Guy Debord "Theory of the Derive" 1956 and Ian Borden "Another Pavement Another Beach"

Ian Borden's "Another Pavement Another Beach" is a written piece that uncovers the interesting truths behind why many people choose to Skate around the city, another version of being a Flaneur. He describes moving around the city on a skateboard as a continual search for the unknown. I found it very interesting how he describes the way skaters would take over schoolyards and drained swimming pools in which "super-architectural space in which body, skateboard and terrain were brought together and recomposed in an extraordinary encounter". I love the way that these areas that have most likely been forgotten by the rest of the city have been re-imagined and given a 'new life' by the skaters; "they are left over spaces of modernist town planning, or the spaces of decision making". It is so fascinating to me how these forgotten places that are almost useless to others, are a playground for a skater. Somewhere for them to practice, experience hidden parts of the city and find people that have the same things in common...

"Empty of cars, car-parks have only form and no function"

"Buildings are building blocks for the open minded"

These quotes from the text are a favorite of mine because they give a sense of beauty to something as simple as Skateboarding. It represents a whole new and different way of seeing and experiencing a cities streets. Despite the fact that overall, skating is seen as a rebellious sport and a nuisance to the public that live in the cities. Managers, business owners and a lot of people with the right authority blame skateboarders for criminal activity, damage and overall annoyance. Borden has a brilliant way of describing this, where he states a "Skateboard is the only weapon you are not patted down for". I find that because skating is not the normal way of venturing and seeing the city many find it to be annoying and unwanted. There are rarely any places for a skater to go, unlike bikes that have bike lanes, so many skaters do what they can to go through their cities and use the urban and modern architecture to their advantage.

In addition, Guy Debord's "Theory of the Derive" supports the idea that Borden states about the overall interest in exploring a city in an adventurous and alternate way. Debord's theory is that a Derive is a technique of walking through a city, but with a more playful and constructive mindset, whilst having an awareness of psychogeographical effects. He says that whether an individual or group decides to explore derivation it requires them to leave behind their relations, work and any other activities and let themselves be drawn to anything they come across in order to gain a new experiences. Debord describes derivation as best experienced in an urban area where you are able to pass through a variety of different neighborhoods. Meaning that the country would not work for this sort of activity, as there would not be as much variety and less opportunity for a chance encounter of something new. Activities that are required of a Derive include; talking to strangers, walking or exploring new or prohibited places etc. This is where this part of Debord's theory links well to Borden's idea of a skater being able to explore and see a whole new and different side to urban life and its architecture.

Both have described how important and interesting it would be if more people explored their urban surroundings and chose to do something completely different to their normal day-to-day lives. They encourage a much more free approach to life and know that exploring areas such as prohibited or deserted places. As they are ignored places that many would walk past daily and actively try to avoid. To people like Debord and Borden they are intriguing and enable them to pursue a more interesting and fulfilled life. However they both believe that to explore derivation or become a flaneur it needs "a total focus of mind, body and environment". In order to get the full experience that you so desire. I find this to be an interesting concept and believe that using the terrain around you in order to explore a whole new concept of urban life is the best way to get to know yourself and your own surroundings.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Roxana Halls - Artist Research

Image
Roxana Halls is an English Painter who is well known for her work and her ideas in how she breaks down the stereotypes of femininity in a polite and almost comedic way. Similarly to Wiley’s work she understands the traditional representation of women’s portraits from years ago, women would not smile. Showing teeth was most likely an ugly trait and so Halls challenges this with almost every one of her paintings. She also puts a lot of time into the subject of women and food, the idea that a woman with a large appetite is not a feminine trait. The women in her portraits are all seen with big expressions on their faces, with large amounts of detail that represent both the beauty in their features and the flaws, which every women will have.   This particular piece above that Halls painted is from her collection called ‘Laughing While Leaving’ that shows a couple walking away from what we presume is their burning home. Along with their belongings and two cats they appear to be happy abo...
Read more

William Pope.L - The Great White Way: 22 miles, 5 years, 1 street (2002-2007) | 06/10/2020

  Visual artist William Pope.L Performance art piece 'The Great White Way' was a statement for the streets of New York City. In the beginning of the 2000's he began crawling on his hands, knees, stomach, and elbows wearing a variety of different outfits and costumes. However, the performance that I am going to be discussing is when we dressed in a Superman costume and had a skateboard strapped to his back. Pope's intentions for this performance based artistry was in my opinion, a statement about the treatment of particular races and/or people from different walks of life. Superman as a character is a white man who flies above cities full of people who love and worship him. However Pope (who is a black man) had dressed in the same costume but, was instead, crawling and beneath everyone else around him in the city. This could represent the overall treatment of black people in america (and/or the world) and how if the original character were to have been black he would hav...
Read more

Jan Švankmajer - Lunch (Food 1992).

Image
Jan Svankmajer is a Czech is a filmmaker and artist who's body of work spans over a variety of media. One of his short films he made in 1992 called 'Food' is an example of a stop-motion animation using claymation and pixilation. Which is inspiration for my own animated outcome. I am going to focus more one the section titled 'Lunch' and the effects he used in order to create such an impressive piece of animation. This section of the film depicts two gentlemen sitting down to eat in a restaurant. It follows with a compilation of each man eating anything and everything around them, from the flowers to their shoes, the plates, even the table. It is meant to represent mans relationship with food and the routines we go through. Below you will find this particular animation; I have taken much inspiration from this short film and the way Svankmajer uses a mixture of claymation and pixilation to get the correct effect. You are able to see the clay parts more when the charac...
Read more