Dérives

The concept of dérive was developed by the Situationist artists in the 1950s and outlined by Guy Debord in his essay, “Theory of the Dérive.”

Quite simply, a dérive is a French word for “drift.” The Situationists would take aimless walks through the city– in their case, Paris– allowing their whims and emotions to pull them into different moments. So says Wikipedia: “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. The basic premise of the idea is for people to explore their environment (”psychogeography”) without preconceptions, to understand their location, and therefore their existence.”

The way it was presented to me when I was learning about it in art school some years ago was “doing nothing creatively.” There was probably more, but those were the three words that found their way into my notebook at the time.

As I am doing quite a bit of “nothing” these days (or what I decided, two posts ago, was not nothing) I have resolved to give it some structure. I am taking my first dérive this Sunday, August 18th, a day chosen for its predisposition to idleness, and also the day predicted to be the coolest this week.

Debord outlines several things that make dérive interesting. Company is one such thing, and he suggests bringing one or two people along, but not more than that. Any takers? Keep in mind that this is going to be at least a half day walk. I am fucking serious about doing nothing.