Dérive Assignment + Report Requirements

assignment : mapping the dérive 

After rereading Guy Debord’s “Theory of the Dérive” as well as Tom McDonough’s article “Situationist Space” plan to rendezvous with your assigned partner or group. Choose a place that is not one that you usually spend time in.  Taking into consideration the descriptions of the dérive in your reading, attempt to identify and pursue a “unitary ambiance.”  You will need to negotiate how to discern the qualities of the space you travel through.  You will need to consider what Debord might mean when he writes that a dérive involves “playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects.”  Your goal will be to produce a narrative map of your experience.  You will present this map as well as a carefully elaborated account of your experience to the class on Tuesday March 30th.   

Consider the limitations and strengths of the maps the Situationists made.  Your map need not replicate the style of the maps the Situationists made.  It must however find a way to negotiate or indicate the tension between conventional modes of mapping and the kind of mapping that psychogeography requires.  In other words, it will be your task to present a map capable of charting the “psychogeographic” experience of your derive.   

Guy Debord’s “Theory of the Dérive” is available online at: 

http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm 


Report due March 30th in class. 3 pages
1) Give a rich descriptive account of your derive. (1 page) [You will read this section OUT LOUD in class.  Come prepared.]
2) Describe how you translated this experience into a map. (1 page)
3) How does your map respond to and even critique what might be limited about Situationist modes of mapping? (1 page)