Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE DERIVE

Site: The city of Barcelona
Exercise:
You will explore the city by means of the situationist dérive,(1) a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences of repulsion and attraction.

“In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.”

You will position your self as the flanuer.(2) With the assistance of a partner you will begin your dérive at an unidentified location. You will record your drift determined by your emotional response to urban situations. Please remember, your perceived ambiances are a product of all your senses not just visual.

Assignment:
Following the exercise, you will create a psychogeographical mapping of your perceived ambiances. Your medium is pencil and collage on paper (dimensions and template to be specified). You will produce one map per group of two on white watercolor paper. It is suggested to begin your graphic representation with a 2-dimensioanl map that then is manipulated to express the varied ambiances that were encountered.

1. dérive: literally “drift” or “drifting.” Like détournement, this term has usually been anglicized as both a noun and a verb. In philosophy, a Dérive is a French concept meaning an aimless walk, that follows the whim of the moment. It is sometimes translated as a drift.
2. flanuer: comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". A flâneur is thus a person who walks the city in order to experience it. Because of the term's usage and theorization by
Charles Baudelaire
and numerous thinkers in economic, cultural, literary and historical fields, the idea of the flâneur has accumulated significant meaning as a referent for understanding urban phenomena and modernity
Boards in order from top to bottom: (board one) Travis Akiwowo and Kevin McNamara, (board two) Jessica Euler, Michael Doster, Josh Bereznay

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