Alexa Murray
Derive Reflection
Starting the derive in Washington Square Park, there was a lot to observe from the start. Washington Square Park is a unique blend of tourists, college students, and other residents interacting in an open and equal space. In New York City, space is a privilege. Open meeting spaces that are accessible to all free of charge are rare. I thought a lot about this as I watched people talking with their friends, or stopping to sit and talk one the phone or watch a performance. I thought about the times I have used a park in this way, as a free gathering space for a group of people.
As I walked throughout the park I noticed several people sitting out of the way talking on the phone. This made me think about another way I have used parks before, as a form of privacy. In an open space like a park you can be surrounded by strangers, and free to stop and rest (unlike on a busy city street). The abundance of strangers makes you feel very anonymous, which gives you a sense of privacy and the capability to conduct a private conversation in a public space.
As I continued to walk I decided to leave the park. As I walked towards the east village I found myself really immersed in the experience of a derive. Living in New York, most of my walking time is spent inn a hurried rush trying to get from one place to another in as little time as possible. The practice of the derive allowed me to chase after anything that caught my interest. I could stop to look inn shop windows, listen to people’s conversations, and chose the direction I was walking based on which streets looked interesting.
While I was walking I thought about my mental map of New York. When I first came to New York, I was completely lost all of the time. I had to make a conscious effort to develop a mental map so I could understand where I was, and how to get back home. While walking, I couldn’t help but be aware on some level of where I was on that map, and which direction I was heading. As I walked I also began to question the accuracy of my mental map. While I had a general understanding of which direction was north, and where certain personal landmarks were, I could not remember street names or specific distances. However during the course of the derive, these details hardly seemed relevant. While an accurate map of the city may be useful for tourists or planners, to the Flaneur as described in The Flaneur it seems rather useless. Since the derive is an act of following your own interests within your environment rather than a preset course, a traditional map is not helpful. In fact, it may be rather counter productive. The Flaneur tries to understand the city through observation of what is going on around them, without focusing on a specific destination or purpose for their walk. However, a traditional map’s function is to get someone from point A to point B, which is completely at odds with the Flaneur.
In his essay Theory of a Derive Guy Debord described a derive by writing, “In a derive one of more persons during a certain period 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.” When looking at this definition I think I was able to achieve the goal of the derive. However I found it challenging to completely remove myself from my prior knowledge of the place I was in. Since I have walked around this area of Manhattan many times, I sometimes had to make an effort to chose my direction based on what was happening around me rather than my prior knowledge of the area’s geography. In the future, I think it would be interesting to derive in a place I had never been before. I think deriving in a completely new space would give me a more accurate sense of how the environment was influencing my movements and how the city’s design was effecting me. I think deriving is a way to view a space with fresh eyes, and have an appreciation for the parts of your environment that you might normally miss.
