TALK: Digital mythologies, virtual ambulations and the cyberflâneur: Psychogeography in the Internet age
Heritage Quay, Huddersfield
12.00 Auditorium
By: Ally Standing & Gavin Rogers
‘In a dérive, one or more persons, during a certain period, drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.’ (Debord, 1956) Despite being over 50 years old, this quote from Guy Debord’s Theory of the Dérive has a certain contemporary familiarity – substitute ‘In a dérive’ for ‘When browsing’, and this would serve as an appropriate description of the kind of (often idle)Internet surfing which most of us engage in on a daily basis.
In a performative lecture touching upon various facets of life in the digital age – such as social media, augmented reality, and web mapping services – we will explore psychogeography in the age of the app, considering the rise (and fall) of the cyberflâneur, and whether or not certain recent technological advancements have changed what it means to explore.
Gavin Rogers 