Collect:Collections:Collective

Page 1 ........ Theory of Dérive

Page 9 ........ Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project
Page 13 ........ Collector
Page 15 ........ Flâneur
Page 17 ........ John Soane: Soane Museum
Page 19 ........ Arthur Watson: Poetic Conceptualist
Page 21 ........ The Cartographers Dilemma
 Theory of dérive
Practice
The term dérive was coined by the situationists; a group “The Flâneur symbolizes the privilege or freedom to move
originating as a small company of avant-garde artists and about the public arenas of the city observing but never
intellectuals. Their formation occurred in 1957, under the interacting, consuming the sights through a controlling but
leadership of Guy Debord. The group pushed the boundaries rarely acknowledged gaze. . . . The Flâneur embodies the
of the status quo seeking to transform the urban environment gaze of modernity which is both covetous and erotic.”4
through experimentation and the construction of situations
in the cultural realm. They reacted against capitalist societies The all encompassing view of city space was abandoned; an
tendency to choke creativity, reducing life to the ‘spectacle’. equal abandonment in application was that of the position
Throughout Debord’s philosophical work of ‘the society of architect as a fountainhead figure, stepping down from a
of the spectacle’, he argued that ‘real’ modern society had position of God’s eye view, to prefer the role of pedestrian,
sacrificed itself to representation; the spectacle of an inverted reflecting the everyday experience of the city user.
social image. Debord made visible the all-controlling nature
of the capitalist culture arguing that: “The spectacle is not a
collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between 4  Griselda Pollock, Vision & Difference (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), p. 67.
people that is mediated by images.”1. It is in this context that
the situationists aim to engage with the realities of society and
aim to bring about a new kind of revolution. Dérive formed
as a basic practice of experimental behaviour, acted out in
order to engage with society. Guy Debord defined the term:
“a mode of experimental behaviour linked to the conditions of
urban society: A technique of rapid passage through varied
ambiances.”2 The term was literally translated ‘drift’ and
involved a disassociation with the usual pragmatic goals we
use to navigate an urban environment. Through this procedure,
the ‘drifter’ will be not be drawn by their usual motives for
movement, but rather by the encounter of the cities physical
features. To a certain degree, dérive involved walking blind;
‘persons on the derive escaped the imaginary totalizations of
the eye and instead chose a kind of blindness.’3 This practice “The act of walking is to the urban
was heavily influenced by the 19th Century tradition of flâneur,
typically understood as a nineteenth century gentleman system what the speech act is to
aimlessly wandering, separate from the crowds, personally
observing and experiencing the city. language.”1
1  Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York:
Zone Books, 1994), pp 12.
2  Internationale Situationniste #1 (June 1958)
3  Situationist Space Author(s): Thomas F. McDonough Source: October, Vol. 67, (Winter, 1  Seeing Sherrie Levine, Howard Singerman, October. Vol. 67, (Winter, 1994), pp.97-99
1994), Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778967 pp. 73

