Psychographie

is a protocol for automatic writing in public space. In the form of a performance that establishes a period of static immersion within a given territory, I set myself up—as a psychographer—in public space with a table and a camping chair, on which I place a typewriter. For the duration of a day (and sometimes a night), I capture and contemplate what defines the place—the forms and composition of the space, its smells, sounds, vibrations, its past, its future, and both what is visible and what is not. Attentive to the people who inhabit this space, the psychographer allows themselves to be influenced by the stories told, the experiences lived—whether everyday or extraordinary—and slips between the lines of the place’s collective imagination. Much like a medium, and using the technique of automatic writing—without any personal agenda or narrative structure—the psychographer transcribes, minute by minute, whatever passes through their mind and delivers raw narratives in the form of a psychological profile of a place.

A memento for the older generation, an object of curiosity for the younger one, the typewriter is a simple mechanical device that brings even the most complex thoughts to life. Beneath its apparent roughness lies the poetry of the mark etched onto the paper. An object that invites us to sit down in front of it, to accept error as part of the world’s beauty, it questions our relationship to time and the ephemeral. Like rhythmic music, this installation in public space does not leave passersby indifferent. The performances thus assert the right and duty to reclaim shared spaces for purposes other than mobility. They allow us to pause without the intention to consume—for the duration of an exchange, for the time it takes to observe and question the world in which we live: the place of living beings, the commons, our relationships with others, and our memories.

#writing #performance #publicspace #automaticwriting #poetry