G.-E. Debord, The Naked City: Illustration de l’hypothe´ se [sic] des plaques tournantes en psychogeographique [sic] (1957), originally bound into Asger Jorn, Pour la Forme (Paris: Internationale situationniste, 1958) (Map: RKD, The Hague.
This article is meant to set the historical context for what will follow–a series of articles about running a dérive, today.
This article is about running. This article is also about adding a Relationally Antagonistic Aesthetic twist to running. And finally this article is about running an alternative version of the Situationist International’s concept of the dérive .
The dérive or drift is an activity related to exploring the Psychogeography of the urban environment.
‘…avoid the consumeristic mood, by running away from it, along side of it–run unmediated–immediately in any direction–towards the free solicitation of desire.‘
For those of you who are not familiar with the Situationist International, or the terms psychogeography, dérive or drift or with Guy Debord’s phrase Society of the Spectacle (or simply the Spectacle), I begin this article with paraphrased and copied excerpts from various articles, essays and books, in my collection to preface a background history for you on the subject of this article: Running as an relational alternative to analyzing Psychogeography.
Let’s cut to the chase (pun intended).
“Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord 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.”
Another definition has to do with the metaphorical “toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities…just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape.”
“Psychogeography was originally developed by the *Lettrist International in the journal Potlach– the originator of what became known as Unitary Urbanism. Psychogeography, and the term ** dérive was first used by Ivan Chtcheglov, in his highly influential 1953 essay “Formulaire pour un urbanisme nouveau” (“Formulary for a New Urbanism”). The Lettrists‘ reimagining of the city has connections to predecessors like the Dadaist and Surrealists, while the idea of urban wandering relates to the older concept of the flâneur, theorized by Charles Baudelaire.”
*Both, members of the Lettrist International and the Situationist International who participated in the psychogeographical practice known as the dérive are referred to as Unitary Urbanist. Also, members of the Lettrist International would eventually split off to form the International Situationist
**The term dérive translates into English as drift or drifting
The Unitary Urbanist, superseded Charles Baudelair’s “gentleman stroller of city streets” who walked the streets to taste and experience the mood of the city, as gentleman critic and reflecting consumer.
The Unitary Urbanist’s approach sought to intensify its critique of the city beyond the mere consuming peripatetic stroller. “It demanded the rejection of functional, euclidean values in architecture,” such as “form follows function” as well rejected the separation between art and its surroundings, or art from daily life. The implication of these two negations attempts to nullify the strategic power of modern urban design, and its seemlier fixation with maintaining strategic hold on alienating flows of commerce or perpetuating a continuous flow of alienating social relations.
So it goes today, still, that like the Unitary Urbanist we too seek to intervene and “corrupt one’s ability to identify where “function” ends and “play” (the “ludic“) begins, resulting in what the Lettrist International and the Situationist International believed to be the utopian foundation–where one is spontaneously free to constantly explore free of determining factors.
“Cities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes which strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones”–such as Gated communities, barricades, boundaries, territories, easements or walls that segregate or contain.
Railroad track split at NE 71st Street, Miami.
“Rooted in Urban sociology– “This is the city has been explored by scholars like Georg Simmel (1997 [1903]), Walter Benjamin (1999) and many others….As well Henri Lefebvre (1991), and Michel de Certeau (1984), along with other “theorists and artists who have been inspired by the concept of psychogeography — have all asked in their different ways, how are social forces and relations crystallized in the fabric, institutions, and encounters of the city? And how is that external reality then transcribed onto the interiority of modern experience? The history of the word suggests that, if anywhere, it is between the two that the city exists.”
Linked to Psychogeography is the Spectacle:
Spectacle: “The spectacle is not a collection of images,” Debord writes. “rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” [commodified social relationships]
“The commodity can only be understood in its undistorted essence when it becomes the universal category of society as a whole.” – Georg Lukacs
“The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life. The relation to the commodity is not only visible, but one no longer sees anything but it: the world one sees is its world. Modern economic production extends its dictatorship extensively and intensively.” – Guy Debord
“Stairway to the spectacular,” demolition on NW 71st Street, Miami.
Running a Dérive / Drifting in the Psychogeographical:
The Situationist International attempted to analyze the totality of everyday life through the use of the dérive. Debord and his comrades, made enthusiastic use of the dérive (drift), to discover how the psyche is influenced or affected by urban geography and its material milieu–an analogy to this study of environmental influences is the study of how language affects the psyche through psychoanalysis. Various districts in Paris became the laboratory for this new form of theoretical psychic analysis–its place for praxis.
Graffiti Canyon, on the railroad easement starting below NE 79th Street, Miami.
By reading beyond the limited scope of this article one will find in the Situationist archive [ http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/ ] that the dérive was practiced concurrently, along side other critical art practices such as Detourning maps, paintings, photo imagery, film and so on. As well the Situationist also staged other artful in situ political interventions.
Complimenting the Situationist critique of urban psychogeography was the lesser known Situationist International practice of creating uniquely ludic (playful) situations. This practice attempted to create alternative situations that would invoke inchoate and ambiguous experimental social Situations as tactical reactions to the strategic power of urban design and its powerful tendency to maintain the self-perpetuating urbanization of petrified life. These creative practices were limited only by the temporal nature of constructing micro utopian “situations” in already existing urban spaces. [intentionally, examples of these constructed situations were left to survive only as oral history...little written record exist in the archive of the successes or failures of these created situations]…
The idea of undocumented work still survives as a strategy to avoid the inevitable recreation of works that lead to re-presentation which in turn leads to the commodification of art and to the commodification of social relations. This being antithetical to the theory of creating unique situations, which in theory is antithetical to consumerism–which is pretty much the corner stone of Situationist critique.
“Towering Triangular Absence”
The International Situationist idea of creating situations have inspired many contemporary artist–Dave Mckenzie and Tino Sehgal come to mind. McKenzie sometimes plays with the idea of not documenting work as does Tino Sehgal…as well both artist practice a similar project inspired by the Situationist and other avant-garde groups such as the Fluxus whose program works at the manipulation of existential psychic phenomenon — ambiance and mood.
In the spirit of the Situationist International, Tino Sehgal’s practice entails what he calls the making of “constructed situations”…such is an example of the desire to create alternatives to the existing urbanization of ‘petrified life’…even if the ‘petrified lifers’ happen to be the one’s asked to question the institutionalization of spacial and social relations as passive drifters through the Guggenheim Museum (which Sehgal managed to drain in 2010–replacing its static volumes with temporalizing forms of performative dialogue and desire to create new and undocumentable improv in place of the existing so called ‘petrified life(r)’ Museum.
From this theoretical analysis of existing urbanization to the creation of alternative situations emerged the greater urgency and perspective, that the study of existential affections such as mood and ambiance, are what better informs the totality of urbanization…. This promised a more intensive chase to the heart of the matter. Rather than the traditional seemlier attraction of architectural academia, a much larger totality was in view as it seemed more fecund to study the relational totality in the Heideggerian sense, than the limited relational encounters of occupied, enclosed space. The study of urban mood and ambience, would unfold and mutate into unpredictable views of temporal formations fixed in spontaneity and ludic conviviality–the goal being the examination of existing social relations that might lead to the creation of positively charged ambient situations–antithetical to their previously described methodical analysis of existing urban ambiance or atmosphere. Nicolas Bourriaud references these situationally inspired temporal manipulations in his anthology titled: Relational Aesthetics, pages: 9, 12,19, 85, 95, 113.
“Not The Concept House Again”
For this group of radicals, exploring Parisʼs psychogeography, was the study of changing ambiance (which I have argued on the Situationist list blog, similar to Heideggerian moods); ambiance = moods of the city. The City has moods that are akin to weather. This weather is the expression of various nuanced social factors as well as its edifying architectural and artefactual support. These micro climates are the neighborhoods, the business districts, the industrial centers, the entertainment centers, the railroad easements, deserted areas, fractured localized space, the overlapping of each, etc or the borders and interstices where social and cultural marginalization flourish. The degree to which this local totality varies has to do with the accumulation of personalities, cultural capital and economic capital or lack there of–whether by accident or by strategic design. Discovering all this is to experience the totality of tacit knowing–and to feasibly articulate and share this knowledge would be at best the explicit sharing of representational fragments of archival trace as one comes to the realization of how limiting explicit knowledge really is.
“7th Avenue Mega Pawning”
This Ambiance or mood divides the city into zones with different psychic atmospheres affect consciously or unconsciously the wandererʼs emotions and perceptions-thus the affect of urban mood effects the body or social bodies psychically as well as psychically those participants in the dérive
Human geography and urban sociology:
Running solo or in a group is to take this notion of the dérive or drift and delineate it as an act that people can do alone or in groups without much experience–we are also capable of performing across cultural or class divides rather than remaining focused on the performative rituals and traits that bind us culturally or collectively, seeking identity. It is for the sake of maintaining critical distance that we must be careful not to slip back into the discourses of collective identity or the fixed community that is bound to the geography we explore–lest we loose that critical gaze and return to the experience of every day life (petrified life).
“The discovery of hidden or blatant power relations is at the heart of psychogeographical practices.” Yet the intention is not simply to be able to describe our environment in different ways, instead it is to release our real desires and aspirations upon the environment.” Running gives us this edge, partly because we are already forced to carefully articulate every step along the way.
Underlying the study of psychogeography is a project to uncover underlying desires that are blocked from gaining real expression by commerce and the representations of suppressive strategies that leverage freedom. These strategies source the fountain head of alienation which intern focus our desires toward fetishized (or commodified) desirables–to remedy this consumeristic influence we need to rediscover needs that directly tie us to reality by reinvesting natural desires into places where we consider the artificial relationship between the social and the personal to be unsustainable–between the visible and the emotional, limiting–and to avoid the capitalistic narcissistic guilt of never enough or not good enough.
