Claire Brentnall
Declaration of the desire for revolution put forward by an avant-garde group of artists, is nothing new. The anti-art, anti-bourgeois sentiments of the 1960s group the Situationist International are reminiscent of Dada, and their post-modern attitudes coupled with a strong spirit of revolt resemble Surrealist endeavours. Though, the Situationists seemed to be aware that their group was the love child of what has come before. Members perceived the nihilistic anarchism of Dada as a necessary and inescapable attitude to be advocated by future avant-garde groups where capitalist social structures have not yet been eradicated, or traditional hierarchies dismantled. However, where these previous groups have failed, the Situationists were intent on succeeding in their liberation of society, via the discovery and strict application of new and improved actions. One such action and common practice was the “dérive”, first theorised by Guy Debord. This concept was something new to me, so I was keen to obtain a better understanding of how the Situationists set about achieving their revolution. I read Debord’s Theory of the Dérive in the hope of grasping what constitutes this practice.
Debord begins by explaining what the “technique” of the dérive involves, and this is the “rapid passage through varied ambiences”. My first problem arose at this point. The term “dérive” literally means “drifting”, which, to me, conjures images of slow, aimless wandering or floating without purpose: a seemingly contradictory concept to the rapid, purposefully constructive nature of this practice? However, Debord sets about proving how different a dérive is from the traditional journey or stroll with regards to his invented practice of “psychogeography”, which is the study of the urban geographical environment in relation to the effects it has on human existence. He enforces the notion that “Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think”, as it is the city that ultimately dictates the passage of the dériver with its restricted zones; it may be discouraged, or made impossible for certain routes to be explored therefore causing the journey of the dériver to be predetermined to a certain extent. So, in this sense, Debord is portraying the dérive as being a consciously structured, calculated process.
The sentence immediately prior to his denial of the significance of chance however, is something of a contradiction. Debord writes how the person or group must “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”, which displays an unconscious, uncontrolled element that is fundamental to practicing the dérive. Here Debord seems to be encouraging the inexplicable attraction of the undiscovered, adding a sense of mystery to “this great game” of exploration and detection. Later on in the article though, he adamantly debunks any form of exoticism as being uninteresting for the dériver, as they are not to be concerned with this kind of subjective nonsense, (what do you think this is, some kind of game?!) No, the explorer needs to concentrate on more important aspects, such as the improvement and correction of maps, and calculating directions of penetration.
It is possible to suggest that Debord himself does not appear to have a firm idea of what he wishes the dérive to be. He strives to enforce how chance is a minor issue in order to prove this practice to be different from the randomness of a stroll, but ends up contradicting himself on a number of occasions. For instance, he condemns chance as being “conservative”, as it reduces everything to habit, so in order for the actions of the Situationists to evolve they must escape this by creating “new conditions more favourable to our purpose”. However, he cancels out this criticism by expressing how dérivers may fixate on and get drawn back to “habitual axes”. I find it somewhat bizarre that he chooses to use the word “habitual” after associating habit with the very thing he is trying to escape from. Debord does however, explain why chance may now and then play a more central role than he would like, and this is due to the methodology of psychogeographical observation still being in its infancy. In other words, he’s not sure whether it actually works yet.
Other aspects of the dérive are also presented in this vague, conflicting manner. Debord writes how the duration of a dérive should be on average one day, but may take place within a limited period, or may last for several days, and in one case lasted two months. So basically anything goes! Therefore, is the dérive something consciously calculated, based on a preconceived knowledge of the environment that is to be explored, and performed within a predetermined amount of time? Or is it a random series of encounters and movements based on what attracts the attention of the dériver?
Reading through the article again however, I realized that this is crucially explained. Debord assures the reader that there is this “necessary contradiction” (my italics) of the structured and the free characteristics of the dérive. So, this is where I’ve been going wrong. This practice is not one thing or the other: it can be both. It is necessary to replace either/or with and.
When writing of how the spatial field of a dérive can be either delimited or vague, depending on the goal of the dériver, he is underscoring this necessary contradiction. If the goal is to study a specific terrain, then the dériver may choose a limited area. If the aim is to “emotionally disorient oneself”, then the explored field may be intentionally undefined. He states though, that these two aspects can overlap, making it difficult to isolate the dérive in a “pure state”, (although he fails to fully explain what a “pure state” may be). Nonetheless, this is a positive representation of the possibility of the dérive being a calculated and random process at the same time, with this balance shifting in relation to the intentions of the dériver. However, I feel I can be forgiven for feeling the need to pinpoint what the dérive is or is not. This is because Debord himself does not always seem to promote the ambiguous nature of this activity, as he shows some bias in the article by setting up a number of polarities.