1 2
 Lessons
It is through this appropriation of urban space that the city will
reveal its unconscious fragments, usually hidden by ‘spectacle’
culture. In ‘Internationale Situationniste #2’ Debord makes
reference to Chombart de Lauwe (pioneer of urban sociology),
and his comments on the residents’ view or image of their
urban surroundings as having a significant impact on an urban
neighbourhood. “An urban neighborhood is determined not
only by geographical and economic factors, but also by the
image that its inhabitants and those of other neighbourhoods
have of it.”1 It, therefore, could be argued that through
dérive we may be able to reveal a more accurate image and
perception of the context that surrounds us. It is through the
practice of dérive that public space may be reappropriated
from the ‘spectacle’, restoring it to the realities of ‘its fullness,
its riches, and its history.’2 The dérive endeavours to change
the significance of the city through its revealing to us. Debord
emphasizes the ‘psychogeographical’ nature of dérive,
defining psychogeographical as “the study of the precise
laws and specific effects of the geographical environment,
consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behaviour
of individuals.”3 It is also noteworthy that the 19th century
tradition of flâneur influences on modern psychogeography,
revealing a tangible link with the dérive participant and the
Parisian figure. Debord’s goal was to take the pedestrian off
their usual path, pushing them into a ‘new awareness of the
urban landscape.’4
1  Guy-Ernest Debord, Theory of the Dérive, Internationale Situationniste #2, 1958 ((http://
library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/314)
2  Situationist Space Author(s): Thomas F. McDonough Source: October, Vol. 67, (Winter,
1994), Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778967 pp. 77
3  Guy-Ernest Debord, Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography, Les Lèvres Nues #6
1955. (http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/2)
4  Joseph Hart, “A New Way of Walking,” Utne Reader July/August 2004 (http://www.utne.
com/pub/2004_124/promo/11262-1.html)
3 4
It was through this new way of looking that Debord sought to
develop a connection with the social growth and development
of the urban environment. Patrick Geddes approached the city
and its public in a very similar manner, promoting cooperative
relationship and active survey. This can be seen fully enacted
in Geddes’ Outlook Tower, not only a city observatory but a
city laboratory.
It can, therefore, be argued that through psychogeographical
participation, we gain the ability to obtain a new view of the
urban environment; gazing towards what we have come to
ignore throughout the banal tasks of our every day chores.
But what sense of value is gained by a position of ‘new view’?
Could its value be reduced to an inward focused nostalgia
of the city as it stands, or rather excitement about a newly
discovered view of city space. It is argued that through
participation in psychogeographical acts such as dérive, that
we are forced to reconstruct the urban environment, opening
it up to new potentials. Dave Mandl (photographer and avid
psycho geographer), illustrates the transforming action of
such activity in saying “it breaks you out of the machine.” If we
only knew how to look at the city, who knows what we might
find? It is true to note that throughout psycho geographical
navigation, we may encounter a shift in desire, being drawn by
the unconsciousness of city space, its forgotten fragments, its
back stages and dead ends? The citizen as dérive participant
could be thought of as the long instated archivist, handed the
key to a hidden archive chamber under the very floors that they
are so accustomed to walking.
 A new wealth of knowledge hidden away under their very noses
revealed, a resource so close to their common operations,
yet so far from their common gaze. Deboard parallels the
reconstruction of the urban environment to the development
of the first navigation charts, drawing from what we know from
the ground, rather from the sky. The first endeavour to make
sense of our environment.

‘The lessons drawn from dérives enable us to draw up the

first surveys of the psycho geographical articulations of a
modern city.... With the aid of old maps, aerial photographs
and experimental dérives, one can draw up hitherto lacking
maps of influences, maps whose inevitable imprecision at
this early stage is no worse than that of the first navigational
charts.’1
Guy-Ernest Debord

The process of drawing a map from the ground would instruct

us to really look at the surrounding environment. Although the
first maps may be inaccurate in terms of the physicality of the
environment, they make important observations.
Benincasa, Grazioso, Nautical Chart Of Western Europe, The British Library
1473

1  Guy-Ernest Debord, Theory of the Dérive, Internationale Situationniste #2, 1958 (http://
library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/314)