Iain Sinclair wrote about London’s psychogeography: “Walking has been the normal way to explore and exploit the city; the changes, shifts, breaks in the cloud helmet, movement of light on water. Drifting purposefully is the recommended mode, tramping asphalted earth in alert reverie, allowing the fiction of an underlying pattern to reveal itself [...] noticing everything. Alignments of telephone kiosks, maps made from the moss on the slopes of Victorian sepulchres, collections of prostitutes’ cards, torn and defaced promotional bills for cancelled events at York Hall, visits to the homes of dead writers, bronze casts on war memorials, plaster dogs, beer mats, concentrations of used condoms, the crystalline patterns of glass shards surrounding an imploded BMW quarter-light window [...] Walking, moving across a retreating townscape, stitches it all together: the illicit cocktail of bodily exhaustion and a raging carbon monoxide high.” (1997, page 4)
“Ian’s Dandy Flâneur”
Another way to investigate urban psychogeography is just to mosey around while running with no pre-planned expectations. However, a map can add a birds eye view to an area or territory and its borders so that a territory and its distance can safely be estimated [a runner needs a sense of distance to be traveled to avoid the possibility of injury--from overdoing it]. I sometimes look at Google Earth on my computer before I begin so that I can get a better idea of how far I want to go–or which neighborhood or part of the city borders where…For instance if you are new to running, you don’t want to go too far at first because you may injure your knees, feet, tendons etc, if not in good enough shape.
By using Google Earth you can zoom in to see what obstacles may be in the way. Once you have viewed an area from a bird’s eye view or from “Google street view” the actual real ground view becomes a bit like Déjà vu–once you are actually running, holding the memory in mind–if the terrain has not changed from the time that the images were taken, as often happens.
This is running a dérive, or running an urban drift. Let yourself be delighted by running the terrain as something new! Get to know a place in a different way than you did before, and remember that the difference is running not walking.
As you run you will have unusual encounters with signs, architecture, artifacts, debris on the street or empty spaces etc. Alley ways, dogs, clouds, underpasses, storefronts, bus stands, puddles, sea walls or canals, bad drivers…all that come before you will be seen anew. Rivers, lakes, streams or the ocean will solicit as well as other pedestrians, and runners will all seem oddly estranged and you will likely imbue them with new significance.
Running is stepping outside the mediation of the spectacle. Running confirms a quick escape from commodified routes and more importantly running is an exercise in pre-capitalistic intrigue–its primitivism in the 21st century.
“High Voltage Oven By the Tracks”
Look at each image attached to this article and imagine it in relation to you running alone or with others. A large disconnected electrical box next to rail road tracks becomes an oven; a homeless persons accommodations might not look so uncomfortable and advertisement signage may look pointless as will a blank bill board look a lot more wonderfully post-consumerist.
“Student of Life, Savannah Rules” NW 79th street underpass at 7th Avenue, Miami.
Running causes the cardiovascular system to quicken and as a result, the body to breathe quicker. Like a kind of fast paced meditation, this breathing (or panting) is a key to letting go of outside influences–letting go of that which a moment ago may have informed you. The quickened body tells you directly what it needs and feels. As the body’s metabolism quickens, so quicken the senses. You see quicker, you step quicker, and you experience yourself and the environment quicker, more intensely as you go….
An activity as simple as running or jogging is as old as humanity itself. It is pre-capital, hence pre-spectacle. Running is running down something or running is running in fear. Running for the sake of running is surely running toward good health. Also most important to our resolute act of running is that running is running after chance. For it’s the chance encounter that I find most interesting and serendipitous.
Lately I have been running at least 6 miles a day in the heat of Miami. Let me tell you from experience that an unmediated gain comes quickly from the immediate experience of heat…dehydration comes quickly too. At the end of my run I have a large glass of Ice water waiting at my studio right along side the garden hose. When I run up the last short bit of driveway and grab that ice cold glass of water, the furthest thing from my thoughts is the desire for a branded substitute… No corporate swill at this point, only a clear clean glistening glass of cool unadulterated water please.
The dérive: Its not a competition…it is rather a call to run if you can, walk if have to, or role into a drift in a wheel chair if that’s what gets you around (an all terrain chair would be most versatile) Age shouldn’t matter either, if it does then a bicycle or an adult tricycle will work…an auto will do so will a boat, or kayak if you want to travel in the canals– a dérive(ing) or drifting Imagination will ultimately do fine too.
1. Our dérive begins at a predetermined location and will proceed through a predetermined area of the city for an estimate-able amount of time or distance (depending of course on the physical endurance of the group (or its lesser member if necessary)
2. We are encouraged to bring along a camera, note paper and pencil as well as water if you think you might need it. (Watering holes can be found en route too)
3. To begin the dérive we run or jog a pace that suits the group and if necessary smaller groups can break off from the main group in case some participants want to speed up or slow down the drift.
4. Everyone is encouraged to discover things along the way that can be photographed or discussed. Recording and documenting is encouraged.
5. When one wants to photograph something then that persons group can stop or keep going.
6. When someone stops to photograph or examine a curiosity, without stopping the group then that person will catch back up to the group.
7. If during the dérive people get separated then a final meeting place can be arranged for all to reunite at the end of the run.
8. At the conclusion of the event everyone will join up at a predetermined location or the group may choose another destination while running in the dérive. At the end everyone will share experiences, notes and digital imagery.
9. It is advised to read other articles about training oneself for running especially if running is new to you.
Please feel free to add suggestions to the list above, nothing is set in stone and the dérive will be as flexible and vary as much as necessary in order to expand the concept of the dérive.
Miami, Psychogeographical society.
Richard Haden.
.
References:
1. Various unlisted paraphrased expropriations…from my collection.
2. Real Cities Modernity, Space and the Phantasmagorias of City Life, Steve Pile.
3. Actual Running.
.
“Chlorine Station by the Way”
“Rescue”
“Oh Lazarus”
“Welcome to Little River and Little Haiti”
“Cement Crop Circle”
“Private Property”
“Church For Lease”
“Coming Soon”
“Running Drifter Passing Through”
This post was contributed by Richard Haden.
111 Comments
Hi there,
really pleased to find a post on the “dérive”. It’s a pity to discover that in this bulk of words 3% only refers to the real fact or event that is supposed to be described. The whole piece deals in theoretical things, unavoidably approached within professorial coordinates that, to a certain extent, represent the farthest framework from authentic art-and-life involvements. I would have expected to know much more about the actual, singular, practical experience that an artist made while running-drifting. Fortunately, he gives us the chance to enjoy the image of fresh water glass he had afterwards, since the pedantic tone affects the effervescence of the stunning matter, transforming it into a faceless, characterless report. It seems written by anybody else but the one who just drifted in short pants. Top-heavy with hair-splitting overfine theoretical distinctions that overwhelm most of the art critique’s essays and eventually render the matter dull. It seems coming from the pen of a paraplegic teacher or just a former artist who is at the turning point of a beginner art critic. Nice pictures by the way.
José
run for office, you got my vote
Anybody’s going on dérive has got my vote, that’s for sure, but I roughly agree with the first commenter, because the artist’s report misses to photograph the peculiarity of “this” mind-citylandscape experience. He was rather concerned about an historical-theoretical “legitimation” of his dérive, exercising himself in very general statements, trotting out the usual old stuff, from Baudelaire, the Situationists, to Bourriaud, Tino Sehgal and bla bla… It really seems like he had asked some sociologist or art college’s teacher to write this post. To a certain extent, he provided us with an impersonal, featureless account. To a significant extent, all those pedantic references have dehydrated the “personal” meaning of his actual experience, or rather wiped off the uniqueness of his drift.
Mic
Both jose and Kitten’s comments make it apparent that I could have made it much more clear that this article is meant to be more of an introduction to the S.I.’s concept of Psychogeography or running a derive as a version of drifting—and that at first I think it necessary to lay out the history and theory of a drift or derive, otherwise how would anyone know the difference between running in the “Zone” so to speak, merely for ones health, or running with a critical eye?—– then as the running drift evolves so will follow up articles. This is merely a primer article… So far what I have published here are images taken from my actual running a drift.
As for Jose’s remark: “It seems coming from the pen of a paraplegic teacher or just a former artist who is at the turning point of a beginner art critic. ..” I would say back at your sorry excuse for criticism or cliched cynicism that I fail to see your point. For while you take the time to write, I may have put a dozen miles or so miles ahead of your petrified complaints about there being too much burdening theory in the arts. As for being a failed artist? It is hard to even acknowledge such an ignorant assumption!
Hi Richard,
oh no you didn’t have to clarify that you intended the article a sort of “introduction to the S.I.’s concept of Psychogeography” — IT IS BLOODY OBVIOUS that you meant it that way and this is the point: there are hundred pages on the internet where people can read about the S.I. and the like. All those theorization summaries don’t help the reader to distinguish between simple jogging and a conscious drift: they take the upper hand on the description of the actual drift you made and eventually prevent the uniqueness of your drifting experience from being known and shared.
Regards,
Mic
Great post about Running as stated in the very first sentence.
There is a whole lot to read and digest.
I appreciate the whole “drift” of the writing style…it almost made me consider running for half a second…if I could only have a recording of you reading this, I would listen to it while running!
Perhaps you can sell this line to Zepherhills! “No corporate swill at this point, only a clear clean glistening glass of cool unadulterated water please.”
Hi Mr. Haden,
I imagine some personal reasons in your mind to fail to see my point, I’d rather say to misunderstand it. Of course, I never assumed you being a paraplegic — let’s say the opposite: I saw you running! – least of all a failed artist. Where did you read it?