For instance, he leans towards portraying the dérive and his creation of psychogeography as almost scientific experiments. Perhaps it was his desire to show how the Situationists are revolutionary in the way that they have devised new modes of action and discovery, free from any bourgeois, self indulgent, expressive forms of Art. He strives to separate the Situationists from the tired, old Surrealists in regards to this notion, as those “imbeciles” were insufficiently aware of the limitations of chance. To do this Debord criticizes the activity of four Surrealists who in 1923, wandered aimlessly from a randomly chosen town through open country, which resulted in “dismal failure”. This pathetically bourgeois activity is, Debord claims, the polar opposite to what the Situationists are doing, and he seems to have used this example to compare “failed” experiments of the past with the successful activities of the present (despite admitting that his creation of psychogeography is not actually utilizable yet). He has set up polarities by scoffing at the Surrealists in order to portray old ways of thinking versus new, natural surroundings versus urban environment, depressing versus playful and random and meaningless versus calculated and meaningful. But, have the activities of the Situationists really reached the opposite end of the spectrum? Does the “aimless wandering” of the Surrealists not conjure images of “drifting”? Debord later in the article even describes the loose lifestyles of the Situationists and their playful activities which cannot fail to remind the reader of this Surrealist experiment: one such activity being “hitchhiking nonstop and without destination”.
So, the article appears to be full of inconsistencies that may leave the reader questioning the actions of the Situationists. However, their aims seem to be clear. With Debord’s account of the Parisian student whose geographical movements when mapped out were depressingly limited, the anti-confinement attitude of the group becomes apparent. Their desire was to suppress the invisible borders that segregated regions so that they would eventually be diminished. Perhaps this stemmed from a postmodern desire for the individual to break free from the confinements of the space designated to them by modernist architecture, in order to unify the urban environment. This, they claimed, needed to be done via a new awareness of physical construction and psychical ambiance. However, the strict intentions of the Situationists are somewhat incongruent with what they actually achieved. The group has been criticized of imagining that it was contributing to a revolutionary liberation of society via the application of new techniques and actions, when in reality it was just creating ambiguity and confusion.
Declaration of the desire for revolution put forward by an avant-garde group of artists, is nothing new. The anti-art, anti-bourgeois sentiments of the 1960s group the Situationist International are reminiscent of Dada, and their post-modern attitudes coupled with a strong spirit of revolt resemble Surrealist endeavours. Though, the Situationists seemed to be aware that their group was the love child of what has come before. Members perceived the nihilistic anarchism of Dada as a necessary and inescapable attitude to be advocated by future avant-garde groups where capitalist social structures have not yet been eradicated, or traditional hierarchies dismantled. However, where these previous groups have failed, the Situationists were intent on succeeding in their liberation of society, via the discovery and strict application of new and improved actions. One such action and common practice was the “dérive”, first theorised by Guy Debord. This concept was something new to me, so I was keen to obtain a better understanding of how the Situationists set about achieving their revolution. I read Debord’s Theory of the Dérive in the hope of grasping what constitutes this practice.
Debord begins by explaining what the “technique” of the dérive involves, and this is the “rapid passage through varied ambiences”. My first problem arose at this point. The term “dérive” literally means “drifting”, which, to me, conjures images of slow, aimless wandering or floating without purpose: a seemingly contradictory concept to the rapid, purposefully constructive nature of this practice? However, Debord sets about proving how different a dérive is from the traditional journey or stroll with regards to his invented practice of “psychogeography”, which is the study of the urban geographical environment in relation to the effects it has on human existence. He enforces the notion that “Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think”, as it is the city that ultimately dictates the passage of the dériver with its restricted zones; it may be discouraged, or made impossible for certain routes to be explored therefore causing the journey of the dériver to be predetermined to a certain extent. So, in this sense, Debord is portraying the dérive as being a consciously structured, calculated process.
The sentence immediately prior to his denial of the significance of chance however, is something of a contradiction. Debord writes how the person or group must “let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there”, which displays an unconscious, uncontrolled element that is fundamental to practicing the dérive. Here Debord seems to be encouraging the inexplicable attraction of the undiscovered, adding a sense of mystery to “this great game” of exploration and detection. Later on in the article though, he adamantly debunks any form of exoticism as being uninteresting for the dériver, as they are not to be concerned with this kind of subjective nonsense, (what do you think this is, some kind of game?!) No, the explorer needs to concentrate on more important aspects, such as the improvement and correction of maps, and calculating directions of penetration.
