogeography Conference. It transpires she was wearing a white bobbed wig and was dressing like a ‘bag lady’ in order to maintain her disguise. It seems there is now no reason to keep up the pretence. I note that she actually has somewhat Titian hair (not unlike my own) and is a zappy dresser: not a fleece or ankle sock in sight!

Brandenburg, who recently moved from somewhere in the North of England (she seems reluctant to say where, for some unknown reason – although the academic rumour mill says it is related to reports of stalking made by another academic) to Islington to, as she says “Be with my peoples”. The pressing questions are ‘why her move from academia?’ and ‘what was the fallout of 4WCOP?’. Here is the transcript of our interview in full and unedited:

TINA: Thank you for meeting me, Fenella. I love the choice of venue. How have things been since you left academia a month ago and how did the university feel about being snubbed when you resigned the day of receiving your readership?

FENELLA: Well, it had been a long time coming, the Readership, and I had been overlooked on a number of occasions. I actually only hung on in HE for that long so that I could resign when I finally received it. You know the adage ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold’, well the ‘cold’ was about 5 years of torture, but was well worth it. The adage turns out to be true, but for all the reasons that are the opposite of what is implied by the adage, if one wants to get semantic about it. That, and also I heard rumours that that Bollinger bloke was moving to my university, and I just wasn’t up to having to deal with his ‘advances’ any more.

T: I’d like to talk about David Bollinger later, if that’s alright with you, but for the moment, what have you been doing, since you left?

F: Well, I very speedily set up a local writing group. I plan to take the same approach that the postmodern university does to how it ‘tasks’ its own academics. This is oriented around what HE calls the Work Load Model (WLM), however I will be calling my model of work allocation applied to the members of my fiction writing group the WLF, The Work Load Fiction. I think this will work out well for all concerned and it allows me to take a firm hold on what is happening and provide a hypodermic approach to the management of the group (for those of you not familiar with the term it comes from communications theory, it means top down and coming from above). People love being micromanaged, despite their protestations to the contrary.

T: So what do you see as being wrong with academic workload being managed by those who are clearly qualified enough to be managers?

F: The WLM epitomises the postmodern university par excellence. It is the moment where the university’s bureaucratic superego reaches its full potential in the daily control of its academics. For Freud, the superego represents all authority figures (initially the Father), but eventually the part of the individual that negotiates with the id (the basic instincts), producing the ego, the aspect of the individual that is presented to the world. On the level of power, say a Foucauldian model of power, if you will, this is tantamount to a kind of self-surveillance. I am absolutely behind the WLM and have no problem in bringing it into the creative sphere, in this case fiction writing. Creative people can get completely out of control, there is no absolute structure for them to adhere to, and they must be constrained at all costs.

T: Thank you, Fenella. I’m not sure everyone would agree with you there, but I appreciate your candour. Can I ask you: Why the move to creative writing?

F: Well, I’d met my 5 year plan: to leave at the point of my Readership. Let me just say, plans are incredibly important: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 year plans are not fiction at all, whatever academics say. They help keep you on track and ensure you meet targets, which are not at all unreasonable despite what you may read in regard to those adversaries of HE research-related policy. In regard to my move: I’m a well-published academic (as you know, your own publishing company has published some of my work on 'presupposed actualization'). I’m already an author. Really, how hard can it be?

T: Can we talk about psychogeography? What are you currently working on in that field and do you still consider yourself a psychogeographer?

F: Well, I am currently working on a project on abandoned shopping centres in the US. Partially inspired by your research on the Trafford Centre. I am also looking at a rural space, the Black Forest national park in Baden-Wűrrttemberg. As you know, I was born near there and I inherited my family cabin in the area. I am however, somewhat offended by your second question: that I may no longer consider myself a psychogeographer. I appreciate the damage done by the paper Bollinger and I delivered at 4WCOP 2017, but I feel we more than made up for that in our paper based on Ballard’s Concrete Island in 2019.