No cliched cynicism in my words, maybe yesterday you were not in the proper mood to accept the slightest humor.
Just because I think you surely are an artist and you surely made a dérive, I didn’t expect that kind of report: “the paraplegic” was the simplest way to mean that it seems as though it were written by somebody else – Kitten Mic had the same impression – someone who’s too distant from the actual artistic investigation that a running can represent.
Therefore, the only thing I assumed is that an artist tells his work, while you played those academics who never directly experienced the artistic matter. This was my point: on my opinion it was a missed chance.
I am sorry that you did not put your finger on the “message” of my comment and displayed your touchiness instead, Richard Haden. The humor was not against you, it referred to the professorial flavor you gave to the article. To any teacher, professor or paraplegic: I apologize!
Best regards,
José
Upon second reading the tone seems very religious. Replace the work “Running” with “Prayer” and it begins to sound like a religious tract. I like it.
Yes replace it with “prayer”, it would better match the idea of a rant.
A
Mic,
This article is meant to set the historical context for what will follow–a series of articles about running a dérive, today.
It is easy to say that: “there are hundred pages on the internet where people can read about the S.I. and the like.” Yet Mic, how many people know to look for them–what you fail to realize is that a majority of artist practicing today don’t know know anything about The S.I. or if they do, they know little beyond the name. I hold to the necessity of providing a historical background for what will follow: more articles about running a derive.
Living directly or in this case running directly—is a Situationist aphorism. It is philosophically the same as a cure for Cartesian anxiety, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_anxiety . Which is also the sourse for consumerism.
The mode of running critically is different than the mode of running “in the zone”, so to speak—Or it is the difference between running in a Buddhist mind set or running as an interventionist (although I can see either mind set as being a case for “running directly” outside of a commodified relationship or being…) The technique of running a marathon for instance is different than running through urban psychogeography, in that marathon runners run in a meditative state, which is a different temporal mode that seeks an atemporal mode between starting line and the finish line. Running a derive is not a competition nor is it ever finished…it is running critical of the environment or running creatively conscious of the territory (an urban environment generally)…all this is part of this article –it is included in the theory of difference between commodified intent and the human intention to discover.
There are those who view SI references as some sort commodified appropriation of the SI as leading to Situationism. However, even though the practice of the derive may be over 50 years old I see its use still relevant today (that is to say its historical context still relevant today ) especially today in light of an ever growing intensification of a digitized world replacing the real. Just as much as when it began the derive gets us back to the street–reinvesting our efforts back to being involved closer to direst presence. like many other trends in the art world that come and go the derive doesn’t necessitate a drift of recuperated fashion.
Oh come on Kevin, lets go for a quick jaunt, at your convenience of course… it is not a competition…I am going down the train tracks heading west today…
I think about running more than I actually do….I will go running with you, but will probably bring cab fair for the ride back after I collapse.
Hi Richard thanks for the reply. You re-write “this article is meant to set the historical context for what will follow – a series of articles about running a dérive, today.” Okay, I see, you already stated it in bold fonts at the beginning of the post, I had got its general meaning and I had told you why I don’t agree with your choice. Therefore I am looking forward to read your further texts, which hopefully will tell the peculiarity of your running drift with no unnecessary reference to the original situationists theorizations. I guess it was a pity that the actual dérive you experimented had to suffer the burden of that historical heritage in order to become accessible to those who are not acquainted. I would have postponed this post and started this initiative (which apparently will consist of many articles) with a more personal, narrative-like report in order to render the uniqueness of your experience. It would have better drawn attention and interest, I think. By the way, anybody has got his own ideas, this is not a problem. The important thng is that I am interested in situationists matter. Unfortunately I am not in Miami and Hamburg is quite far away, but I might come one day and enjoy having a drifting running. What is this Miami Psychogeographical society? How many members?
Regards,
Mic
Mic,
I don’t really see a problem with alluding to a historical context as a “Point of Departure”—As well, I don’t carry a burden of theory when I run in the streets of Miami nor do I carry Monkey on my back named Debord as I drift in and out of moods…nor do I pledge allegiance to a fetishized Situationist archive before I head out—because if I ran toting such a preconceived burden,,,hell, I would probably be a fatality by now, especially running against traffic or the Cargo train that sped by me this after noon.
Also, I think it important to consider that it is not an academic folly to preface or link current practices to the past… for sure if the act stays on page or the lips of the lecturer instead of the street then like all good theory without practice it becomes archived and set aside as useless clap trap. But as I’m sure, you are aware academics get outside too and these days is to be cross disciplined, meaning that wearing a pair of cross training shoes while running and talking in many tongues is a good thing–sort of an open source approach to discovering intuition or the tacit side of knowing…
So Mic if you ever make it to Miami and can spend some time literally running around the city, I will be happy to show you or anyone a few interesting routes.
So far I am the solo member of the Miami psychogeographical running society…that will probably change tomorrow though….
Hello,
very interesting subject in this post, thanks a lot for making it available. I just read one of your further comments in which you claim the necessity of offering historical background in order to make the S.I. subjects more appealing to those artists which “know little beyond the name”.
I have to say that most of the artists I met in my wandering life know a little about the situationists just because they are not interested in that kind of antagonistic art forms. It is the typical subject that if someone is interested in then he will actively search for related infos, images, articles, essays, books, etc.
Therefore I believe that an historical introduction will not turn the disinterest into participation, it barely will draw those persons toward the situationist matter because those persons prefer arty, patinated, fashionable, innocuous stuff. The same can be said for the art students here in Athens, Greece (where I study sociology), which resemble those scenesters and kids in search of the last trendy, marketable gimmick. They just know a little beyond the name “Situationist International” because the don’t give a damn about it. If they knew more they would certainly find better reasons to ingore it entirely. The proof of this is the shortage of participation in this discussion: anybody here seems to be acquainted yet with the “derive” theories you had summarized.
As for your plan of founding a Miami Psychogeographical Society, it rather looks like a flickering desire: being just a SOLO member society for now it seems quite sad and insubstantial. By the way I wish you to have a great success in your proselytism.
Goodbye
Ilio
Ilio
Solo no more, got a growing list of participants. I already had a few people interested in running but I wanted to do a solo first, for logistical reasons.
By the way Ilio, It is not my intention to recuperate the Utopian Pipe dream of the Situationist International…as you know the group imploded for various reason, yet much of their anti-consumeristic spirit lives on. The Derive for one is just as meaningful and practical a practice as it was 60 years ago.
Richard
Yes Richard, the derive might be as meaningful as it was 60 years ago – that’s sure – but the historical background will not help you in proselytism, therefore I agree with those who – like the first commenter in the thread – think that you could have better got rid of those theorization summaries.
Do you see any newbie or just any art student here participating thanks to your historical background? Your summarizing rather seems a way to support theoretically or to legitimate your personal drifting event – as someone else said before – or just a way to show how much you know about it.
I just see that most of those who are replying in this thread knows yet about the Psychogeography and consequently finds your theoretical effort superfluous. Even the title is such a redundant phrase (you put “derive” and “psychogeography” in the same sentence – ouch !)
Eventually proselytizing has a tremendous evangelical taste which doesn’t match at all the situationist character.
Ame
Ame,
If you want to pretend you are more than the usual inept poser, lined up to take pot shots at a subject that you obviously know nothing about, then I suggest you go back and do your homework, first. Psychogeography is the environment and the term drifting or the french original term , derive, is the action. What is wrong with you people…are you this ignorant and divisive in real life in general or are you just one of many fools who fetishize stupidity.
Lets look at your claim that Psychogeography is the name of an action as well as a where action takes place–in a simple sentence.
…two morons are thinking about going on a tour of the city and it starts to rain. One moron named Diego Ragnini says to the other moron Christopher Gray: Lets go do a weather of the weather in the city today. Doesn’t that read stupid Ame? How about if the moron all of sudden had a brain fart and said to C Gray: How about we “drive” through the weather today and check out the mood of the city, blanketed in bad weather, dude!
OK Ame, Psychogeography is the weather or mood of the city…and you can’t “weather around in weather to get the weather . Get it? You can’t pshchogeography yourself around the city either, you have to walk, ride or run a drift idiot.
It’s a shame that an intellectual conversation gets withered down to name calling and childish banter.
For people who hold yourselves at such esteem should consider a lesson in integrity.
Though your differentiation might even be not open to objection, I don’t understand why you made it. I didn’t say derive = psychogeography. No, I didn’t even imply it. Your claiming that derive and psychogeography are not synonyms (but related one each other) might be unexceptionable but doesn’t erase the redundancy of the title you chose. Rather, your specification works as an official admission, alas, because redundancy is obtained drawing up words which simply belong in the same area of significance, not necessarily synonyms. And so, as for the pot shots, the pot calling the kettle black. Besides your resentment, hostility and nonsensical anecdotes, I find nothing but dribble in your answer. Sorry for having interfered with the expected arrangement of a brilliant lesson and brought the teacher into a miserable raving condition. Dunno why asking about the homework by the way. Let me guess, are you a lecturer or a school caretaker?
Ame,
And your point is a critique of a title? How anal retentive of you! Try out a new approach–try actually running to see if any of this article makes sense. Then get back to me.
And by the way, what is it with all the aliases? Are people so afraid to speak their mind using real names anymore…? It is not like this is a Tea Party sight or a fascist right wing site where trolling feedback and intervention is better served by anonymity–Hence one strategy to avoid repressive reproach by authority. We are not authorities here, we are just artist who produce…spineless alienating comments by list serve sitters is good for what?
Ame,
Better yet…lets make this a case for the realization of the “Readable Writable” text (Barthes) in a real interactive sense instead of a conceptual sense. —Ame you suggest a different title for the article and I will change it if it makes better sense to do so.
