Transgressions: A Journal of Urban Exploration
A short-lived British magazine that documented and encouraged experimental forms of urban exploration and psychogeographical practice.
Last updated August 31, 2026
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Overview
Transgressions: A Journal of Urban Exploration was a British periodical devoted to urban exploration, psychogeography, and related experimental cultural practices. It emerged in 1995, during a period when British artists, writers, and activist groups were renewing interest in walking, mapping, urban wandering, architectural marginality, and the imaginative reinterpretation of everyday spaces. Rather than treating the city solely as an object of academic analysis, the magazine presented urban experience as playful, embodied, political, and open to creative intervention. The publication was edited by Alastair Bonnett and issued by Salamander Press in London. Only four editions appeared during its publishing life, with the second and third numbers combined as a double issue. Although its run was brief, the magazine occupied a distinctive position within the 1990s revival of psychogeographical activity. Its editorial direction favored a more sensuous and humorous approach than the doctrinaire strand associated with some readings of Guy Debord and orthodox Situationism. The magazine showed particular affinity with the work and spirit of Asger Jorn, whose playful treatment of cultural and political experience provided an important point of reference. Transgressions also circulated ideas associated with British psychogeographical groups, including the re-formed London Psychogeographical Association. It is associated with early use of the expression “magico-Marxism,” a phrase that appeared in the magazine in 1996 and was used to describe a hybrid sensibility combining Marxist political critique with imaginative, symbolic, and quasi-mystical approaches to urban life. The publication further introduced or highlighted work by Italian “situationauts,” as well as a variety of psychogeographical projects concerned with ordinary lives and everyday environments. The magazine’s subject matter extended beyond conventional accounts of urban exploration. Its approach connected the investigation of overlooked or contested urban spaces with wider questions about memory, social relations, ideology, landscape, and the possibility of post-avant-garde cultural practice. In this sense, “urban exploration” referred not only to entering abandoned or inaccessible places, but also to finding alternative ways of seeing and inhabiting the modern city. Transgressions ended publication in 2001. Its limited print run and specialized focus kept it a niche publication, but its archive remains relevant to histories of contemporary psychogeography, British avant-garde publishing, and the development of urban exploration as a cultural practice. The surviving archive has been made available through Libcom, providing access to material from a period when independent magazines were important vehicles for linking theoretical discussion, artistic experimentation, and activist networks.
History
Transgressions was established in Britain in 1995 as an independent magazine focused on urban exploration and psychogeography. Its appearance coincided with renewed interest in forms of cultural practice that treated cities as spaces for discovery, dérive, symbolic reinterpretation, and political critique. The magazine reflected the expansion of psychogeographical activity beyond historical accounts of the Situationist International and into contemporary British artistic, literary, and activist circles. Edited by Alastair Bonnett and published by Salamander Press in London, Transgressions adopted an intentionally experimental editorial character. It favored a playful and sensual understanding of urban experience, drawing more heavily on the imaginative and humorous qualities associated with Asger Jorn than on rigid or purely theoretical interpretations of Guy Debord. Its pages connected essays, reflections, and reports on urban initiatives with a wider post-avant-garde interest in ordinary lives and the hidden meanings of everyday environments. The magazine was also linked to the intellectual and cultural milieu surrounding the re-formed London Psychogeographical Association and related British groups. One of its notable contributions was the introduction or early circulation of the term “magico-Marxism,” which appeared in the magazine in 1996. The expression captured an approach that combined political-economic critique with symbolic, imaginative, and experiential engagement with the city. Transgressions presented work by Italian “situationauts” and discussed psychogeographical initiatives from different contexts. Its urban exploration was therefore broader than the physical investigation of abandoned buildings or restricted locations. The publication treated walking, observation, memory, social experience, and alternative mapping as means of questioning conventional uses and representations of urban space. Only four editions were published. The second and third numbers were combined into a double issue, making the publication’s physical run particularly compact. Despite this limited output, the magazine became a recognizable document of the 1990s psychogeographical revival and of the period’s independent publishing culture. Its concerns brought together radical politics, avant-garde aesthetics, urban studies, and informal cultural experimentation. Publication ended in 2001. The magazine’s archive, preserved online through Libcom, has allowed researchers and readers to revisit its contribution to British psychogeography and urban exploration. Because the publication was short-lived and specialized, detailed information about its circulation, finances, staff beyond its editor, and distribution arrangements is not publicly established in the supplied references.
- 2001
Publication ended
[1]Transgressions ceased publication after producing four editions.
- 1996
Early appearance of “magico-Marxism”
[1]The magazine used the expression “magico-Marxism,” associated with a blend of Marxist critique and imaginative or symbolic approaches to urban experience.
- 1995
Magazine founded
[1]Transgressions was established in Britain as a journal dedicated to urban exploration, psychogeography, and related experimental cultural practices.
Second and third issues combined
[1]The publication produced a double issue numbered 2/3, contributing to a total run of four editions.
Products and positioning
An independent, avant-garde British journal positioned at the intersection of psychogeography, urban exploration, Situationist thought, political experimentation, and everyday cultural life.
Independent cultural magazine · 1995
Transgressions journal issues
The magazine’s principal product was a limited series of printed issues covering urban exploration, psychogeography, Situationist and post-Situationist ideas, political imagination, and experimental approaches to everyday urban life. The contents connected theoretical discussion with reports and reflections on psychogeographical initiatives, including work associated with British and Italian practitioners.
Double issue
Issue 2/3
The second and third numbered editions were published together as a double issue. It formed part of the magazine’s compact four-edition run and continued its engagement with playful, sensuous, political, and experimental interpretations of urban space.
Sources2 sources
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