E-Derive: Psychogeography and the Digital Landscape

E-Dérive: Psychogeography and the Digital Landscape

An art project & workshop by:Julia Kaganskiy

An XiaoKevin Sweeney

Who are we?

Julia Kaganskiy

An Xiao

So, what is this workshop about?

Dé rive : literally “drift” or “drifting.”

• A technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences

• First developed by French Situationalist philosopher Guy Debord in 1958

• Used in his studies of architecture and the urban environment

“In a dérive one or more persons…drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.”

- Guy Debord, “Theory of the Dérive,” Inte rna tio na le Situa tio nnis te #2 (Paris, December 1958)

Contemporary Urban Exploring

GPS Drawing

In a nutshell:

Dérive is the exploration of a built environment without preconceptions

“…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.”- Guy Debord, “Theory of the Dérive,” Inte rna tio na le Situa tio nnis te #2 (Paris, December 1958)

Dérive in an Urban Setting

Map of the internet on November 23, 2003. Via the Opte Project.

E-Dérive:An investigation of how we drift through the digital

landscape.

Dérive Browsing

•Regular browsing with the volume up

•Less goal-oriented

•Following sense of curiosity

•Fewer presumptions

•Very definition of browsing

The Workshop

Goal: To create data visualization portraits of each participant’s unique travels online.

We’ll be using a variety of tools:

-Personas, by Aaron Zinman-Wordle-Google Maps-Dendro, by Kevin Sweeney

Personas

• Visit http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html

• Type in your name• View your Personas profile.

Wordle

GPS Visualizer

• Custom visualization tool• Visualization of how you

spend your time online• Created by Kevin Sweeney,

interactive developer at Fantasy Interactive

E-Dérive Portrait of An Xiao

Using tr.im

• Visit http://tr.im• Click on “extras”• Scroll down to “bookmarklets”• Drag the “tr.im NW” bookmarklet to your

bookmarks bar

Rules for E-Dérive Browsing

1. Start at Fark.com2. Click around and explore. Follow any link that piques your interest. If you wish, Google a word or phrase from the text that intrigues you.3. Tweet out a short description, the hashtag #ederive, and a link for each page you go to.4. If you revisit a page, you could retweet your previous description5. Each new page must be linked to the last or discovered via Google.6. Cover as much ground as possible

E-Dérive Hits the Pavement

ContactJulia Kaganskiy

@juliaxgulia

jkaganskiy@gmail.com

www.juliaxgulia.com

Kevin Sweeney

@restlessdesign

kevin.sweeney@gmail.com

www.kevinsweeneydesign.com

Full E-Dérive Portraits (available by October 12)

http://www.anxiaostudio.com/art/ederive

An Xiao

@thatwaszen

thatwaszen@gmail.com

www.anxiaostudio.com