It is possible to suggest that Debord himself does not appear to have a firm idea of what he wishes the dérive to be. He strives to enforce how chance is a minor issue in order to prove this practice to be different from the randomness of a stroll, but ends up contradicting himself on a number of occasions. For instance, he condemns chance as being “conservative”, as it reduces everything to habit, so in order for the actions of the Situationists to evolve they must escape this by creating “new conditions more favourable to our purpose”. However, he cancels out this criticism by expressing how dérivers may fixate on and get drawn back to “habitual axes”. I find it somewhat bizarre that he chooses to use the word “habitual” after associating habit with the very thing he is trying to escape from. Debord does however, explain why chance may now and then play a more central role than he would like, and this is due to the methodology of psychogeographical observation still being in its infancy. In other words, he’s not sure whether it actually works yet.
Other aspects of the dérive are also presented in this vague, conflicting manner. Debord writes how the duration of a dérive should be on average one day, but may take place within a limited period, or may last for several days, and in one case lasted two months. So basically anything goes! Therefore, is the dérive something consciously calculated, based on a preconceived knowledge of the environment that is to be explored, and performed within a predetermined amount of time? Or is it a random series of encounters and movements based on what attracts the attention of the dériver?
Reading through the article again however, I realized that this is crucially explained. Debord assures the reader that there is this “necessary contradiction” (my italics) of the structured and the free characteristics of the dérive. So, this is where I’ve been going wrong. This practice is not one thing or the other: it can be both. It is necessary to replace either/or with and.
When writing of how the spatial field of a dérive can be either delimited or vague, depending on the goal of the dériver, he is underscoring this necessary contradiction. If the goal is to study a specific terrain, then the dériver may choose a limited area. If the aim is to “emotionally disorient oneself”, then the explored field may be intentionally undefined. He states though, that these two aspects can overlap, making it difficult to isolate the dérive in a “pure state”, (although he fails to fully explain what a “pure state” may be). Nonetheless, this is a positive representation of the possibility of the dérive being a calculated and random process at the same time, with this balance shifting in relation to the intentions of the dériver. However, I feel I can be forgiven for feeling the need to pinpoint what the dérive is or is not. This is because Debord himself does not always seem to promote the ambiguous nature of this activity, as he shows some bias in the article by setting up a number of polarities.
For instance, he leans towards portraying the dérive and his creation of psychogeography as almost scientific experiments. Perhaps it was his desire to show how the Situationists are revolutionary in the way that they have devised new modes of action and discovery, free from any bourgeois, self indulgent, expressive forms of Art. He strives to separate the Situationists from the tired, old Surrealists in regards to this notion, as those “imbeciles” were insufficiently aware of the limitations of chance. To do this Debord criticizes the activity of four Surrealists who in 1923, wandered aimlessly from a randomly chosen town through open country, which resulted in “dismal failure”. This pathetically bourgeois activity is, Debord claims, the polar opposite to what the Situationists are doing, and he seems to have used this example to compare “failed” experiments of the past with the successful activities of the present (despite admitting that his creation of psychogeography is not actually utilizable yet). He has set up polarities by scoffing at the Surrealists in order to portray old ways of thinking versus new, natural surroundings versus urban environment, depressing versus playful and random and meaningless versus calculated and meaningful. But, have the activities of the Situationists really reached the opposite end of the spectrum? Does the “aimless wandering” of the Surrealists not conjure images of “drifting”? Debord later in the article even describes the loose lifestyles of the Situationists and their playful activities which cannot fail to remind the reader of this Surrealist experiment: one such activity being “hitchhiking nonstop and without destination”.
So, the article appears to be full of inconsistencies that may leave the reader questioning the actions of the Situationists. However, their aims seem to be clear. With Debord’s account of the Parisian student whose geographical movements when mapped out were depressingly limited, the anti-confinement attitude of the group becomes apparent. Their desire was to suppress the invisible borders that segregated regions so that they would eventually be diminished. Perhaps this stemmed from a postmodern desire for the individual to break free from the confinements of the space designated to them by modernist architecture, in order to unify the urban environment. This, they claimed, needed to be done via a new awareness of physical construction and psychical ambiance. However, the strict intentions of the Situationists are somewhat incongruent with what they actually achieved. The group has been criticized of imagining that it was contributing to a revolutionary liberation of society via the application of new techniques and actions, when in reality it was just creating ambiguity and confusion.
Now, building on Debord and the Situationists, comes Phil Smith's Mythogeography. Lots of it is free at www.mythogeography.com
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