The Dérive: An Introduction

A dérive is a way of exploring the city. It focuses on following natural instinct, and must be completed with no motive behind the travel. In other words, a dérive is carried out with the only purpose of exploring the city how it is designed to be explored.
To do this, one must follow the city layout, and contours. A city is designed in a specific way, to encourage and discourage the pursuit of certain routes. The theory of the dérive came from psycho geography, and the situationist international.
An example of a dérive is shown here, captured on google earth. The route may seem randomly selected, but in actuality, the journey is influenced subconsciously, by the city layout and appearance. If you were to choose between a dark alley way, and a lush green, open path way, which would you choose?
Many people would choose the open and inviting path way, as it poses less of a threat. It is a similar design that influences our choice of route when we walk about the city.
However, it can be argued that a digital dérive, such as this video clip demonstrates, would be completely different in real life. This virtual reality does not include the smells, sounds, and people that we would encounter in real life, all of which would also influence which route we would take. These are important factors to consider when choosing between a physical, or a digital dérive.

[@ko6el]

A dark alleyway everytime