Richard,
since you cannot even go to the TROUBLE OF READING the replies to your post and had ascribed a claim to me when I NEVER wrote it, I had to clarify. And so I did, though my underscoring the redundancy of your post’s title simply was a secondary note. DON’T CONFUSE THE ISSUE.
I mainly had pointed out that most of those who are participating in this thread are not newbies and ARE TELLING YOU that your effort to explain psychogeography revealed its pointlessness, because THEY KNOW THE MATTER and – I add now – your exposition’s style is not the ultimate way to popularize this kind of things. You should practicize in order to learn how to make things accessible or interesting to the general public by presenting it in a readily understandable form. But it would be another time waste, ’cause tons of web pages are near-at-mouse-click for the newbies, easily and pleasantly readable.
As for your latter rant on right-wingers, don’t know whether to pass over or just tell you that, being the further unintelligible association with the subject of YOUR post, it might be the truest symptom of YOUR anal retentiveness. And in case you didn’t take the hint – which is widely probable – the “symptom adage” is just another way to tell that you should learn also to assign proper “titles” to your interlocutors, especially when you’re the blogger or just the one who proposes a subject to start a discussion. Lastly, if you have “no titles” in your list publications (and it likely is the case) and you ran enough today, try to drift scooting, but never jump to conclusions again.
…enjoying this fight. don’t stop yet.
Ame,
Being the aimless one, your pointless comments make little effort beyond being an obvious obstructionist–Of course I read your inept comments. So where do you come from all of sudden and why all of a sudden do you make your debut to this blog bearing imported baggage of wanton hate and dismissive rhetoric? Are you one of those closeted misanthropes with whom I have already confronted on the “Situationist List”?
I have never seen you posting or commenting to this art blog before so how is it that you all of a sudden know the readers of this list so well…especially how is it that you make assumptions that all who read this list are Situationist experts. And how is it that you are so sure that there is not a silent majority who stay silent without much to say regarding the subject of this article?
Ame, Regarding this comment that you wrote: “your exposition’s style is not the ultimate way to popularize this kind of things. You should practicize in order to learn how to make things accessible or interesting to the general public by presenting it in a readily understandable form” , It is not my concern whether this article meets with your standards. And it is not my desire to write a article that is overly clear to consume…If my efforts works to make people struggle to understand the point of this article then all the better.
Satisfaction not guaranteed. And who ever thinks that anything to do with Situationist critique is supposed to be well manored is truly pointless at finding a point of departure, whom ever you really are.
Try growing a spine Ame and speak with a real voice and a name attached to it, then maybe I will take you a little more serious…so far all I read is Ameless alienating life form sitting on a list posturing like a child.
Jeez Richard, I couldn’t imagine having to forward a letter of introduction before participating in a blog, are you that old-fashioned? Your being surprised at my presence here eventually reveals your fingers’ distance from a smart internet-searching keyboard. Also seems you don’t need last names in order to tease unknown persons, ya havin fun babe? Billions of commenters choose user names, nick names, pen names – the world is going on many ways and you feel threatened by art lurkers! C’mon keep cool, no ambush in the darkness, Ame stands for Amalie Anne Trygve Nansen, though full names do not ease disinhibition and you’d rather suffer anti-social mental constipation. Insofar as your ARGUMENTS SHORTAGE prevented you from replying this thread critics and drove you into a cul-de-sac, your point on my name rather seems another way to DIVERT ATTENTION away from criticism, inexpertly swerving at the bottom of your dialogical impasse.
While it’s you the one who makes extravagant assumptive claims concerning commenters’ eligibility to remark on your post, it happens to be that active web-surfing people regularly LOOK FOR NEW MATERIAL, according to their interests and preferred subjects. And so I found your memorable post, gosh-darn!
You likely aim at remaining surrounded by a bunch of familiar arty fellows, whose eagerness to comply saying “YES, LET’S GO JOGGING MAN!” is suitable for your condescending attitude. What you expect eventually is nothing but psychogeographic PAROCHIALISM, while the situationists never encouraged benevolent, complacently, uncritical acceptance.
Since you are surprised of new entries on a blog and forward the oldest, most known links on the subject (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline), I draw as logical conclusion that YOU DON’T SEARCH FOR
1) news concerning the subject you in vain try to propose
2) good examples of how to popularize psychogeography
Moreover, if you think being able to dismiss remarks which do not fit the magnitude of your expectations just addressing the commenters as idiot, moron or other infantile neurotic appellations, then you do nothing but EMPHASIZING THE RELEVANCE of those remarks, as well as your inability to handle objections. Your choice of words is always clumsy Mr. Pen and the great extent of your expectations doesn’t match your ineptitude in writing. Yes, let’s say it, since this is the NUB emerging from this thread: writing is not your speciality, popularizing even less, and the ability to manage the slightest disagreement equals zero. You should do “YOUR” thing Richard, unless you’re a jack of all trades. Mr. Inkpot get off the pot and do the artist. Though you will surely skip on this advice, I wish you good lack for the proselytism… one-shot situationist MorMon.
“Moreover, if you think being able to dismiss remarks which do not fit the magnitude of your expectations just addressing the commenters as idiot, moron or other infantile neurotic appellations, then you do nothing but EMPHASIZING THE RELEVANCE of those remarks, as well as your inability to handle objections.”
Touché?
AME
letter of introduction? No one would ever expect a letter of introduction from an alienating life form. My point is that you all of a sudden show up pretending to know the readers of this list. You make ignorant assertions like no one benefits from this article, or that no one benefits from its background reference (SI) and that no one sees relevance to its twist on the idea of drifting. You sling moronic labels around like psychogeographic PAROCHIALISM, as though you you know real effort beyond being a googling voyeur.
No doubt I have a good idea of who regularly reads this blog and you do not. I also know that many readers of this blog know nothing or know something or know more than nothing about the Situationist, or the Lettrist who devised the dérive.
Another proof of your ignorant attempt at obstructionist behavior is to re-give me a link to the Situationist archive, that I already included in the article (I don’t use terms like idiot or moron or retarded loosely, without qualification–in your case you qualify as a good example of self-retarding life form) You just gave me the link in you last comment telling me where to find the Situationist Archive? (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline) Apparently Amalie Anne Trygve Nansen you didn’t bother reading my article…had you did you would notice the same link to the SI archive in the article. Geeze AME are you that inept?
I am not convinced that you just stumbled onto this article by doing a search, simply because you missed discovering a greater volume of similar discussions that you would have discovered by searching the net, on the “Situationist List”–a blog that I have contributed to for over 5 years. You see AME less searcher of misanthropy, I may have quite a bit of knowledge about the SI…you think?
I suggest that instead of bringing you ad hominem baggage with you, you get used to my condescending attitude for in such cases like this You deserve it.
As far as my writing ability goes, no doubt I don’t meet your high standards…so fucking what. At least I write and make an effort, what do you do that I can heckle. Do you produce anything?
OH SNAP!
OK jay, get your running shoes ready, your being drafted.
By the way, good site.
Richard, Ame didn’t pretend to having been here before, so your need to denounce that she is not a regular reader of Artlurker it’s a nonsense. It also is contraddictory with your being surpised at her stumbling onto your article doing a web search… be coherent! Try to approach people lucidly, otherwise you’ll be bewildered just by the pointless issues that you created by yourself, and the thread will beat around the bush forever.
Richard I invite you to read Ame’s last reply again. She didn’t suggest any web links, she just underlined the fact that you proposed the oldest and most obvious links. You pretend to misread her answer in order to mess up. Ame wrote:
«Since you are surprised of new entries on a blog and forward the oldest, most known links on the subject (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline), I draw as logical conclusion that YOU DON’T SEARCH FOR
1) news concerning the subject you in vain try to propose
2) good examples of how to popularize psychogeography»
(end of quote)
So I find the same muddling up when you pretend that she is the one who misses to discover a greater volume of S.I. related material: THIS IS JUST AME’S ARGUMENT OF OBJECTION TO YOU. And you’re trying to retort her argument against her. Snap my ass, this is cheating. Can’t you face people at levels of honest rationality?
Ilio
JOSÉ,
I appreciate your concern–your sincerity is is noted, but really… I don’t need lectures in coherency theory or advice in how to confront people…I also don’t need social tutelage or pop psychology tips on how to argue back at imbecilic commenter’s. Jose if you are looking for well bred manners and civility from this guy, you will surly be disappointed. I don’t spoon feed niceties , especially when engaged with a discussion that has anything to do with the International Situationist….that just goes with the territory….especially if you knew the SI territory and the cut to the chase intolerance for faux interlocution.
AsBestUs
Richard
Ilio, you got me there, I did read her link in haste. Sorry Ame, for that mistake, at least. I am yet to budge on others…!
ILIO,
Back to you quotes…For instance Ame wrote: “1) NEWS CONCERNING THE SUBJECT YOU IN VAIN TRY TO PROPOSE”…
What is so vain about what I already do. I am not proposing anything, because it is already an ongoing practice. It is no longer a theoretical proposition. It is real…it takes place almost daily.
As well, I have researched many ongoing psychogeographical investigations…some are the same as strolling or touring and some are similar to the sport of spelunking (caving) which if done scientifically is called Speleology… another article I read once tries to make a convincing argument that running a marathon is drifting, but if anyone knows anything about long distance running one would understand how more in the “Zone” one is instead of running critically. In other words, running in a Buddhist mind mode is great way to get between the starting line and the finish line but its not the frame of mind one uses when one is running critically.
Now…Ame, Illio, Jose and whomever, if you want to argue the theory involved in a Derive– that promises to more of a fecund path to take…
Yet running in Buddhist mode can be disorienting, which can benefit a successful derive as long as it is not the sole goal of the drift.