T: Talking about David Bollinger: can I ask you some questions about some of the gossip about where you and he were located. During 2016-2020 rumours abounded about where you were both working. I heard that Bollinger had an office in the Psychology Department at Huddersfield at one time. But managers in that school denied that he even existed, despite him clearly having a desk and a label on the door. One of the academics - a friend of mine, Dr. Alex Bridger - said he knew Bollinger was there as he saw his coat over the back of the chair. That, and he actually shared an office with him. I also heard that you had a temporary office in the old Maltings building, that once was the Geography Department at the University of Leeds, but has now been demolished. You also, purportedly, had an office in the School of Design at one point. But then, I also heard that you were popping up in online Zoom meetings at MMU in the early days of Covid.

F: I cannot vouch for Bollinger. You could ask Charlotte Tilbury, his wife. She’s a counsellor and also writes for The Guardian, I believe (good luck with her psychoanalysing that miscreant, is all I can say!). However, I can confirm that I did work at Leeds during the period you mention, and I will supply proof of that, which you can include on your blog. [included above]

T: Thank you for your clarification of the rumours, Fenella. Can I just ask one more question before we end the interview, for our psychogeographic audience? Where do you see psychogeography going?

F: Well, as you know, you very arrogantly labelled the current phase of psychogeography as ‘The New Psychogeography’ in your own book Walking Inside Out: Contemporary British Psychogeography. I have to say, however reluctantly, that I am more on the same page as Bollinger with this: psychogeography is reaching its zenith inasmuch as it is now all about its own undoing and negation. This is best summed up by an urban-walking colleague of mine, who will remain nameless, who said, when I asked him the question ‘Why did the psychogeographer cross the road?: ‘I’ve no idea why the psychogeographer crossed the road, but I bet when they got there they found Iain Sinclair had already written about it’!

T: Thank you so much for your time, Fenella.

The Trafford Centre Meets Concrete Island

Fenella Brandenburg and David Bolinger will be together again at the Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography on Friday 6th September at 12.30. The haven't presented together since 2017, when Fenella stormed off the stage in a strop. Here's hoping that their 2019 conference talk goes a bit better. This will be a performance-style talk at the cusp of J G Ballard's fictional Concrete Island and the non-fictional place, the Trafford Centre in Manchester.

I am hoping that Brandenburg will contribute a blog post after the conference, but last time I asked her she said “Are you kidding! There is no way I want to be associated with that load of bimbling idiots”.

All welcome! It is free, but please book your place.

The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography – Walk-Out by Fenella Brandenburg

As many of you know, Fenella Brandenburg is a regular contributor to this blog, so naturally I was hoping for a report from her of The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography held at Huddersfield University in September 2017, not least because she and David Bollinger gave the keynote speech. However, her curt reply to my request was: “Are you kidding! There is no way I want to be associated with that load of bimbling idiots”. Which, it transpired, echoed her walk-out when she stormed off stage shouting: “This conference is a shambles!”. Prior to that remark she had slammed down her conference paper, turned to Bollinger and said: “If you think I am staying at yours tonight, you have another thing coming. I am off to check into the Holiday Inn. Now!”. With that she grabbed her suitcase and left the conference...

Anyway, in the absence of a post from Brandenburg, Tim Waters has kindly allowed me to reproduce part of his post here, and link to his full report of the conference.

Tim Water’s Report on the Conference

Extract of the keynote by Bollinger and Brandenburg:
To open the congress, we were treated with a very special talk. David and Fenella appeared from a cupboard where they had been waiting for 30 minutes before I introduced them. There were some audio problems and some people complained about not being able to hear it properly from the back. But they steamed ahead. There were several laughs and I think when people got the format they enjoyed it. The format was in the way of a read sequence of email exchanges between these two academics. David did say that one of his chapters of a forthcoming book was available to be viewed, and here it is: ‘Either put on these glasses or start eating that trash can! Psychogeographically walking with John Nada, Beryl Curt and David Bollinger’.

You can read Tim’s full report here.

