At home we tend to stick to what we know, with little deviation
“If we were to map out our daily movements, we’d find that we tend to stick to what we know with little deviation. We move from our house to our job to the gym to the supermarket, back to the house, and get up the next day to do it all again. Guy Debord, one of the key figures in situationism, proposed taking a holiday from those routines in the form of the derive or drift, which was meant to renew the urban experience by intentionally moving through our urban spaces without intention, opening ourselves up to the spectacle and theater that is the city. Debord claimed that our urban spaces are rich places — full of untold encounters, wondrous architecture, complex human interaction — that we’ve grown too numb to experience. His remedy was to take a day or two out and disorient ourselves by stumbling about our city, tempering the grid of urbanity with the organic quality of not knowing, being pulled by intuition and desire, not by obligation and necessity.”
–Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing
March 19th, 2012 at 12:22 am
Love the idea of breaking out of the norm and experiencing some place else in the city. I try to do that often in Denver, especially since I just moved here in mid 2011. As a photographer I love walking the city to see what is out there. I also tend to take some walks in the mountains too. Once I get over this week long cold I’ll be scheduling another day out in the city to wander and talk to people and take some photos.
March 19th, 2012 at 2:14 am
@Tim You should check out the Tattered Cover Book Store in Historic Lower Downtown.
March 19th, 2012 at 9:11 am
People used to move from place to place and experience new frontiers on a regular basis. Then some fool invented the settled community where everything we needed came to us instead of having to go out and get it. Then we perfected the settlement, concreted it over, called it a city and drove millions of dulled automatons into a consumer culture and a basic wage. That’s progress folks!
March 19th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
I’ve found myself very much a self-made victim of the routine. But, like Tim, I find that a camera is a ticket to exploring the city where I live.