The Contemporary Dérive: a partial review of issues concerning the contemporary practice of psychogeography

Authors

  • Phil Smith University of Plymouth/Professor

Abstract

This paper attempts to make a path through the tangled landscape of varied contemporary practices inspired by and reactive to the dérive. Although the number of practices cited is limited, the intention is to make an exemplary critical journey that reflects, not least in its cul-de-sacs and spaghetti junctions, a problematic and contradictory terrain. While the arguments of the situationists are fundamental to the paper, the task is not to measure proximity to the original, but relate the contradictions in contemporary practices to the contradictions in the original, charting the two sets of motions about each other.

Author Biography

Phil Smith, University of Plymouth/Professor

Phil Smith is a Senior Research Associate in the School of Art & Media at the University ofPlymouth. He is a core member of Wrights & Sites (Exeter, UK) and company dramaturg for TNT Theatre (Munich). Publications include Mythogeography (Triarchy Press, 2010), Walking, Writing and Performance (Intellect, 2009) with Dee Heddon and Carl Lavery, edited by Roberta Mock, and The Hidden City Festival Handbook (University of Plymouth, forthcoming) with Rachel Aspinwall and Ruth Mitchell.