The Fundamentals of the Psychogeographical Method - Conference Paper

The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography is happening again this year on the 8th to 10th of September at the University of Huddersfield. I thought you might like to see details from the paper that Fenella Brandenburg (occasional guest blogger here at particulations), is giving with David Bollinger (guest blogger at notanotherpsychogeographyblog).

Abstract
Bollinger and Brandenberg are world leading psychogeographers and in this key-note talk they will take you on a grand tour of what psychogeography is all about and will explain how to go about creating your own psychogeographical adventures. They will also be promoting their new book, The Fundamentals of the Psychogeographical Method, which will be published by Dodo Press in 2018. Their soon to be published book has received outstanding positive reviews from well-known psychogeographers such as Luther Blissett, who said: "this book will change your life!". Victor Salamanca described the book as "a journey into the heart of darkness and a fascinating snapshot of who we are, lit by Bollinger and Brandenburg’s vivid prose. I’m sure that it will be read in a thousand years from now" and also Rudolf Rudenski commented that "Psychogeography is in crisis. Anyone that calls themselves a psychogeographer is actually a pseudo-psychogeographer. Bollinger and Brandenburg show us how to carve a path through the crap of psychogeography and they boldly point the way to a new way of doing psychogeography foregrounding an agenda for social change and action".

Down the Rabbit Hole or Reflections on Post-Truth Reality (Part 2)

Part 2: How Can We Challenge ‘Truth’ Today?

By Fenella Brandenburg

For Part 1 of the blog, please click here: Are We Really in a Post-Truth World?

Do we need to give up on the idea of truth, or revealing it, since the ‘rules’ appear to have so drastically changed? I would like to attempt to answer this question under the rubric of poststructural theory. I believe we have to constantly rethink our strategies in order to challenge those in power, because complex environments require well thought out approaches. I’m not convinced that those undertaken in the 60s and 70s will work today, whether they are activist in nature, or operate on analysing the textual instead, such as discourse analysis or deconstruction. I don’t mean that they have no value, I mean that if all bets are off in terms of the value attached to what truth is (and we are not just talking about what truth is or not here, but also the recognition that truth has less purchase and to some is completely irrelevant), then maybe we should not look at what is being said, but look at something much more fundamental to that, who we are and what our place is in the world. I propose to do this by using Gilles Deleuze’s theory of The Fold (1993).

Deleuze uses Leibniz’s theory on the Baroque (the folded subject) to help explain the position of the individual: the subject is perspectival, it is its point of view and represents a particular moment. Deleuze explains how the Baroque differentiates two forms of folding: material and soul that exist on the two levels of Baroque architecture - matter on the lower, and soul on the upper - where each floor is labyrinthine, extending to infinity (2006: 3). However, these two floors are connected, and Deleuze suggests this connection is formed by another fold (2006: 4), thus there exists a means of communication. On the surface of a fold there is the means whereby a point can develop producing a singularity (when discussing Leibniz, Deleuze uses ‘singularity’ to describe the perception of movement). This is a point of inflection (the place on the curve where the tangent crosses it), what Deleuze describes as an “elastic point” (2006:15). These inflections are potentially innumerable and become available perspectival positions. This folding, created by inflection, creates an “envelope of inherence” and Deleuze explains that this inclusiveness simultaneously creates the fold at the moment the fold forms this inherence (2006: 24).

Thus, we have the process of aggregation in the folding: the folding creating the force of inclusion, but at the same time this incorporation is forming a fold around that which has been gathered up. Deleuze explains what this means for the soul described by Leibniz (what occurs on the upper floor): this windowless floor, covered with drapery, is inclusive to the point where the process of enveloping is so encompassing that a soul is formed (ibid.). This is not a place, exactly, nor entirely a point of view, but “what occupies point of view, …a soul, a subject” (ibid.). In this process of inclusion, which concurrently forms the fold, it becomes apparent how an inside can be formed from an outside: the windowless floor, defining the soul for Leibniz, creates an intact subject, a soul attached to a body (matter).

So what does this model provide us with in terms of explicating the problem of post-truth?