Well Richard, I am referring to your last reply to José… You likely are getting closer to each of our observations and I believe that everybody can witness that if the blogger keeps cool then things make sense. Only one more pointing out: it is not a matter to prefer the coherence with the situationist “intolerance” rather than offering “well bred manners and civility”. Nobody here is asking for sophisticated politeness. I think that everybody has focused on the blind spots of your “text” – rather than on your actual “dérive” – JUST BECAUSE your text has put your real “experience” on a very secondary and hidden level.
If you read the first comments again, you’ll get that most of us had criticized your article not for the pleasure of being ostructionists. Rather, JUST BECAUSE all those historical and theoretical references HAD HEAVILY OBFUSCATED your personal experience. Therefore our objections aimed at doing justice to your dérive (or any actual drifting experience), rather than demolish the importance of it.
Mic
Especially regarding Kitten’s last comment: I roughly agree with the general extent of the objections (too much theory and scholar references…) but the mastery of the conceptual level is such an important one in the drifting experience. It represents the awareness of what is produced by the interactions between the drifters and the environment. I guess that this is the reason why the author had filled his article with what most of you had called “historical references”. Nevertheless, there’s an incredible relevant mistake in Haden’s understanding of the matter: he thinks and claims that psychogeography = environment! This is not merely discussable, it is bloody WRONG: psychogeography is the STUDY of those interactions and consequently the REPORT on the effects that the environment produces on the strolling persons. The big mistake is embedded in the title yet, and then proposed in some of the first replies again. It’s just as though someone equaled geography = territory. A big blunder on a relevant unmissable aspect.
I would conclude that this author is not the advisable person to “divulge” or popularize anything concerning psychogeography and the like. This objection doesn’t touch his personal dérive experience to any extent, but there are many tools and ways to learn psychogeography which have no comparison with the efficacy of this off-the-cuff tutor.
Louise
Oh yes, amazing…
this Richard thinks and claims that psychogeography = environment!
Correct understanding is the essential requirement to explain or to divulge, Mr Professooooor…
Well pointed up Louise!
bye bye
Richard, I am glad to see that you “take note” of what people are trying to tell you. It is the best way to render the attention they pay to your article. Moreover if you aim at realizing project with people you must learn to treasure anything: compliments, suggestions as well as objections.
You see, disparaging the commenters of your post instead of facing their objections simply leads you to make an issue of any word, in any phrase, in any reply. And this evidently is the only thing you have been doing till now on your thread.
Others invited you to tell MORE about your actual drift but you generated insults and the following complaint. It’s also a sign of weakness your resorting to asking deviously and suspiciously what people do in their life, just because they made so bold to point out the limits of your article. What we do out of this blog CANNOT change the value or the insubstantiality of what you write and claim. In other words, if you say something unclear, contraddictory or just wrong, this is not depending on what we do in our personal life. Until now your juvenile dribbling didn’t stand for an acceptable answer, because it is not an answer, it just is childish dribble. So let’s try to refer to what inheres in the subject of your article. Don’t drift on the patience of your readers, fruitlessly attempting to divert attention toward anything that’s beyond the subject of your initiative.
If you post an article in a blog then you have to take into account that comments might be critical and I didn’t read anything in the thread that justifies your deliberately unreasonable, uncooperative reactions. Your doing so heavily is the sign of inefficiency to handle a simple human discussion. The precondition for a blogger activity is the capacity to manage disagreements, to inspire trust in others, conversational positive criticism, as well as the ability to moderate conflicts. You appeared boyish, absurd and ridiculous while you were seizing the dignity of your interlocutors. You eventually became the OBSTRUCTIONIST OF YOUR OWN PROJECT and I barely see what situations might emerge if this is the blogger attitude.
As far as I am concerned, I “take note” of YOUR recent public engagement and I assume that it implies
a) not to jump anymore on those who criticize your text
b) not to deviate the thread toward things not pertaining to your dérive project
c) to reply in regards to the burning questions and doubts arisen by your interlocutors
In conclusion, I appreciate your furthest promise of availability and openness because it means that you virtually are able to meet real people instead of those who merely comply with your expectations.
As for the last comment by Louise, she really pointed up a PIVOTAL STEP of the whole matter. I didn’t notice this BIG MISTAKE in the contents of your text, because I was too negatively impressed and distracted by the awkwardness of your exposition style (I am norwegian but I daily read and speak english daily, since the word go). Soon after I was confused by your confrontational attitude. By the way, the exposition style and the consequent openness of a text to the reader’s understanding reflect the level of assimilation that has been reached by the writer. In other words, first you have to understand the matter, afterwards you may try to explain it to newbies.
Ame
Louise
A few social pundits / commentator’s who have contributed to this string so far, are trying to chip away on my corrosive re-commenting etiquette–chipping away at my seemingly rigid intolerance…perhaps with some success. Yet your not so subtle and ignoble arrival with upper cased blunt instruments in hand, such as WRONGs, REPORT, and STUDY just causes me to revert back to my usual style of dealing with what I perceive as imbecilic efforts to contribute meaning.
OK Louise, lets examine how you cut your understanding of the SI short–or arrive in the shallow end of the self-retarding drifting pool.
1. you claim to agree with other comments regarding my use of excessive theory….and my rebuttal to that worry of yours are the simple statements already put forward at the beginning of this article that preface the article:
“This article is meant to set the historical context for what will follow–a series of articles about running a dérive, today” or that I also target the reader who may not be familiar with certain terms: “For those of you who are not familiar with the Situationist International, or the terms psychogeography, dérive or drift…” you see Louise, you miss the point of this article from the get go….which is to present the background context of Psychogeographical analysis, to those who may desire to better understand the derive, by firmly insisting that the “default” point of departure for understanding contemporary Derivist activities is to begin with understanding its origins, its default origin, the Lettrist International then the Situationist International…is that to hard for you to grasp?
2. You make a ambiguous claim that Psychogeography is some how not present first before we can analyse it? My point has always been the focused study of urban psychogeography, as is clearly pointed out several times in the text. Psychogeography unlike nature geography is man made nature– it is present as the reification of ourselves. It exist in
Existentiale (Existentalia), it is external first, yet not as a priori (like nature without human presence would be…) Hence the object of our study is not only the study of psycogeography and its possible affects on us but it is also the active study of the psychogeography that concerns the built urban environment as a psychogeo[graphical] study of the nature of human made geography. Ambiance exist because we perceive it yet its phenomenal presence exist in the presence of others without me or you being present–It exist before us and ahead of us first….the urban environment = psychogeography as urban ambiance is similar to moods of the city, good or bad weather is to the environment and so on…
3. Regarding your simplified naive insistence that drift requires reports? Of course, at the end of a drift, no matter its duration, there can be a report, written or oral–the report can be as simple as sharing experiences with others in the group after the derive, orally. There can be a written report especially if you are a spirited “unitary urbanist”, Urban designer, architect, urban planner, an artist documenting the drift, a writer whose work involves drifting narratives and so on. As the Lettrist and later the Situationist did document some details of drifts they like people do now, share orally the experience of drifting. Also Louise, you forget that the drift can also be solo as well as in groups. And ultimately whether one leaves documents behind or not, is not the greater point of the derive or drift…the greater essence of the practice is to raise consciousness and not to limit tacit knowledge or the greater understanding of intuition by the limits of explicit documentation—that would be killing the point of the derive.
Richard
AME,
This article is meant to set the historical context for what will follow–a series of articles about running a dérive, today.
Are some of you people inept at reading or what? I can appreciate constructive feed back but so far I have read little. For instance you keep harping on an issue that keeps me thinking that I am dealing with drifting children.
You keep bringing up the same stupid argument concerning my lack of reportage of my own drifting experiences. Need I remind you again?
AME wrote: “Others invited you to tell MORE about your actual drift but you generated insults and the following complaint.”
Well Ame I apparently just need to remind you to re-read the same sentence again and again. But what the hell. I will ad nauseum, I have little else to do with my life but repeat sentences to imbeciles?
This article is meant to set the historical context for what will follow–a series of articles about running a dérive, today.
Once I return from a 7 or so mile run then I will read the rest of your comment….see you in 6 to 10.
Richard
Richard Harden did you notice you have 40 comments on this thread, quite unusual for a newsletter I regularly read but never commented before. Know why all this attention on this post of yours? ‘Cause this psychogeographic thing is a burning issue today, you can’t afford such a goof-up, unforgivable. You’re in a spot with no exit. Somebody said a cul-de-sac.
Richard Harden, according to YOUR written words in YOUR reply n°17,
«Psychogeography is the environment»
To me this is enough to ascertain that you’re an utterly INCOMPETENT.
Get your running shoes ready, and scoot!
AME,
you wrote:
“What we do out of this blog CANNOT change the value or the insubstantiality of what you write and claim”
You see, I would fervently argue the opposite…because how else can I or anyone understand an action unless you, off line, participate in or at least participate is some analogous hands on action close to it. Their is a physical crafting side to understanding the material world, by [doing] instead of through representational [thoughtful knowing] of it. It is the difference between traditional epistemology and the more Ontologically relevant, philosophical approach, that has everything to do with understanding the material world, by doing. While being online is understanding a digital world, and all the wonderful information that is available ( metaphorically, a contemporary version of what the Library of Alexandria must have been like) epistemologically speaking it is different from ontologically knowing the world through experience. As absurd and simple as this reads, it has everything to do with understand the Situationist, The Fluxus, Relational aesthetics or any mode of art or practice that involves time or the subjectivization of temporality or temporal formation of actions.
