Série Dérive
Performance
2009-present


Série dérive (drift series) is a performative & experiential map exploring psychogéographie. Photos, video, fieldnotes, and sketches pictured here are tracings of that map.

Guy Debord’s 1955 text, Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography, first defined psychogéographie as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." The dérive, or drift, was a critical tool for understanding and developing the theory of psychogeography. Debord defines the dérive as "a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances."¹

The varied ambiances of Paris in the 60s where Debord developed this theory, and many of the places I’ve drifted during the fifteen plus years I’ve been doing this project, are quite different. I’ve also not stuck to one place as Debord stuck to Paris. I’ve dérived all over, metropolitain and rural. If I’ve been “guided by the attractions of the terrain & the encounters [I] find there,”² I’ve been attracted to some stark, remote, desolate places, as well as some extremely harsh climates and landscapes. I’ve also rediscovered an affection for suburbs and stripmalls, their own kind of nowhere dead spaces, as that’s where I grew up. 

It’s likely a lot of Debord’s dériving was more like a pub crawl with his intellectual bros i.e. minions, but that’s a story for a later date. This is My Channel. Check back soon ;) 8/10/24