Dérive

Redirect

Dérive, a French concept meaning an aimless walk, sometimes translated as drift, probably through city streets, that follows the whim of the moment.

Contents

1 History
2 Modern Uses
3 Reading List
4 See also
5 External links

5.1 References

History

The Situationist International outlined it in Internationale Situationniste #1 as "a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of transient passage through varied ambiances. Also used to designate a specific period of continuous dériving."

The foundation of the idea is to explore your psychogeography without preconceptions, to understand your location, and thus your existence, through your un-mediated perceptions.

French philosopher and Situationist Guy Debord used this idea to try and convince readers to revisit the way they looked at urban spaces. Rather than being prisoners to their daily route and routine, living in a complex city but treading the same path every day, he urged people to follow their emotions and to look at urban situations in a radical new way. This led to the notion that most of our cities were so thoroughly unpleasant because they were designed in a way that either ignored their emotional impact on people, or indeed tried to control people through their very design.

Debord explains in Theory of the Dérive that dérives are best when composed of a group of two or three people who have "reached the same awakening of consciousness." They most often occur in one day, that is the time between the waking and sleeping hours—having nothing to do with the solar day. Sometimes, though, they can last several days or often will occur within only a few hours. Dérives most often occur on foot but can employ the use of taxis but only to move away from the usual surroundings.

Ivan Chtcheglov in "Letters from Afar," IS #9 writes that the dérive is to "the totality" what Psychoanalysis is to language. Furthermore, he explains that the dérive can be a kind of therapy. In this sense, it can be become dangerous to the person if he or she goes drifting far too long and therefore losing a sense of reality. He goes on to say that in 1953-1954 that he and a group dérived for three or four months and says that is the absolute longest it should happen.

Modern Uses

More recently in 1992, Sadie Plant wrote in The Most Radical Gesture: The Situationist International in a Post Modern Age: "to dérive was to notice the way in which certain areas, streets, or buildings resonate with states of mind, inclinations, and desires, and to seek out reasons for movement other than those for which an environment was designed. It was very much a matter of using an environment for one's own ends, seeking not only the marvellous beloved by surrealism but bringing an inverted perspective to bear on the entirety of the spectacular world."

It is also a concept used in psychogeographical studies for art collectives like Glowlab and conferences such as Provflux and Psy-Geo-conflux.

Reading List

Knabb, Ken (Editor). Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981).
Careri, Francesco. Land&Scape Series: Walkscapes (Barcelona: 2002).

External links

[Theory of the Dérive]- Guy Debord (English translation)
[Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography]- Guy Debord (English transtlation)
[Formulary for a New Urbanism]- Ivan Chtcheglov (English translation)
[Henri Lefebvre Interview on SI]

References

Knabb, Ken (Editor). Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981).