We can now begin to see how our sense of self-hood, which appears to be inside us, actually comes from the outside and is formed in a little pocket we conveniently call our ‘self’. The normally polarised inside and outside become connected in the model of the fold, therefore contradictory terms become reconcilable: truth/lie, us/them, and so on. The outside, therefore, is found on the inside, the other is in myself, and the answer to the unthinkable paradox of what truth is, is in thought itself.

This has multiple benefits in regard to our problem at hand. The fold, whilst forming an envelope which situates the subject at that point of view, in its act of folding over also enables that subject to see itself. The subject can be self-reflective (and reflexive), can see its place in the world and has agency in terms of moving their perspective (by simply moving along the fold). Also, it means that what may present itself as impossibility (for example, a paradox such as how can the truth be a lie), is not separate from the understandable, but actually contained in it, and formed as a fold of it….

Please note: I have been invited to give a joint talk at the Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography in September 2017 with David Bollinger. While Dr Bollinger and I have had some academic differences in the past, and some not-so-academic differences, we are attempting to get past these in order to present a lecture at this year’s congress.

Bibliography:
Deleuze, Gilles. 2006. The Fold. Trans. by Tom Conley (London and New York: Continuum).

The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography – Report by David Bollinger

Since I was expelled following last year’s world congress I had to attend this year’s one remotely, which I was able to do thanks to the streaming of the event here (despite being told I was to have nothing to do with the event any more, "even at a distance"). I’d just like to say how well the The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography was put together, and attended, despite my lack of professional input. Below you can read some of the noteworthy observations I made about the conference on September 9 and 10:

Travis Elborough as Keynote
I think it was a coup for the conference to get such a high quality speaker when you consider the rest of the usual bunch of itinerant, rucksack-wearing, gore-tex fetishist types that made up the rest of the speakers at the conference – not that I’m bitter. Mr. Elborough was charming and gave an eloquent and entertaining talk about his book A Walk in the Park.

Tina Richardson’s Pretentious Talk
Richardson gave her usual affected talk, although I have to admire her for her shorter than regular talk title: Town and Gown: The Studentification of Urban Space. She must have really struggled to restrain herself. Coming from a critical theory background, she tends to over-embellish her lectures with, what I can only describe as, smartass deconstruction punctuation. I was surprised to see a distinct lack of bracket use and did wonder if she was perhaps feeling a bit unwell. Other than that, her talk was tolerable. Although she did set herself up for a ‘big reveal’, her model of studentification in Venn diagram form. Like this is the first time someone has ever used a Venn diagram in a presentation! These hyped up announcements invariably fall flat, like she did later that evening when leaving The Head of Steam public house.

Alex Bridger’s Talk: What is Psychogeography?
Dr. Bridger clearly broke into my office and stole the abstract I submitted for my talk for the event. Two bottles of spirits also ‘co-incidentally’ went missing. I thought his talk was great, but that’s because IT WAS MINE! I have nothing more to say about this man…

Tim Water’s Walk
The famous (or should I say infamous) neogeographer Mr. Waters is just a sadist. Three of those attending his walk sought me out online ACTUALLY DURING THE WALK – knowing I was no longer with the world congress – to complain about the 12 hour long walk he took them on. And all with no proper toilet break and, worse, no alcohol! Darrant Hinsico, who had come all the way from Portugal, said "I was forced to tinkle on Harold Wilson". I also heard that a desperate splinter group actually stormed Huddersfield Town Hall after becoming so deranged after a lack of any “pep me up” (and I quote) that they began to hallucinate, thinking it was The Bastille.

Phil Wood’s Presence
When I say Phil Wood’s presence, I mean 'presence'! Thankfully this psychogeographer not only kept the whole gathering on a professional footing, with both his flat cap and his Rob Rinderesque gavel, but also brought some gravitas to the event. To be honest, the man is wasted in this group of, what I can only describes as, losers! If I was Wood, and some have suggested that I am both he and also Luther Blissett, I would move across the Pennines and join the Western camp of the Northern Psychogeographers and get as far away from these idiots as possible!