As for understanding the derive or drift or Psychogeography in general, it helps to be grounded in the continental philosophies instead of the traditional epistemologies: such as phenomenology, existential phenomenology, ontological existential phenomenology, Temporality, or what ever, etc, such as is the subject of “Being and Time” or in the musings of the likes of Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard’s Semiotics, etc, as well as understanding dwelling thinking, architecture, psychology bla bla or what ever or how ever you can “NOT” wrap your mind around the traditional subject / object relationship….
Ame, you appear to err in the act of thinking the drift process instead of participating in it. Your words appear rooted in traditional “skepticism” which all its flaws in tow…[“I think therefore I am”, (Descarte), to I think therefor Richard is wrong, even though- I – Ame, has not drifted as he suggest? This is absurd, because, you don’t offer up a physical excuse why.
That I don’t know what you do off line, leaves me to assume that since you bring up no experienced arguments to rebut anything included in this article, or no experience is suggested that even offers up any experience remotely related to the material side of doing…I read from the screen before, me, words from an alienated source who reads as an electronic life form who speaks about lacking expectation of quality of this or that as though I were a commodity generating blogger busting out stories so that readers can live vicariously through text.
However I will sooner than later write my reports as Jose and others seem to desire toot sweet.
As I seem to not quench your online thirst for the deriven drifting narrative, other people that I know, who actually run, get the gist of this article right away–because they already know the experience of running. And others just…well…others just….those who almost never reply to Artlurker articles anyway just talk to me in person,…about this article or thank me remotely on Facebook or email.
Richard
To me the question is closed, I’ll not come on this post anymore. Maybe on the next one, on dérive.
You Richard? You to set the historical context of Psychogeography? Richard again? You’re crazy ! LOL
Richard Haden, first you should understand the matter, afterwards you might try to explain it to newbies. Most everybody who commented this post knows the psy-G far better than you and has been able to detect the insubstantiality of your historical contextualization.
Your post is just a cheap cut and paste from others’ texts, of course lacking the proper journalistic editing skills (which are cheap anyway). Your result in explaining psy-G historical context is such a useless outcome that I WOULD RECOMMEND ANY NEWBIE TO RESORT TO WIKIPEDIA. (to mention the worst tool).
Your language cut is clumsy and awkward, LIKE A BEGINNER STUDENT OF PHILOSOPHY. There’s only ONE REASON why an artist goes to the trouble of explaining a matter he didn’t understood, through a language he doesn’t handle at all: THINKING ABOUT HIMSELF EXCESSIVELY BECAUSE OF AN UNDUE SENSE OF SELF-IMPORTANCE.
Your ineptitude in writing equals your preclusion from understanding psychogeography.
Richard, If you are an artist, do the artist.
A
Louise,
Thank you, I scoot on running shoes daily, You? I doubt it.
You apparently do not scoot in the studies of modern or contemporary philosophy either. You know it helps. You got the psychogeograophy stuck in a Berkelian mind bias, as some sort of weird subjective idealization, or a fetishized view from a mental reflecting of a psychogeographical mind set in idealized proportions. Or perhaps you are still unable to break free of some outmoded Kantian spatial dilemma? I don’t know now do I? Because you aren’t making any sense.
Get a handle on this very subtle phrase that Debord wrote in his theory of the
Dérive:
“Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.”
You see Louise, Debord uses the words “psychogeographical effects” when referring to existing Psychogeography—there has to be a cause to effect here like anywhere else that we study affects or effects. If we were discussing the simple subject Geography that we all studied in school k – 12, we would also use the two words, geographical effect, when discussing natures subliminal affects or effects on our bodies or thinking about nature’s geography or man made geographical alterations on robust nature.
Josia, you are stuck in semantics–that will surely cause you distraction, as well, cause you to step into dog shit on a drift, because you are stuck in your mind.
Since I am commenting to you again, I forgot to mention in my last remark to you about a badly written and illogical sentence in your last comment. OK Josie, you wrote:
“…he thinks and claims that psychogeography = environment! This is not merely discussable, it is bloody WRONG” well my ill equipped quipster, it is contradictory and the sign of imbecilic writing and thinking to claim something is both “discussable” and “bloody wrong”… I guess this is why you say that your rarely comment.? I don’t blame you. For to be discussable means that something is debatable–to be bloody wrong means bloody wrong. Idget!
Richard
Ame you make the same recurring circular arguments that Christian Fundamentalist use. It goes like this:
Hi all my name is Ame, I and my friends understand what Psychogeography and drifting is and Richard does not. And that is that. We need not offer up evidence other than to just make assertions. We don’t have to bother explaining ourselves because we are alienating life forms and list sitters who do not actually participate in such vulgar things that drift anyway. I am Ame, I think I exist (don’t I?) I exist in virtual space…we are believers in that which is written by the pope. Richard is a horrible writer and we would like to claim that he is wasting his time…but don’t ask us why.
Richard
Ame,
Now I am really discouraged, thanks to you. Hell all this time I was thinking I was going to win the Pulitzer prized…for the bestus article ever writ about Drfting…now you have ruined my hopes for ever descending into the annals of Situationista history. Damn it!
LOL
AsBestUs
Richard Haden
Louise,
Just another quote for you to ponder regarding the use of the term Psychogeography in its environmental sense to denote physical phenomenon.
Another Debord Quote:
“…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.”
Reads like a predicate to me–or reads like when drifting a temporal entity is so “named”, “psychogeographical contour” that includes currents, fixed points, and vortexes, hmm. It would seem that there are predicates assigned to the psychogeographical thingyness of the Urban environment. Ot that there are ontically speaking things and processes that don’t amount to a case for psychogeography being a mere version of a Rorschach test.
Richard Haden
Come on Richard you just beat about the bush, in the forlorn hope to hide your incompetence rambling on and on, about words and concepts that you didn’t get yet, inventing others’ mistakes. It’s typical of the self-styled expert. Switch off the spotlight.
Your piece is an off-the-cuff article!
well, I admit that if I were a newbie I would easier get contextualization or introduction to psychogeography on wikipedia. This is not a compliment to this post’s author, but in some cases wikipedia is not that cheap thing.
Richard you caused an uproar and clutch at straws now.
To whom ever this concerns,
Lets look at the situation closer. I originally posted this pre-published article on the “Situationist list”, as well I gave notice to the Situationt Listees that this article would be up that day, then all of a sudden this site, The artlurker site, has all of a sudden new preposterous commentators who just appeared out of thin virtual air. Gee I wonder who is the ring leader. And I notice how your group must have returned jointly from your dinner break–you all start your comments at the same time? wow, what a coincidence.
I have given all of you yahoos three articles worth of insights into Situationist theory of the Derive as well as other back ground philosophical assessments that have to do with S.I. critique as well as other anti-consumerist influences that have to do with back-grounding such ideas…and what do I get in return? a bunch a lame criticism without substantial smart rebuttal….all I get from this group of ambushers is that I am wrong, can’t write well, or just don’t understand a subject that I have spent years learning. Yet you never say exactly anything to back it up, how lame…
Most of you idiots give no substance to your quips other than quips for quips sake. And several of you go after the jugular with imbecilic attempts of psychological character assassination. You ignore my references to the original ideas of the derive or psychogeography as the necessary Default for understanding contemporary variances from the lettrist or situationist origins…it is rather academic in that sense but still relevant, but not to morons though.
You have no counter theories of your own. You are like a mad group of marauding right wing republicans who like to hear themselves say no! — lest we learn from new insight from that caustic personality–Haden.
No doubt, the next desperate last grasp to hide your impotent intransigence will be that I haven’t dotted my I’s correctly or used the correct punctuation marks correctly or what ever.
Newbies to the Situationist have already responded to my article, you idiots just line up and pretend to be Situationist experts. You are obviously not, your are ersatz, wanna bees, who apparently have not ever worked in the margins of discovery. Nor ever come up with your own ideas regarding contemporary uses of the Derive
But go ahead and keep bush-wacking if that is how you get off , keep it up, the bog’s comment box is awaiting your next assault…you are beginning to amuse me–like little wannbe Situationista brats.
ASTRUD wrote:
Your piece is an off-the-cuff article!
Wow Astrud, you are not far off the mark. That is somewhat closer to what I had in mind, as far as the purpose for this first article… being an introduction of sorts–more or less…
This entire thread reads like digital Bear-baiting. Your original post, is perfect.
These noodle heads keep poking you with a stick in the hopes that you will respond to their comments, thus giving them a reason to live. I say ignore them and move on.
Objections have been made, weak sides have been pointed out, blunders have been quoted from your words, answers and replies have been given. It’s not that you can keep on being beaten to eternity. But I like you got some humor after all.
To me your article is not so bad Richard. By the way what’s this list you’re referring to
Though I never meant to apportion blame to your actual dérive, it was so inevitable and easy to remark upon your tumble (psychogeography is the environment). No need of smarts and dialectics. Not even the shadow of a quip. Psychogeography never stood for the environment, in any case, any author. I don’t have to penetrate deep into the core of your blunder and you have no chance to let it pass as an oversight. In consequence you opted for putting off the scent, toiling up the cliffs of counter theories, sweeping the meanders of philosophical terms that you barely handle. You finally hide behind supposed ambushers, idiots and acquaintances of your possees. Even the republicans. How long should people go after your vain attempt at giving substance to your meagre position.
On the whole this post is acceptable and sharable, it has my approval. It even caused a debate (good result anyway) in which opposers tried to explain away the relevance of the initiative. Don’t know whether they succeeded in it, but the attention is not only the consequence of a wide interest in psychogeography; the article itself played a role to this extent and disagreements don’t make a real, deep dent on it. The existence of better texts on the same subject can’t prevent the newsletter’s readers from enjoying the post and having a first approach to the matter.
Louise,
Your still stuck in a tautology, a circular argument that is so irrelevant to the actual study of psychogeography. I have given you tips to why I view Psychogeography as both a noun and a verb or both the subject and an object of its self. You keep making ignorant statements like taking this position is a blunder.