5 6
 The Naked City The Naked City was a clear shift from traditional maps, such
The situationist tendency to look at the city through its fragments as the ‘Plan de Paris’, subverting the illustration of spatial
was enacted through Guy Debords screen print,’THE NAKED relationships from a totalizing, God like perspective of the
CITY’. Ridding itself from all known mapping standards ‘the city to one that emerges from the dérive. It represented
naked city’ represented psycho geographical navigation Paris through ones passage from fragment to fragment. It is
through the thoroughfares of Paris. The map was formed from apparent that Debord’s goal was not to present a totalized
nineteen cut out fragments of the city linked by directional view of the city, but rather a view of the city as experienced
arrows. The fragments were not properly orientated and the by the individual. ‘The naked city’ acted as a trace of human
distance between them having no relation to their physical inhabitation, a representation of the city through a series of
measurable separation. Debord defined the arrows using the relationships.
term ‘plaque tournate’, (railway turntables) corresponding to
the spontaneous directional shifts encountered as a subject
moved through their surroundings in disregard of the usual
relations governing their behaviour. It is also relevant to note
the maps freedom from its conventional tools, such as its
north arrow and fixed scale. The map was an appropriation
of an already existing document, used to free it from its usual
reading. The observer is forced to read the city through its
fragments, inhabiting the space between and experiencing
the sudden shifts between the various districts of Paris. The
print borrowed its title from an American film noir of 1948, a
detective story shot as a documentary, serving as an analogy
for the various directional and explorative shifts experienced
by the partaker.

“The production of psycho geographical maps may help

to clarify certain movements of a sort that, while surely not
gratuitous, are wholly insubordinate to the usual directives.”1

1  Situationist Space Author(s): Thomas F. McDonough Source: October, Vol. 67, (Winter,
1994), Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/778967 pp. 62,
ibid, p 7

7 8
 Walter Benjamin: The Arcades Project
Benjamin himself, through a letter in 1930, referred to the task
Throughout Benjamin’s career he became increasingly as “the theatre of all my struggles and all my ideas”. In the
obsessed with the city, in particular, 19th century Paris. His translators forwarding comments to Benjamin’s work, it was
major writings only became available after his death in 1940, commented that the Arcades project was ‘the blueprint for an
but by the 1970’s his work was widely recognized by scholars unimaginably massive and labyrinthine architecture - a dream
and critics. As a result Benjamin became a widely cited literary city, in effect. One might begin to wonder if such a task could
and philosophical thinker. As a theorist of urban modernity ever have come to a point of conclusion? He worked as a
he chose to engage with the city through its busy streets, detective, looking to every tiny fragment of information as
studying the ‘decaying fabric of its buildings as they passed having the potential to reveal an understanding.
into obsolescence’1 One could almost relate his attack to that
of an archeologist, looking back in order to look forward.

Benjamin devoted himself to his Arcades Project, beginning as
a collaboration for a newspaper article, the project manifested
itself as a prolonged unfinished investigation of 19th Century
Paris. The object of study was a cultural tracing of the city,
through its iron and glass covered arcades. His focus was not
directed toward the great events of the epoch but rather what
remained half concealed, fragments of every day collective
tasks. With particular interest in the interactions of artistic,
social and economic development within the city, he was
described to have not only examined ‘the individual “buried
past” but rather the “unconscious of the collective” of the
Parisian society in the nineteenth century.’2 The scope of this
task was of great measure, no better described as if one were
to look into the sheer epic proportions of collected material in
the unfinished work.

1  Neil Leach. Rethinking Architecture, Routledge, London and New York, 1997 p22
2  Philip Ursprung, Caruso St John, Almost Everything. 2008 Ediciones Poligrafa. Barcelona,
208. p187

