Psychogeography in Amsterdam: Missteps

In 1958 French philosopher and provocateur Guy Debord published Theory of the Dérive in Internationale Situationniste, #2. It was an invitation and blueprint to experience and chart the emerging post-war urban metropolis in new, potentially radical ways. In his essay Debord articulated his theory of the dréive [in English, something like “drift”], a discovery process in the form of systematically “illogical” walks through the city. The point of embracing the illogical was to create a process-structure that opened one’s eyes to new urban rhythms, micro-climates and categories. The object was to set the city askew in order to see it afresh.

Walking as a mode of discovery is very much in the flâneur tradition of Beaudelaire in the late 19th centry, and Walter Benjamin in the early 20th. The flâneur walked the city in search of modernist urban experience: a bipedal, ambent, critically distant, modern urbanist.

Today Debord’s call to map an alternative urban topos seems particularly urgent. There are many reasons for this, but the two that concern us here are the rise of a new digital city that is imbricated with and transforming the modernist city of glass, steel and greens, and the explosion of interest in mapping as both a key cultural metaphor and – thanks to new digital tools – as a rapidly changing material practice.

As a way of opening our eyes to Amsterdam, Roadtrippers were given an assignment to develop their own dérive or walk across the city. The goal of these creative walks was to develop a personal psychogeography that deliberately contrasted with the geography of streets, subway lines, museums and cathedrals that are so much a part of the experience of contemporary travelers.

Additionallly, students were asked to make photographs at salient points along their walk. Each picture was actually comprised of six pictures – one taken in all four directions, plus directly above and below – which were combined in a virtual reality program so that the viewer seems to experience them from the center of an image cube.

As you might expect, this theoretically-rich project produced some wild and wolley walks.

Julian Laurant and Jeremy Sarsingh created a website for their walk: "While originally we had planned to walk Rotterdam only, our idea eventually evolved to one where in which we would reassess and walk three different cities in order to reassess the Netherlands as something that is not an area at all: our New Media Seminar.Our goal was to travel backward in time from the present moment, at 9:00 AM on Emmastraat in Amsterdam (where we are staying) to our first day in New York City on September 11th. To accomplish this, we travelled (first class) to three major cities in the Netherlands - Den Haag, Rotterdam and Haarlem, essentially seeing each as Amsterdam, London and New York respectively. Our day began in Den Haag (Amsterdam), then went through Rotterdam (London) and finally brought us to Haarlem (New York) at night.

Paul Caine and Terin Meyer "holed up in classmate Emma Cohen’s house in the Oud West section of the city and started recording audio. Emma is spending a semester in Amsterdam – a semester in Amsterdam, to repeat – and has quite a bit to say about the city. So does her host mother, the wonderful and perceptive Stella. We stayed in Emma’s bedroom with some coffee, a large map of Amsterdam, and a digital recorder, and talked about sixteen places on the map. We discussed the Red Light District’s curious combination of vice and history, the fractious debate surrounding an unbuilt mosque nearby, and many other places, heralded or unheralded, in Amsterdam."

Susan Carlson and Rachel Teagle: we "threw ourselves on the mercy of iPod Shuffle. I’ve been fascinated by the “shuffle” feature since I became too lazy to choose my own music. It’s been a source of inspiration, frustration, and confusion. On occasion, Shuffle seems to be anything but random, choosing songs that are either perfect or perfectly inappropriate for the moment. We could only hope that Shuffle would be up to the challenge of guiding us through Amsterdam.

Ollie Moltaji, Sarah Nienaber and Gracie Young took their Riot Box on across Amsterdam: "we based the concept on our experiences in London. While in London, we made the box, took a walk and listened to music. People saw us coming and they would ask questions, dance, try to buy it and walk with us a while. Initially, we thought Amsterdam would be quite receptive to the Riot Box Movement, so we planned a walk directed by the people. We planned to walk through Vondel Park and Leidseplein. When we came across people who engaged the Box we would accompany them on their way for a while, providing the music. Our original concept really got to the heart of the Riot Box Movement. The Riot Box Walk challenged the traditional private culture of the ipod, but still retains music portability."

Tom Schmidt and Andy Lauer "walked Amsterdam following the "XXX" symbols that dot the city. Because this project is about coming to understand the city personally and from a new perspective, Tom and I saw the "XXX" emblems as perfect markers because of their potent national symbolism and because of their prevalence. Additionally, seeking out X’s as guides allowed us to play with the old mapmaking notion that "X marks the spot."

Aaron Colussi and Boris Sherbakov developed a narrative of life and death. "The eight cubes show the journey of a person entering heaven, recounting its life, and then fades away in its grave. I located on an Amsterdam map a large park a couple of blocks away from a graveyard: the park simulating the dream of heaven, and the graveyard being reality," says Aaron.

Joe Gamello and Kristin Miller: "decided to follow some people who were passing through the area, and in doing so, not only find out where they were going, but experience the city as other Amsterdammers and tourists do."

Andrea Warren and Karina Hill's walk was about "the consumer culture that transcends nationalities. While mapping the Euro, Andrea and Karina explore the misdirected impulse to feel connection to place through consumerism. [...] The Desire Walk is a project that explores our capitalist impulses to connect to a new environment through consumption. Most people who have traveled to a foreign land are familiar with the common social practice of “trinket-buying,” commonly known as “buying junk to prove you went somewhere.” “Trinket-buying”, purposes are tri-fold: 1. Proof of travel; 2. Remembering memories; 3. Connection or ownership.

Stacy Lawrence's walk "consisted of traveling across the city in a diagonal line of sorts. The pattern that I created alternated between walking one block north and one block west. While this pattern was pretty fun to follow, it was sometimes not very exacting; I was thrown off course several times by canals, dead ends, and the event of walking in squares (this occurred when the block on which I walked curved too far back in the direction from which I had just come)."

August Brown: "Amsterdam is a city of canals. Nearly every street corner you stop at in central Amsterdam has a canal visible in at least one direction, as you can see by this map.. I was trying to get into the mindset of someone who was completely hydrophobic (afraid of water) and what it'd be like to take a walk through Amsterdam. After further thought, I realized that if I just walked while being afraid of water, I'd just end up far from the center eventually and there'd be no water to be afraid of. To combat this problem, I then put myself into the shoes of a person suffering from multi-personality disorder, wit one personality that is extremely afraid of bodies of water, and the other that is very fond of water and stays near it at all costs."

Caitlin Magnusson and Jenny Oyallon-Kolowski created a graffiti walk, of sorts: "Supplies—A map of Amsterdam, preferably of the center city, and a pen to mark your way! In GraffitiLand, graffiti triggers dictate your path. Your team will have two hours to find as many graffiti triggers as they can. In this game, there are eleven kinds of graffiti that serve as triggers. Each trigger provides different directions (see below). These triggers are divided into four categories, pervasive, common, barely common, and rare."