Concept:
Rachel and I did a psychogeographic walk centered around chance and the “shuffle” feature on an iPod. We set up a couple of guidelines: 1) When a happy or uptempo song came on, we would make a right turn; 2) When a sad or slow song came on, we would make a left turn; 3) If there was a reference in a song to something visible on the street, that reference would trump the aforementioned directional rules (e.g., if a song mentions a hotel and we see a hotel to our left, we must turn left); 4) If we hit a dead end and there were no cues in the lyrics, we had to skip to another song. We did not make a specific playlist for our walk, so it was possible to get any combination of the 7000+ songs that I have stored in my iTunes. We decided to begin in the late afternoon/early evening because it seems that is an especially interesting time to investigate a city with which we’re not terribly familiar. Most of the tourist destinations
(e.g. museums, markets, etc.) close around that time and the evening is a particularly interesting time to see the people who are out in the city. The evening also adds another layer of unfamiliarity to the city since everything looks different after dark.
Execution:
There are several things that I learned on the walk. One of them is has to do with the way that I personally remember routes. There were several places that we passed that I remembered, but was totally unable to place. There was a statue that I had seen before when I had been looking for the tram station, for example, and a street that I had walked down when I was trying to find my way back to the hotel. Because of Amsterdam’s layout of canals in concentric circles, I find it very easy to get lost or to take multiple routes to the same destination. Although the path of our walk was dictated by chance, it ended up that I had walked down many of the same streets before simply because of wrong turns when I was looking for specific destinations. However, the mood I was in when walking down the same streets was very different. When I’m lost I try to rationally figure out the best way to go, but I generally feel very nervous. Although I did not really have a good sense of where I was on our walk, I felt very relaxed and was able to enjoy the scenery because I did not expect to know where I was going.
I also think our walk was an interesting study on how music influences mood and how mood influences perception. Mood so often dictates where you go and how you get there. If you’re feeling sad you might walk someplace in order to be alone or if you’re in a good mood you might find yourself at a park. Walking along a canal while listening to a sad song gives a very different impression than walking down the same canal listening to an optimistic song.
The third most important thing that I experienced on our walk was seeing Amsterdam from a non-tourist point of view. While the stereotypical image of American tourists on a Saturday night involves a specific set of locations in which Dutch residents do not really spend time, our route led us through sections of town that we would not have seen if we had tourist destinations. That is not to say
that we completely avoided tourist territory, but the way that we ended up at Dam Square, for example, led us down streets we would not have seen otherwise. We encountered a bike with a wagon of puppies attached, a group of women in silver hats, and many hand-holding couples. Additionally, because we went down many dimly lit streets, we were treated to fantastic reflections on the canals.
The Songs Shuffle Picked:
“Hard Times Are Over” by Yoko Ono and John Lennon. We began at Leidseplein, which is a fairly typical tourist destination. The song has fairly happy lyrics, so we turned right down a main street.
“Love Minus Zero” by Bob Dylan. The song is bouncy so we turned right down a canal.
“Lucky Number Nine” by the Moldy Peaches. When the previous song ended, we found ourselves with buildings to our left and the canal to our right and no place to turn. We turned and faced the water and then “Lucky Number Nine” came on and we turned toward the direction from which we had come.
“Hey Sister” by Luna. We coincidentally hit the same main street that we had walked up before and “Hey Sister” is sad and thus dictated that we had to turn left. This meant that we were headed directly back toward Leidseplein.
“Saturday Night” by Eve 6. This sent us to the right (west) down a side street.
“Satisfied Mind” by Jeff Buckley. This sad song sent us to the left down another canal. However, we hit a dead end and had to skip to the next song to decide whether to head left or right.
“Chords of Fame” by Phil Ochs. The bouncy pace of this song had us choose a right turn.
“Pacific Theme” by Broken Social Scene. Because the song is both mellow and reminded us of the Pacific Ocean, we headed left along the water.
“I’ll Do Anything” by Courtney Love. The song led us to the right over a bridge because it’s uptempo.
“Thunder Peel” by Beck. This song was a little problematic to decide what to do with. It sounds kind of slow, but then there is also a steady drumbeat that makes it feel a little bouncier than it should. Consequently, we decided to split the difference and keep going straight.
“On Language” by Julie Ruin. This song feels like a really fast cha-cha so we made a right turn.
“Oh Boy [Instrumental] by Cheap Trick. This song also feels pretty happy so we turned right again,
“Reoccurring Dreams” by Hüsker Dü. Fourteen minutes of more or less guitar craziness steered us to the right for quite a while.
“(Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess” by John Lennon. This song contains fairly sad lyrics, but it’s uptempo so we went to the right.
“Girlfriend” by the Modern Lovers. Right after the previous song ended and this song was just beginning, we found ourselves in front of an ice cream store. Because there were essentially too sad, lonely songs in a row and we were coincidentally in front of the quintessential wallowing food, we stopped to buy ice cream.
We then took our ice cream cones and turned left
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” by Ella Fitzgerald with Louis Jordan. We decided to turn right towards lights and an advertisement for French fries since we felt that this was the “warmer” direction.
“Beautiful Boys” by CocoRosie. This caused us to make another left turn for a sad song.
“Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyand)” The Jimi Hendrix Experience. We arrived with an alley to our left and the beginnings of the Red Light district to our right. When this song came on we had no choice but to turn to the right towards the neon red lights and the women in the windows.
“Soap Star Joe” by Liz Phair. We were in a small plaza and there were several options in front of us. The male protagonist in “Soap Star Joe” led us to head down a little street that seemed to have “manlier” things, such as a steakhouse. During the song we hit another dead end, but the lyrics mention “green and white” and there was a sign on the right which had exactly those two colors so we headed towards it.
“Tax Dollar” by Erase Errata. The song is fairly fast, so we went to the right.
“My Back Pages” by Bob Dylan. Once again, we weren’t very close to any intersections when the songs changed. This song is pretty soft and slow so we went back in the direction that we had come from.
“Tightly” by Neko Case. We arrived back at almost the exact same place that we had entered the square with the Liz Phair song. “Tightly” is a slow song, so we took a left turn.
“The Chariot” by Aaron Copeland. Just as this song began a tram passed us and we decided to follow it because of “The Chariot.”
“El Sol” by Zwan. This song also left us at a place where there wasn’t any clear way to turn. Consequently, we chose a direction with very bright lights, vaguely reminiscent of the sun.
“Sister, I Need Wine” by Guided By Voices. For our final song, we chose to head off to our left in the direction where there seemed to be more bars based on the lyrical cue of “wine.” The song ended with the two of us in Dam Square with all of the carnival rides and quite an interesting cross-section of people.
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