9 10
 Fragments from the Arcades Project
‘It’s not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present
its light on what is past; rather, image is that wherein what has been comes
together in a flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words, image
is dialectics at a standstill. For while the relation of the present to the past is a
purely temporal, continuous one, the relation of what·has·been to the now is
dialectical: is not progression but image, suddenly emergent. Only dialectical
images are genuine images (that is, not archaic); and the place where one
encounters them is language. - Awakening - [N2a,3]’1
1  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2002, p462
11
Benjamin gives some insight into how we ought to read an
evolving city, in view of the past and present as “constellation”.
He illustrates the past and the present as interrelated entities,
closely bound to one another; arguing that the interrelation
of past and present can be viewed best through ‘dialectical
images’. Benjamin supplements his arcades project with a
visual form of research named ‘cabinet des estampes’; we
find here such dialectical images from different time periods,
corresponding to one another on historical issues. Such
an instance is depicted through the images referencing
excavations for the metro tunnels, which collide with the
foundations of the Bastile Tower. The images illustrated a
coincidence of history and technological process, reflecting
Benjamin’s opposition of ‘continual progression’. It was from
here that we can see an enactment of his methodological
model of archeologist, a position reflected in the philosophy
and work of many contemporary architects such as John
Toumey, Caruso St John and Herzog & De Meuron.
John Toumey ’throughout the process of finding, I will search for
traces of what made the found spaces the way they are, in order to
seek pointers toward the further transformation of the site.
Adam Caruso: ‘It is only by understanding and reflecting on the past
that architecture can continue to be a relevant social and artistic
discipline.’
Philip Ursprung: The Exhibition Herzog & de Meuron: Archaeology
of the mind sets out to explore how these things - in the sanctuary
of an institution - can find their voice again... we imagined we were
archaeologists from the future.’1
1  Philip Ursprung (2002) Herzog & De Meuron: Natural History. Canadian Centre for Architecture. Lars
Muller Publishers p 36
12
 It is argued that the role of understanding and reflecting on what ‘Streets are the dwelling place of the collective. The collective is an eternally
has been, is an important method for both our understanding unquiet, eternally agitated being that-in the space between the building fronts
of the city as well as looking towards its future development.
experiences, learns, understands, and invents as much as individuals do
Benjamin’s archeological method leads him to make lengthy
comment in the arcades project on the figures of collector and within the privacy of their own four walls. For this collective, glossy enameled
flâneur. shop signs are a wall decoration as good as, if not better than, an oil painting
Collector in the drawing room of a bourgeois; walls with their “Post No Bills” are its
Benjamin described the position of collector as taking up the writing desk, newspaper stands its libraries, mailboxes its bronze busts,
struggle against dispersed fragments alluding to its potentials benches its bedroom furniture, and the cafe terrace is the balcony from which
as a method of study or research. Describing the act of it looks down on its household. The section of railing where road workers
collection as a form of ‘practical memory’, the collector shines
hang their jackets is the vestibule, and the gateway which leads from the row
a new light on things that have been detached from their
original use. ‘We construct here an alarm clock that rouses the of courtyards out into the open is the long corridor that daunts the bourgeois,
kitsch of the previous century to “assembly.”1. The collector being for the courtyards the entry to the chambers of the city. Among these
could be seen as an archeological detective pulling together latter, the arcade was the drawing room. More than anywhere else, the street
disparate fragments in search of some sort of completeness;
reveals itself in the arcade as the furnished and familiar interior of the masses.
but as Benjamin acknowledged, for the collector, the collection
could never achieve the status of completeness, ‘everything [M3a,4]1
he’s collected remains a patchwork’2. It could be argued that
1  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2002, p423
the value of collecting is that of making things present, taking
them out of their original hidden context and positioning them
anew, with their potentials as ‘dialectical images’. Benjamin
assumed the role of collector throughout his work, explaining
that ‘for the true collector every single thing in this system
becomes an encyclopedia of all knowledge of the epoch, the
landscape, the industry, and the owner from which it comes.’3

1  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition,
2002, p205
2  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition,
2002, p211
3  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition,
2002, p204-205

