“For two hours I walked the streets in solitude. Never have I seen them so. From every gate a flame darted; each cornerstone sprayed sparks, and every tram came toward me like a fire engine.” Walter Benjamin, One Way Street. (1928b)
Photo: Sean Orr
“One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive, 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.” Guy Debord, Theory of the Derive
Photo: Jeff Otto O’Brien
Sean Orr on his artistic practice, and the derive–
Sean: The concept of the derive for me was applied in retrospect. I was formulating my second solo show at Antisocial in 2005 called Home.work which was about the attempt to disrupt my work/home journey. My brother told me about the Derive so I looked into it and threw some quotes on the wall. Ever since I’ve been trying to apply it to my work, but mostly just letting it serve as a theoretical backdrop to what I was already doing; roaming back alleys and seeking out “difficult beauty”. I was already aware that my walking was therapeutic- in that I immersed myself in my work as a tool for helping with alcoholism- which is weird because Debord sort of did the opposite. But that’s just it, its meant to be different for everyone. On my walking tours, which are a pale imitation of the derive, I like to encourage substance abuse. It allows people to more fully lose themselves in their landscape.
Jeff: That’s astute. I first used the theory of the derive as a prescriptive methodology to guide some of my photographic practice rather than a descriptive, retrospective analysis. I see it as a model of interaction that provides a normative framework to give one’s work a psychogeographic grounding and not subject to the realm of what I’d call straight street photography. I think the walking tours truly hark back to the initial precis of the derive.
Photo:Sean Orr
Photo: Jeff Otto O’Brien
“The dérive (with its flow of acts, its gestures, its strolls, its encounters) was to the totality exactly what psychoanalysis (in the best sense) is to language. Let yourself go with the flow of words, says the psychoanalyst. He listens, until the moment when he rejects or modifies (one could say detourned) a word, an expression or a definition. The dérive is certainly a technique, almost a therapeutic one. But just as analysis unaccompanied with anything else is almost always contraindicated, so continual dériving is dangerous to the extent that the individual, having gone too far (not without bases, but…) without defenses, is threatened with explosion, dissolution, dissociation, disintegration. And thence the relapse into what is termed ‘ordinary life,’ that is to say, in reality, into ‘petrified life.’ In this regard I now repudiate my Formulary’s propaganda for a continuous dérive. It could be continuous like the poker game in Las Vegas, but only for a certain period, limited to a weekend for some people, to a week as a good average; a month is really pushing it. In 1953-1954 we dérived for three or four months straight. That’s the extreme limit. It’s a miracle it didn’t kill us” Ivan Chtcheglov, excerpt from a 1963 letter to Michèle Bernstein and Guy Debord, reprinted in Internationale Situationniste #9, p. 38
Is the derive still a political act, as the early ‘Situationists’ conceptualized?
As we sink ever further into our routines, as we are kept ever subservient to the whims of hyper capitalism, the derive is still relevant and political. That being said its probably a different kind of political act. Less architectural in nature perhaps and maybe more along the lines of individualism, and certainly influenced by digital photography. The derive, as I understand it, is still as important, if perhaps a little more difficult to achieve in the way the originators did. But the point is, as always, not perfection, but a progression towards learning and experiencing. Surely, one must consider the nature of our cities as compared to, say Paris in the 60s. We live in a post 9/11 world, and private security is rampant. Yet I believe if more people take the time to lose themselves in their own town, the city can be transformed into a cauldron ripe for revolution.
Photo: Sean Orr
Photo: Jeff Otto O’Brien
Photo: Jeff Otto O’Brien
Photo: Sean Orr
On the independent nature of photography and its relationship to psychogeography–
Digital photography therefore is another way to fully realize the derive. The ability to document every nook and cranny wasn’t available to the early flaneurs. I’m sure it also impedes traditional flaneuring as well. That being said, there are so many obstacles to pure drifting anyways; from security and private property to urban renewal. So, if something allows for people to go home and geotag their photos and share their experiences with others, it can only be a good thing. It will only result in a shift in consciousness that is necessary if we are to continue living in the urban environment.
Photo: Sean Orr
Photo: Jeff Otto O’Brien
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