Well… basically Louise, you are like the farmers mule whose stubbornness is legendary. In the article, I made reference to Heideggarian moods as being the equivalent to Debord’s use of the term ambiance. I could have also included in the article other references to, lets say…Foucault and others who like Heidegger take a “post-humanist’ position that the environment, especially the urban environment is this case, is in essence us–that we live outside and ahead of ourselves. And that subjectivity in the “humanist” sense is downplayed, like human reasoning, in the traditional epistemological sense–of the enlightenment–gives way to ontological security of experience.
So if you, Louise, want to call the view that I support a blunder then you have a whole list of thinkers, philosophers, neuro-scientist, etc to accuse of blundering before me.
As I wrote before in another comment, the study of Geography is also the study of material geography, psychogeography is the study of the reified power and emotional structures, etc, that materialize on top, as another layer on ordinary urban geography, architecture, behavior, and so on. Like for example…when one studies the reification of social relations that are involved in production relation you arrive a temporal like objects of study, because they exist in reality first, not just in our minds as affection.
Outside us and ahead of us also includes what preceded us. It is past present and futural projection of being.
Thanks Kevin, for the chill pill!
Referencing the last contribution by Kitten, I want to say that in my first comment I didn’t go after the author’s jugular at all. Soon after I was annoyed at being the target of his unbearable reactions and so I found motivation to beat the bushes for any sort of fault and shortcomings. Taking everything into account, I guess his arrogance and undue sense of self-importance are what eventually prevent people from appreciating his contribution. Prejudice not based on reason? Well, finally I said to myself: Richard who the fuck legitimates you to answer back? Then I remembered: the less he is, the more he screams and disdains; the more he screams and disdains, the less he is. This is not a prejudice: more likely kind of vicious circle I had noticed in each and every impotent, frustrated, likely failed person.
Ame you just have a vile bile side to you that can’t help itself from erupting, huh.
Your inability to gather insights from this article is noted.
Who are you anyway–but a wanna be “scream saver”?
You obviously don’t bother with the subject of this article you only concern yourself with the messenger.
Things worsen for your reputation if you state psychogeography is both verb/name, subject/object… I refuse following such an incompetent, off-the-cuff person who renders obscure a matter while aiming at poularize it; a matter that is not such an esoteric thing.
Moreover your statements have no actual, concrete raison d’etre: what are they for? What should be the practical meaning of those useless statements? Is this the way to introduce newbies to the matter? And why you trace connections with authors you hardly can understand? You entrench yourself in the authority of Foucault and Heidegger, names you can simply drop and I seriously doubt you could know just 1% of them; if you make comparisons and analogies with Debord then you likely didn’t get him either. You just play the gambler who confuses the issue and all this babbling has no meaning but the purpose to deceive the young readers of this blog, making believe that you know philosophical and sociological subjects, as well as psychogeography to an extent which is not affordable for others psychogeographers. You’re becoming the parody of yourself.
HA HA HA !
Well pointed out Louise, he aims at popularizing through Heidegger: he makes his task easier!
Don’t know… he just sacrifices divulgation in name of philosophical show-off…
Though I noticed that he didn’t miss to underscore even a brief, secondary “pun” at the beginning of his article. Adorable this man, he’s like a little boy who wobbles between the need of explaining even the shortest calembour to his pet or to jeopardize the clearness of a dérive to his readers. Poor babe…
After all he’s a self-styled jack of all trades, whose speciality is finding shortcuts to the evidence of his being a master of none.
I didn’t say that I judged his behavior instead of his article. It was clear since my first post that his text was pointless to me. Afterwards I wanted to lay it on thicker.
But what were we saying? Ah yes, Louise… HA HA, WHILE HADEN IS ENGROSSED IN POPULARIZING an accessible matter like PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY, HE TURNS IT INTO AN ESOTERIC MATTER. It’s fantastic, a true self-goleador. Tomorrow he will drop names like Evola or Swedenborg, tracing analogies with Chtcheglov, Jorn and Vaneigem. Amazing, amazing. He really is becoming the caricature of himself.
HADEN IS AN UNBEATABLE COMEDIAN
Louise,
The die hard mule. I took a two semester course on Heidegger’s “Being and Time”. The first semester covered division one, the second semester covered division two. Hubert Dreyfus is the professor who teaches this course at Berkley, He has been teaching Heidegger’s philosophy for over 30 years. And it doesn’t end there…shall I make further list of other studies? Of course not…!
What is wrong with you? Do you and Ame live in a perpetual state of turrets syndrome. As for informing newbies, well I see that informing Louise the naive new(bile) mule headed self-retarding anti-knowing pundit is metaphorically speaking a task of Sisyphusian magnitude.
Get an education man then maybe you can chat like someone who knows more than how to doubt the messenger. If you don’t understand the concepts that I refer to or the philosophical or cross disciplinarian threads than run through all pre-modern, modern and post-modern human knowledge then that is your fault. I am not an expert on “all” such matters but I know what I know. You louise, on the other hand make a fool of your self on Artlurker.
What are you one of these “Gray” trolls who come here to take ignorant pot shots at moon, with a children’s toy gun?
Richard Haden
WHILE HADEN IS ENGROSSED IN POPULARIZING an accessible matter like PSYCHOGEOGRAPHY, HE TURNS IT INTO AN ESOTERIC MATTER.
A two semester course on Heidegger’s “Being and Time” by Hubert Dreyfus doesn’t entail a connection with Psychogeography. Not at all. There’s no author that could appear farthest from Situationists and the like than Martin Heidegger.
I am sorry Richard, you’re bewildered by your own statements more and more.
AME wrote,
“Tomorrow he will drop names like Evola or Swedenborg, tracing analogies with Chtcheglov, Jorn and Vaneigem”.
No AME, I have no reason at hand, to link Evola or Swedenborg to anything. But Ame(less) troll I have already referenced Chtcheglov in the article as the member of the “lettrist International” who first used to term psychogeography… as for Jorn and Vaneigem? hell idiot they were active participants in the the derive as well they were members of the Situationist International. Are you blinded by stupid rage and are you on a vendetta, Your wanton need to down play theory is so unbecoming anyone familiar with the Situationist.
Also you come here to this site with an agenda! you didn’t just discover this article by searching the net. At the time of this publication this article would have been so buried by other pages that have had more hits than this page… this article would have been like what, on page 50 of a search? I rather see you as having heard about this article from another Gray Troll with whom I have tangled with before. Who are you really? And why do you make such a vile attempt at imitating Pol Pot of the Khmer Rouge? You know they would assassinate anyone wearing glasses. Your wanting to dumb down the conversation serves the same end.
Richard
Once again Jose, You show off your inability to draw philosophical connections.
Jose,
I gather that you are also an expert in Heidegger studies as well as the Situationist. Boy you must be one brilliant but head.
You’re the drift’s comedian but don’t “get the drift” Richard? Oh no, as usual you pretend not to understand that I just did a simple ironic witticism, a boutade. I see you keep on strolling in the self-styled teacher’s mood… Amazing, you tell me about names and obvious facts which I know yet very well… Prof. Baden Baden.
And I also had realized yet that your text is cut-and-paste from wikipedia. Okay, you just want to show off your transversal, multifaceted incompetence. What’s happened with your mediocre CV Richard, did you get expelled from the art college board of lecturers and desperately try to recoup on the blogs?
Are you an artist, and do the artist!
I see you keep on strolling in the self-styled teacher’s mood… Amazing, you drop me names and obvious facts which I know yet very well… Prof. Baden Baden.
And I also had realized yet that your text is cut-and-paste from wikipedia. Okay, you just want to show off your transversal, multifaceted incompetence. What’s happened with your mediocre CV Richard, did you get expelled from the art college board of lecturers and desperately try to recoup on the blogs?
Are you an artist, and do the artist!
Jose,
If you can find the intersticial moment between posting foolishness, you might want to take the time to read from this link provided about Heidegger’s concepts of mood….I have not read this essay all the way through but it seems adequate enough and inline with others that I have read.
The relation to (H’s) moods are similar to what pschogeography analyses. Which is the ambiance or moods of urban environments…Moods or ambiances that are already present: “…equiprimordially… Moods are the ontic or empirical occurrences of the ontological and a priori phenomenon…”
http://www.artlurker.com/2010/09/a-running-derive-through-psychogeography/comment-page-2/#comment-10565
Whoops, wrong link. This is the correct one:
http://www.qsmithwmu.com/on_heidegger's_theory_of_moods.htm
I am lecturer in contemporary philosophy in Madrid, Richard… I bet 1 million dollars that there no apparent nor helpful link between the situationists and Heidegger. Moreover Heidegger would represent the most serious impediment to a divulgation of Psychogeography. You keep on messing up, bewildered by your own foolishness.
Richard you’re popularizing my ass!
Jose do you lecture at WallMart in Madrid? How else could you be so much an imbecile.
José you’re completely right, this man is a BOASTER, playing on readers who know just a little about psychogeography (as he clearly stated several times). This Richard Harden is a closed chapter to me.
You’re the drift’s comedian but don’t “get the drift” Richard? Oh no, as usual you pretend not to understand that I just did a simple ironic witticism, a boutade. I see you keep on strolling in the self-styled teacher’s mood… Amazing, you tell me about names and obvious facts which I know yet very well… Prof. Baden Baden.
And I also had realized yet that your text is cut-and-paste from wikipedia. Okay, you just want to show off your transversal, multifaceted incompetence. What’s happened with your mediocre CV Richard, did you get expelled from the art college board of lecturers and desperately try to recoup on the blogs?
Are you an artist, and do the artist!
