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Thedérive (French:[de.ʁiv], "drift") is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usuallyurban, in which participants stop focusing on their everyday relations to their social environment.[1] Developed by members of theLetterist International, it was first publicly theorized inGuy Debord's "Theory of the Dérive" (1956).[2][3] Debord defines thedérive as "a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances."[4]
Though solodérives are possible, Debord indicates
that the most fruitful numerical arrangement consists of several small groups of two or three people who have reached the same level of awareness, since cross-checking these different groups' impressions makes it possible to arrive at more objective conclusions.[2]
Thedérive's goals include studying the terrain of the city (psychogeography) and emotional disorientation, both of which lead to the potential creation ofSituations.
The concept of thedérive has its origins in theLetterist International, anavant-garde andMarxist collective based inParis. Thedérive was a critical tool for understanding and developing the theory ofpsychogeography, defined as the "specific effects of the geographical environment (whether consciously organized or not) on the emotions and behavior of individuals."[4]
Thedérive continued to be a critical concept in the theories of theSituationist International, a radical group ofavant-garde artists and political theorists that was formed out of the Letterist International,CoBrA, and theInternational Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus in the 1950s.[3] For the Situationists, thedérive was a revolutionary technique to combat the malaise and boredom of thesociety of the spectacle.[5]
Dérives are necessary, according to Situationist theory, because of the increasingly predictable and monotonous experience ofeveryday life inadvanced capitalism.[2] Debord observes in hisIntroduction to a Critique of Urban Geography:
The sudden change of ambiance in a street within the space of a few meters; the evident division of a city into zones of distinct psychic atmospheres; thepath of least resistance that is automatically followed in aimless strolls (and which has no relation to the physical contour of the terrain); the appealing or repelling character of certain places—these phenomena all seem to be neglected. In any case they are never envisaged as depending on causes that can be uncovered by careful analysis and turned to account.
— Guy Debord,Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography[6]
In his manifesto for unitary urbanism,Raoul Vaneigem articulated some further ideas behind thedérive and the Situationist critique of space: "All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops — the geometry".[7]Dérive, as a previously conceptualized tactic in the French military, was "a calculated action determined by the absence of a greater locus", and "a maneuver within the enemy's field of vision".[8] To the SI, whose interest was inhabiting space, thedérive brought appeal in this sense of taking the "fight" to the streets and truly indulging in a determined operation.
Several groups have adopted the concept of thedérive and applied it in their own form, including many modern organizations, most notably theLoiterers Resistance Movement (Manchester),Wrights & Sites, theUnilalia Group, and theProvidence Initiative for Psychogeographic Studies. Since 2003 in theUnited States, separate events known as theProvidence Initiative for Psychogeographic Studies andPsy-Geo-Conflux have been dedicated to action-based participatory experiments similar to thedérive within the context of psychogeography.
A smartphone app named Dérive was developed in the 21st century by a team including Eduardo Cachucho and Babak Fakhamzadeh. The smartphone app shows a series of simple geography-based directions on a mobile device's screen such as "follow a red vehicle" to create thedérive experience.[9]
A similar application of the same name by Russian developer, Max Alyokhinc released in June 2017 does not require installation, instead working directly within a web browser. This application provides an additional mapping drift mode, where the application generates a point on the map to move to.[10]
In March 2020, an iOS and Android app calledRandonautica launched and citedGuy Debord's essay ondérive as a core inspiration. It uses arandom number generator to seed a random map location that the user is prompted to walk to while holding an intention in mind.[11]
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