Mindscape walks

Imagine a city as an imprint of human minds into a landscape. Each human artefact existed once solely in the mind of a single person. So whenever you look around in a populated area, you find yourself in the middle of a materialised collective mental landscape. Somehow, there is everything we usually think about, fear, long for, run away from etc. From certain perspective, cityscape renders all these things tangible and visible, we can walk through and around them, observe, discover places we lost access to in our minds.

If you don't bind your mind with preprocessed stuff, entering an unknown territory can be like entering a dream. As in a dream, things that address you tell you something of yourself. It is however much easier to remember, it is even possible to record and to create.

Think of it as a kind of a game.

Rules of the game:

• Chose a starting point. It can be random, it can be a place that caught your interest for some reason. In any case, don't use any kind of guide or map for that purpose.

• Set your time. For the first time, it should not be less than an hour, and not more than three hours. Both less and more is an advanced game.

• Switch off your mobile so that no one can contact you during that time, don't let any notifications disturb you, don't put on headphones with music. In short, cut all your virtual connections, stay in the raw reality solely.

• The only devices that should be used during the journey is your tracking system so that you can later reconstruct the walk, a camera to take pictures of whatever catches your attention, and an alarm clock that tells you when your time is up. You can also grab a paper notebook and a pen/pencile, and tak notes or sketch drawings. Ready?

• Look around.

• Set off in any direction that seems to be most appealing. Or just any direction with no reason at all.

• Ease off your mind, let it work on its own. Don't push, don't pull, don't make any expectations.

• Go.

• Walk around. Care not where you are. Just observe. Take notes of whatever catches your attention, of whatever raises strong feelings of any kind.

• Don't talk. If you are sharing the walk with someone, verbalise and exchange all your feelings only when it is over.

• Stop any time you feel like having enough, or when the alarm clock goes off.

• Wake up into your common mode by finding out where you are.

• Analyse your journey as if it were a dream. Find out about places that have raised your emotions. Put it all together. Let it live in you and develop for as much time as necessary. It can be years and you can do it anywhere, not just Prague, of course. Prague, however, is a great place to start with for mainly two reasons: it is safe to walk just about anywhere, there are no no go zones. And it is very shapely and diverse.

In Prague, I can help you with it, too.

If you drop me a note we can do the analysis together. Having lived in various parts of Prague for almost sixty years, I can tell you things about places you won't find in books. I can even give you some clues as for interpretations. It is fun. Like a live trip in a game of Tarot. Remember Alice.

Eventually, I can guide you through some interesting areas myself. The advantage being less worries about your whereabouts for you. The disadvantage is that the walk is not going to be random. At the same time, it can help you for the first time, and provide some clues how to do it. Then you can go ahead and do it on your own for the rest of your life at any place of your choice.

If interested, drop me a note at jiri@praguespotting.com
or join at FB.

Price: voluntary