Debord (1958) - Theory of the dérive

From Inventiopedia

Debord, Guy (2006) "Theory of the dérive" in Joanne Morra and Marquard Smith (eds): Visual Culture: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge. pp 77-81. First published 1958 in Internationale Situationniste, 2: 1-4.

This short article presents the psychogeographical (situationist) technique of dérive (literally: "drifting"). From the text it is far from clear exactly how this concept should be understood - as a methodology for scholarly study, or as an artistic practice or a form of political rebellion? Although Debord seems to position it primarily in the former category, in reality it seems to be a mix of the latter two.

By way of definition, we are offered this:

One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: 'drifting'], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.

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.

But the dérive includes both this letting-go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities. In this latter regard, ecological science, despite the narrow social space to which it limits itself, provides psychogeography with abundant data. (p. 77)

So debord uses words like 'science' and 'data' and speaks of 'objective conclusions' and environmental conditions, giving the impression of a pseudo-science:

The ecological analysis of the absolute or relative character of fissures in the urban network, of the role of microclimates, of distinct neighborhoods with no relation to administrative boundaries, and above all of the dominating action of centers of attraction, must be utilized and completed by psychogeographical methods. The objective passional terrain of the dérive must be defined in accordance both with its own logic and with its relations with social morphology. (77)

Debord also indicates that dérives can have two different purposes - "to study a terrain or to emotionally disorient oneself" (79). Of the former, he explains:

The exploration of a fixed spatial field entails establishing bases and calculating directions of penetration. It is here that the study of maps comes in — ordinary ones as well as ecological and psychogeographical ones — along with their correction and improvement. It should go without saying that we are not at all interested in any mere exoticism that may arise from the fact that one is exploring a neighborhood for the first time. Besides its unimportance, this aspect of the problem is completely subjective and soon fades away. (79-80)

However, from the examples given, there are no indications of any form of systematic study being conducted, or any explanations of precisely what kind of results one could expect from such studies, beyond some ambitious, but fairly vague postulations:

The lessons drawn from dérives enable us to draft the first surveys of the psychogeographical articulations of a modern city. Beyond the discovery of unities of ambience, of their main components and their spatial localization, one comes to perceive their principal axes of passage, their exits and their defenses. One arrives at the central hypothesis of the existence of psychogeographical pivotal points. One measures the distances that actually separate two regions of a city, distances that may have little relation with the physical distance between them. With the aid of old maps, aerial photographs and experimental dérives, one can draw up hitherto lacking maps of influences, maps whose inevitable imprecision at this early stage is no worse than that of the earliest navigational charts. The only difference is that it is no longer a matter of precisely delineating stable continents, but of changing architecture and urbanism. (80)

However, the actual activities described as dérives takes more the form of pranks and "amusements":

Our rather anarchic lifestyle and even certain amusements considered dubious that have always been enjoyed among our entourage — slipping by night into houses undergoing demolition, hitchhiking nonstop and without destination through Paris during a transportation strike in the name of adding to the confusion, wandering in subterranean catacombs forbidden to the public, etc. — are expressions of a more general sensibility which is no different from that of the dérive. Written descriptions can be no more than passwords to this great game. (80)

--Anders Sundnes Løvlie 10:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)