6 - Trevor C. : Dérive

While at times the dérive felt like a regular walk, I do think it gave me insight into what Guy Debord described as the "precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Regarding which turns to take and which parts of the city to explore, my group was generally in tacit agreement, all of us drifting in the same direction without having to discuss or explain why. Even the end of the dérive seemed to come naturally, as we reached a point on Federal Hill where we lacked further inspiration and knew we were done. If we had all gone on dérives independently, but still started from the same location, I imagine our paths would still have been similar. I think a number of forces were at work here, from architecture to street layout to human activity. Generally we were drawn to the unusual, heading toward buildings that seemed to clash with their environment, down streets that looked different from the others, to areas with interesting people (we did some stalking), and into shops with things we hadn't seen before.