The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture

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The Workshop for Non-Linear Architecture (wnla) was the name taken by a group of experimental artists and psychogeographers active in Britain (sections existed in both Glasgow and London) during the 1990's. Informed to a large degree by the urban practices of the Paris based Lettriste Internationale (1952-57), the workshop focused its practise on developing the letterist theory of Unitary Urbanism through physical research and behavioural intervention; redefining the psychogeographical terrain of the cityscape in relation to its emotive resistivity.

The artist Ralph Rumney (1934-2002), who had known many of the original Parisian letterists, participated in one of the groups derives in London in 1995 and is credited with bringing the activities of the workshop to a wider audience. The workshop appears to have disbanded shortly after the release of the fourth and final issue of its journal Viscocity, now infamous for having been selected by the K Foundation to announce their 23 year moratorium on all artistic practise.

British cultural commentator and activist Stewart Home became a champion of their ludic adventurism, including excerpts from the journal (and a tantalising taste of the type of works undertaken) in a series of edited collections published by Serpent's Tail. "The Joker, the incidental game of urban poker", was printed in Mind Invaders and describes a game of poker played between cities from playing cards found in the street. "St Andrews Arena" appeared in the collection Suspect Device and narrates one particular derive that took place in Glasgow in 1993. Other references to the workshop's activities have appeared in articles by Home, notably in the journal Variant.^[1]

While the Workshop For A Non-Linear Architecture has received little press this is due to the WNLA's indifference towards media coverage rather than a matter of policy. Indeed, the WNLA text 'The Joker: A Game of Incidental Urban Poker' included in the anthology describes exactly the sort of 'unusual' activity - teams of players scavenging city streets for playing cards that make up the hands in games of poker which go on for months - that might receive coverage in the press if those involved had the slightest interest in publicising their activities".^[2]

[edit] Bibliography

• Mind Invaders: A Reader in Psychic Warfare, Cultural Sabotage And Semiotic Terrorism (Serpent's Tail London, 1997).
• Suspect Device: Hard-Edged Fiction (Serpent's Tail, London 1998).

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• The situationist online website, containing many of the original translations undertaken by wnla of the lettriste bulletin Potlatch.