13 14
 Flâneur
Benjamin examined the character of the flâneur, (idle man
about town), commenting that his true home was that of the
Parisian arcades. For Benjamin the city was both exterior and
interior, most vividly depicted through the arcades, a position
that the flâneur would feel most at home. Benjamin gave a
vivid depiction of how the city transformed itself spatially to an
interior domestic setting for the flâneur, he took the city as his
own and resided there. The flâneur, slowing his pace would
become a detective observing the marketplace, Benjamin
quite humorously explaining that, ‘In 1839 it was considered
elegant to take a tortoise out walking. This gives us an idea
of the tempo of flâneurie in the arcades. [M3,8]’1 Through this
examination Benjamin took up the position of a residing city
observer, using it as an analytical tool. Benjamin argued that
the deterioration of the arcades and rise of the artificially lit
department store lead to the death of the flâneur, navigating
only merchandise, rather than the city.
1  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition,
2002, p422
15
‘An intoxication comes over the man who walks long and
aimlessly through the streets. With each step, the walk takes
on greater momentum; ever weaker grow the temptations
of shops, of bistros, of smiling women, ever more irresistible
the magnetism of the next streetcorner, of a distant mass of
foliage, of a street name.’2
In a similar manner to the derive participant, Benjamin
depicted the flâneur distancing themselves from the common
goals of the crowd, in order to observe city space. The
Flâneur constructs a dwelling place from the city streets.
Benjamin placed importance on both the figure of collector
and flâneur in understanding the real context of the urban
environment.
‘The quodlibet has something of the genius of both collector
and flâneur. [H3a,5]’3
2  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition,
2002, p417
3  Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, First Harvard University Press paperback edition,
2002, p209
16
 Other Collectors:
John Soane: Soane Museum
The collection compiled by Walter Benjamin in his arcades
project can be compared to that compiled by Sir John Soane
in his London home. This collection does not prescribe to a
strict narrative but rather traced the reconfiguration of an
evolving history. Like Benjamin’s collection, Soane’s collection
was fragmented, not conforming to a liner distillation of history,
it is only through passage that one could begin a re assembly.
‘We are confronted with the subjectivity of the collector/curator
and can identify with him. It is a performative space where
history is enacted over and over again, and where we can
participate in the production of meaning, rather than passively
consuming meaning which has already been defined.’1 Two
obsessions were illustrated throughout these works, Benjamin
with the photograph and Soane with the casting.

1  Philip Ursprung. Caruso St. John: almost everything. Barcelona: Ediciones

Poligrafa, 2009. p169
Soane Museum Exhibits
17 Philip Ursprung, Caruso St. John :Almost Everything. Ediciones Poligrafa,  Barcelona, 2009 18

