<P> In "Formulary for a New Urbanism", Chtcheglov had written "Architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and space, of modulating reality, of engendering dreams". Similarly, the Situationists found contemporary architecture both physically and ideologically restrictive, combining with outside cultural influence, effectively creating an undertow, and forcing oneself into a certain system of interaction with their environment: "(C) ities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones". </P> <P> The Situationists' response was to create designs of new urbanized space, promising better opportunities for experimenting through mundane expression . Their intentions remained completely as abstractions . Guy Debord's truest intention was to unify two different factors of "ambiance" that, he felt, determined the values of the urban landscape: the soft ambiance--light, sound, time, the association of ideas--with the hard, the actual physical constructions . Debord's vision was a combination of the two realms of opposing ambiance, where the play of the soft ambiance was actively considered in the rendering of the hard . The new space creates a possibility for activity not formerly determined by one besides the individual . </P> <P> However, the Situationist International may have been tongue - in - cheek about some parts of psychogeography . "This apparently serious term' psychogeography"', writes Debord biographer Vincent Kaufman, "comprises an art of conversation and drunkenness, and everything leads us to believe that Debord excelled at both ." </P> <P> Eventually, Debord and Asger Jorn resigned themselves to the fate of "urban relativity". Debord readily admits in his 1961 film A Critique of Separation, "The sectors of a city...are decipherable, but the personal meaning they have for us is incommunicable, as is the secrecy of private life in general, regarding which we possess nothing but pitiful documents". Despite the ambiguity of the theory, Debord committed himself firmly to its practical basis in reality, even as he later confesses, "none of this is very clear . It is a completely typical drunken monologue...with its vain phrases that do not await response and its overbearing explanations . And its silences ." </P>

Guy debord introduction to a critique of urban geography