HOW TO RESEARCH
LIKE A DESIGNER
(DéRIVE & DéTOURNEMENT)
The Situationist International
THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
An artistic collective from 1957–72, mostly around Paris
Believed that capitalism produced dissatisfaction but obscured this feeling with “the Spectacle”
The Spectacle describes the state of the world when life becomes only an image. Authentic experience is difficult to achieve because we rely on commodities and media to be the primary method of lived experience.
Media is highly bureaucratized, meaning it is centrally organized, redundant, and without nuance nor a sense of humanity.
“Under the cobblestones, the beach!”
THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
The Situationists were interested in play, as in a way of interacting with the world where things are changeable.
They created “situations” as a way to counteract the Spectacle.
“...moments of life deliberately constructed for the purpose of reawakening and pursuing authentic desires, experiencing the feeling of life and adventure, and the liberation of everyday life”
THE SITUATIONIST INTERNATIONAL
“They rejected the idea that advanced capitalism's apparent successes—such as technological advancement, increased productive capacity, and a raised general quality of life when compared to previous systems, such as feudalism—could ever outweigh the social dysfunction and degradation of everyday life that it simultaneously inflicted”
Dérive
DERIVE
Dérive translates to “the drift” in English.
It is a tactic to create a situation. You wander through the city, allowing yourself to be lead by intuition and emotion. You take note of the “psychogeography” (the way the city’s terrain affects your emotions, thoughts, and conversations.
You allow yourself to be led by what’s attractive and what’s unattractive.
Dérive must be unplanned.
Dérive is best done in groups of 2–3 people
DERIVE
“Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones”.
DERIVE
Dérive is not about achieving objectivity or having a critical distance from the subject.
Dérive is about fully engaging with the subject.
DETOURNEMENT
Everything that needs to be said is already in existence, waiting to be found and recombined.
"turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself"
Collage from everyday life by way inversion, subversion, and recontextualization.
THE WAY YOU CITE SOURCES AS A DESIGNER IS DIFFERENT FROM HOW YOU WOULD CITE AS AN ACADEMIC
DERIVE THROUGH THE ARCHIVE
Start with a topic that interests you.
Search your library catalog for that term.
Find the first search result in the stacks
Only pull out books from the same shelf.
New York Public Library’s Picture Collection
Take the images home
DERIVE ONLINE
Imagine that a URL is your starting location, like your address in the city.
As a research method, you can’t click everywhere.
As a research method, you have to acknowledge algorithms that shape your path
Creating a multiple-pathed narrative through your research
https://are.na
https://scholar.google.com
Searching the archives of the New York Times since 1851
FOR YOUR TECHNOLOGY
USE EXISTING RESEARCH
OR MAKE A DERIVE ONLINE
TO CREATE AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
An annotated bibliography is a list of citations followed by a brief summary or analysis of each source
Does all research have to be articles?
Can it be
visual�physical�experimental�anecdotal
What goes into an annotation?
Can it be
a summary of the ideas
an attestation of what’s personally important to you
clippings of what’s visually interesting}}
What form can a bibliography take?
Can it be
written text�image-based
sound�video
WORKSHOP
MAKE A DERIVE AND COLLECT ARTIFACTS
MAKE A DETOURNEMENT AND SAY SOMETHING WITH RECOMBINATION