Arthur Watson : Poetic Conceptualist
‘The making of art and artifacts is a natural extension of the
need to understand one’s heritage, especially where a global
culture overpowers and destroys indigenous ways. Arthur
Watson addresses the issues that relate to cultural identity
and survival in a personal and unique manner, through
collaborative methods and organizational means that capture
the very spirit of a peripheral culture in the twenty-first
century.’1
1  Dr Janet McKenzie, Arthur Watson: poetic conceptualist. http://www.studio-international.
co.uk/sculpture/watson.asp
Arthur Watson, Singing for dead singers. Aberdeen: Aberdeen City Council, 2000 p 35
19
Throughout Watson’s work, there was an emphasis placed on
the traditional processes carried out by skilled crafts men in
Scotland. He approached his work by gathering information,
which was catalogued in card indexes and placed in an order.
This process enables the gathered material to be viewed in
a new light. His interest in the oral traditions associated with
both fisher and traveller communities, located in the north-east
of Scotland, extended his working practice as a collaborator,
finding it the most natural way to work. His working practice
regarded the value of others sharing their skills in contribution
to a project as a necessity; with his training as a print maker,
he is born into a collaborative working environment. ‘A History
of Scottish Performance Art’ was derived from an interest in
an ephemeral culture. He searched for an order through the
process of collect, curate, rehearse and perform. The work
took form through printed text, clipboards, found objects and
multiples on plywood shelves.
An initial study was carried out by Arthur in 1998, it has
been described as ‘an initial attempt to organize research
material relating to fishers’ customs and superstitions as
an artwork, while also drawing parallels with contemporary
performance art, its documentation and residual evidence.’2
What is fundamental about Arthur’s work was his dealing
with fragments, a position reflected in the collections of both
Benjamin and Soane. His work remains incomplete, not
through a misjudged working schedule, but rather to allow the
remainder of the work to reside within the perceiver. The work
as ‘unfinished’ is further illustrated through its evolution as a
series of titled boxes, containing objects, supported by text
and images. By nature the collector deals with the fragmented
nature of the gathering process, but here the fragmented non-
complete image of the findings is expressed also through their
curation.
2  Arthur Watson, Singing for dead singers. Aberdeen: Aberdeen City Council, 2000 p 32
20
 “The Cartographers Dilemma”
“In the era of pervasive computing we need better maps to
manage the built environment. The Cartographer’s Dilemma
proposes a new place making action plan for a withering
public sphere.”1
The heading ‘Cartographers Dilema’ is borrowed from an
ongoing collaboration, examining urban design in an era
dominated by digital media. The collaborators Lorens Holm,
David Walczyk and Paul Guzzardo begin from the Geddesian
principle of the city as an archive and site of knowledge; posing
a number of questions including:
“How can the city become a system of entangled
environments for learning, reflection, and play, where
intellectual and emotional evolution persists, without
stalling?...
How can we create disparate, yet collective, mechanisms in
the city for accessing and instrumentalising the knowledge
embedded in the city?...
How can we create streetscape forums to develop intelligent,
playful, and joined-up thinking about our relationship to the
phenomenological environment?”2
In posing these questions the Cartographers Dilemma projects
the theories from the evolutionist planner, Patrick Geddes,
onto the evolving, media rich city of the twenty first century. In
recognition of the city as ‘knowledge generator’ and ‘learning
environment’, the project advocates getting back onto the
street in order to engage in public discourse, imagining a new
urban space of participatory nature.
1  Paul Guzzardo & Lorens Holm, The Cartographer’s Dilemma, http://www.dundee.
ac.uk/geddesinstitute/TheCartographersDilemmadraft9toAmmanformatted.pdf (accessed
02.04.11)
2  Paul Guzzardo & Lorens Holm, The Cartographer’s Dilemma, http://www.dundee.
ac.uk/geddesinstitute/TheCartographersDilemmadraft9toAmmanformatted.pdf (accessed
02.04.11)
21
The necessity for public engagement has its roots firmly
grounded in Geddes principle of mutual living, acted out
through his Outlook tower in Edinburgh. The Cartographers
Dilemma mirrors the need for an evolving urban laboratory.
“We still mix and drift, but we don’t do much on the street.
It’s in a soft space, the virtual realm, where we tell our stories
and learn. But if we could get back on the street, maybe
some good things would happen in this here and now.”3Paul
Guzzardo.
A substantial emphasis was placed on a new way of mapping
the city, an evolving map of urban scale linking the streets
to a digital mediascape. A mapping of such would bring
creative practice to the forefront of city life, a dispersion and
fragmentation of cultural institution.
“Imagine local gallery + QuestionTime + webscape
congestion (thanks Koolhaas) with link to local authority
website (except that it might replace the local authority at
least at the community level).”4
The cartographer’s dilemma highlights the need for a new
way of working, sharing and learning throughout our urban
environments. There is a need for a new collaborative space
within the city structure, transforming the mapping and planning
of the city from a static, all encompassing view, to a state of
fragmentation with closer association to the tradition of flâneur
than that of the city authority. The street is thus used as a tool
to rethink the city, reflecting on our place in it, understanding
the role and duties of the citizen.
3  Paul Guzzardo & Lorens Holm, The Cartographer’s Dilemma, http://www.dundee.
ac.uk/geddesinstitute/TheCartographersDilemmadraft9toAmmanformatted.pdf (accessed
02.04.11)
4  Paul Guzzardo & Lorens Holm, The Cartographer’s Dilemma, http://www.dundee.
ac.uk/geddesinstitute/TheCartographersDilemmadraft9toAmmanformatted.pdf (accessed
02.04.11)
22
Stephen McCullough Material 2010 | 2011 Dundee School of Architecture

www.stephenmccullough.co.uk 23