You’re the drift’s comedian but don’t “get the drift” Richard? Oh no, as usual you pretend not to understand that I just did a simple ironic witticism, a boutade. I see you keep on strolling in the self-styled teacher’s mood… Amazing, you tell me about names and obvious facts which I know yet very well… Prof. Baden Baden.
And I also had realized yet that your text is cut-and-paste from wikipedia. Okay, you just want to show off your transversal, multifaceted incompetence. What’s happened with your mediocre CV Richard, did you get expelled from the art college board of lecturers and desperately try to recoup on the blogs?
Are you an artist, and do the artist!
A.
Louise Lambri,
So why bother commenting at all, Louise. None of you so far grasp threads of analysis. Or what leads up to any theory and its practice. You read as though all of a sudden A situationist genesis to place from nothingness…that there is no philosophical trace or basics of phenomenology inherent in Situationist practices or theories.
Why it was Debord himself who listed numerous sources in his theory of the derive–sources that he superseded.
But you want to limit yourselves to accusation with out backing up your comments. All Jose does repeatedly is repeat the chant that PG is not a prior and silly Luise simply follows his lead like a bleating sheep.
There is even a self proclaimed professor of philosophy who wants to make wagers that I am wrong about Heidegger’s phenomenology not being related to Psychogeographical phenomenology.
How is it that a professor of philosophy needs to make wagers? Well, because he knows nothing of what he is talking about.
And who would hire such an incompetent hack, anyway (well maybe a philosophy department at odds with continental philosophy perhaps?) I don’t really know now do I. Perhaps He is not even a teacher at all…
You critics so far fail at your attempts to offer anything constructive in the way of comments. You don’t even deconstruct this article at all– all you do is have a hissy fits and convulsions all over this site.
Get better…you loose so far.
Well Richard I would reserve the appellation “self proclaimed professor ” to you…
ah Richard yes, this is very convincing, for its immaculate impartiality: you critics are all imbecile and inept for having unveiled mistakes and contraddictions in your position! You demand too much now…
Ms. Lambri’s vision needs expanding. ROBERTA SMITH
I would agree Louise!
Referencing Heidegger in order to popularize the dérive reads like asking Papa Ratzinger to explain an homosexual intercourse.
Ah yes an Igor has showed up dawning a new and refreshing pseudonym…parden me while I role my eyes and effect a silent LOL.
Not only does Igor bring with him the same pre-packaged baggage as his / her predecessors, he / she adds a comic relief by equating the metaphysics of a pope with an existential phenomenologist–an anti-metaphysician…you are not even in the ball park Igor. Try harder or explain better what you mean.
Oh by the way, how did this string arrive at the conclusion that anyone was trying to popularize the Drift. From all that I know, psychogeography does not need marketing.
Dear impotent Incubuses,
I have a link to a short essay on Psychogeography that includes Heidegger’s concept of “Affordances” (entities and places as “Affordances”"–Titled:
“Psychogeography’s Affordances”
This is just one instance of many how Heideggarian phenomenology fits into psychogeography.
From “Psychogeographic Affordances” here are two excerpts:
“Psychogeography might be considered an action-oriented branch of phenomenology.”
AND
“Associated frequently with the psychologist James Gibson, the idea of affordance is central to the tradition of phenomenology: in Gibson’s vocabulary, affordances are all action possibilities perceived in an environment; in Heidegger’s vocabulary, a hammer, for example, in its very design, affords a particular readiness-to-hand, or way to be used. The behaviors and emotions that particular settings afford are central to our experience of place, and to our consequent ways of imagining, behaving in, maintaining, and reproducing places — both material and fictional, as I have argued in my effort to show the similarities between constructing characters and constructing settings.”
Put your thinking helmets on, it could get messy.
http://www.onfiction.ca/2009/05/psychogeography-might-be-considered.html
Richard Haden
Can’t resort to Heidegger to explain dérive. You’re lke a financer who prefers wanking inside his chinese boxes instead of profiting.
PATTI, But… I can use phenomenology to explain the dérive and Psychogeography…and after Husserl’s foundational phenomenological work, who developed phenomenology into what it became? Well Patti, you must know the answer to that question!
Richard Haden
This link you imagine between psycho-G and phenomenology is not a recognized step in the critique’s context; let’s make it clear: it doesn’t mean it is wrong, but really, really new and to a certain extent something nobody could lean on. Especially when the purpose is popularizing. Moreover adding too many external references to your explanation, especially if they are philosophical, can only have a compromising effect of the efficacy of the explanation itself. I think you’re not so good as teacher or divulger. Your explanation becomes top heavy with theories and what the fuck do you explain anymore? I said chinese boxes ’cause it seems you resort to B to explain A, to C to explain B, to D to explain C…
I mean, was your article meant to those who are not acquainted? Young artists and students?
After all I agree with others objecting that you’re messing up instead of explaining-clarifying, bewildered by your own ideas, instead of popularizing. Lastly, the suspect that you are more interested in show off a boring useless theoretical knowledge that you hardly handle, is more than a suspect.
In the whole this article is a half failure. But you’re not bad as philosophical poser.
Richard Haden wrote:
“what you fail to realize is that a majority of artist practicing today don’t know know anything about The S.I. or if they do, they know little beyond the name. ”
Isn’t it that you know too much about everything?
1. Patti, how many of the pseudonyms on this comment string are you?
2. And no Ariel, It isn’t that I know too much about anything.
3. The aka’s are growing like viruses on this string. I guess that at least there are two of you.
4. And no Patti, I don’t think that adding “too many references to an explanation, especially if they are philosophical, can only have a compromising effect of the efficacy of the explanation itself.”
Because this is the comment section, Patti. It is the perfect place to expand ideas and discussions, Diego!
Your wrote:
“4. And no Patti, I don’t think that adding “too many references to an explanation, especially if they are philosophical, can only have a compromising effect of the efficacy of the explanation itself.”
Because this is the comment section, Patti. It is the perfect place to expand ideas and discussions, Diego!”
*quote ended*
This seems to be the first smart reply you made.
Jose,
Nice of an assassin to say. So who are you in real life Jose? Someone I know?… like…aaaahhh… hello Diego the Philosopher professor?
It looks as though someone knows you personally Richard. No skeleton in the cupboard, no reason to worry.
No Ilio, no problem, there’s no one else’s skeleton in the cupboard, Mr. Haden cannot share a cabinet either.
Ah, Ame(less) and as invidious as ever!
Richard Haden wrote:
“It is philosophically the same as a cure for Cartesian anxiety, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_anxiety . Which is also the sourse for consumerism.”
How is Cartesian anxiety the source of consumerism?
Descartes writes at a period which marks the beginning not only of modern thought, but also of bourgeois capitalism. Descartes’ description of himself figures him as almost the paradigmatic bourgeois consumer. Descartes sits down at his desk, calm and clear-headed, relaxing in the complacency of his home, to write his Meditations on First Philosophy. From this space of comfort, Descartes looks out at a threatening world filled with possible uncertainty and insecurity. In response, he attempts to preserve this security by domesticating exteriority. Descartes masters the external world by positing it as a set of objects which offer themselves to him for his contemplation. He does not figure his consciousness as a tabula rasa, reacting to new, unexpected sense-data. Rather, Descartes sets a table for himself with morsels which offer themselves for his consumption and domination.
Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s works express their distrust and disdain of this consumerist position. Both of them warn that Descartes’ spectatorial paradigm constitutes a cowardly retreat from life and its contingencies. Heidegger explains that mass culture submerges and loses Dasein by transforming its authentic possibilities into exchangeable and consumable commodities. Nietzsche contends that society effeminizes the individual, making him unable to assert his sovereign will-to-power. Both of them overcome their anxiety over modern economic circumstances by developing an anxiety over an underlying abyss. They assert that, by confronting the limits of one’s own existence, one can find one’s will to take risks, no matter what outcome fate may destine. In response to the flaccidity and passivity of modern selfhood, Nietzsche and Heidegger affirm the importance of creative, heroic individuals, of tragic artists and poetic builders. By doing so, both of them try to oppose the dominant consumerist subjectivity with a productive subjectivity.
Nietzsche’s argues that the self should assert its will to power by producing new perspectives and creating new poetic visions. By developing a concept of possibility which can not be reduced to actuality, Heidegger establishes a process of perpetual production which can not be reduced simply to the commodities it produces.
Nate, the comment above comes from the following link.
http://www.waste.org/~roadrunner/writing/ViewingPower/Conclusion.htm
That was very fascinating but I still don’t understand how the belief that science must provide a certain amount of knowledge lest the world spiral into chaos is the cause of of a deliberately created social structure that has tied self-worth and status to the purchase of services and mass produced goods. How are they connected?
Hey Richard,
I didn’t get a chance to read through alllll these comments… I just wanted to say I think it was a great way to start off your drift articles. I myself didnt know much about SI and did more research after reading this. Thanks for writing, Im excited to see how it evolves!
Nate, The Cartesian coordinate system–which contributed to the advancement of math or sciences is not the issue—Rene Descartes is rightly credited with improving modern scientific and mathematical methods. However, Rene Descartes’s meditations, his philosophy that relates to perceiving the everyday world, suffers from his highly subjective approach. He places the experience world at the domain of subjective reasoning first…he maintained that the mind was separate from the body, as such the body was merely a machine…since then we might say Descartes has removed the ontological security or how we gain direct tacit knowledge of “Being in” the world by learning things by chance or through trial and error, hence learning through experiences learned . Instead, Rene Descartes’s path placed reason above experience asour way to “Being”…that is not to say that anyone is saying that we don’t think or reason about the world, yet there is much of the world– as we know it–that is not reasoned into being it is lived into being. Post-Cartesian though gives greater weight to lived experience–embodied.
And reunites the Mind and body.
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