The World Congress of Perambulatory Sutures

The World Congress of Perambulatory Sutures took place in the North of England this last week, culminating in two extraordinary events, one held in Huddersfield and one in Leeds. I use the word ‘extraordinary’ here in the definition of both ‘unusual or remarkable’ and also ‘specially convened’. These events were ‘Class Wargames’ at the University of Huddersfield (13th May 2015) and ‘The Inside Out of Walking Inside Out’ at the University of Leeds (14th May 2015). Psychogeographers travelled through time and space for these events. From as geographically far away as Paris, as temporally distant as the London Psychogeographical Association of the 1990s and as virtually far away as the online Outbounding forum, The Art of Exploring.

Class Wargames
University of Huddersfield 13 May 2015

Dr Alexander John Bridger arranged for Fabian Tompsett, Richard Essex and Dr Richard Barbrook to introduce Class Wargames to interested parties: gamely academics, itinerant psychogeographers and general ne’er do wells with a curious nature. Class Wargames is based on Guy Debord’s ‘The Game of War’ and in his honour alcohol was included in order to help channel the God of the dérive. Sides were taken, swords were drawn, turrets were stormed – all in the name of class and psychogeographical boundaries.

Anyone partaking in Class Wargames may put themselves forward for ‘activist’ or ‘associate’ status once they have played. However this title can only be tenuously attributed to those who drank so much they could barely even pronounce ‘Debord’ and also those whose attention span was equivalent to that of a single-celled organism.

The 8 hour long game culminated in a win for the underdogs – or rather underdog as by this time three of the four players on that team had found the Harold Wilson statue and spent the last two hours of the game discussing the Bolsheviks and feeding him crisps. For some, the event was a dérive in itself, as they walked from Huddersfield through the night straight to the event that took place the next day at the University of Leeds, sleeping under a bush in the Vice Chancellor's garden till woken by maintenance staff at around 7.00am.

The Inside Out of Walking Inside Out
University of Leeds 14 May 2015

At ‘The Inside Out of Walking Inside Out’ Dr Tina Richardson not only led us on a wander through her new edited volume, but also through the scene of British urban walking in the 21st century. Plying the audience with wine gums, marshmallows and chocolate buttons, she attempted to bribe the audience into buying the book by giving away key rings. One of the audience members stormed out half way through in protest at “the lack of alcoholic beverages at a freakin’ book launch” and threw his key ring at Richardson, knocking off her trilby. Richardson had to pass over to Dr. Bridger to continue reading while she snorted from her Bach Rescue Remedy teat pipette in an attempt to recover.

Richardson was her usual contentious and unagreeable self, throwing terms like ‘post-Sinclairian’ into the mix in order to start an argument, at the same time alienating all the literary psychogeographers in the audience and the London-based ones in one fell swoop – not least Sinclair himself. She explained ‘the new psychogeography’ to everyone, stating pretentiously that since she hadn’t got too much time left before she retired “one must strategically carve out a place for oneself in order to become part of psychogeography’s heritage”.

The talk ended with the swearing in of a new World Congress secretary and treasurer, followed by an indoor psychogeographical trip, led by Dr Andrew Evans, around the School of Geography.

We, The World Congress, believe that the cumulative effect of the geographical concentration of these two events in the week beginning 11th May 2015 has probably shifted psychogeographical ley lines across the UK, or at the very least at significant points north of Birmingham. It is also quite likely that at what are known as ‘perambulatory hinges’, such as the one located at the University of Loughborough near the brutalist halls of residence (Towers) and also that situated on the roundabout near Burley’s Flyover in Leicester, have been totally thrown off orbit!

You can also see Dr Bridger's account of events, including much more information on the game itself, here: Not Another Psychogeography Blog:

"Lest we forget to mention, there was a special guest appearance by David Bollinger, Director of the West Yorkshire Association for Psychogeography at the Class Wargames event at the University of Huddersfield. His contribution was vital to enabling the Austrians to win the battle of Marengo, thus turning history ‘on its head’ and preventing the French from winning!"
 CEO of Huddersfield Psychogeographical Network