Random Journeys - Boredom? Madness? Terror? Shame?
My experience of random journeys (i've done a couple of hundred, by foot, bicycle, car, bus, train) is that they make me notice things about the local environment I have never noticed before... new spaces appear, I wake up and open my eyes... I notice things I thought were passive as performers... the whole feel of the place changes. Not only that but I have even found more efficient means of getting to where I want to go, e.g. via footpaths at the end of roads signed as dead ends...
But I can't help thinking my education and the mainstream media often tends to signify either
Random walking (or any random process for that matter) = Madness in the form of 1. " Head nodding Pointless Boredom " (for the sober) or some combination of 2. Lurid Terror and Intoxicated Lust....
Not that these aren't possible factors, its just that the other options (where the value lies?) are hidden by the stereotype....
There is a history....
There is a history....
Debord on Derive:
Derive was linked to situationism (a political dimension), the derive has random elements but.. was mainly concerned with "authentic desire" re "society of the spectacle"
"In a derive 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… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities."
Derive was linked to situationism (a political dimension), the derive has random elements but.. was mainly concerned with "authentic desire" re "society of the spectacle"
"In a derive 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… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities."
: Debord claims "the action of chance is naturally conservative and in a new setting tends to reduce everything to habit or to an alternation between a limited number of variants. Progress means breaking through fields where chance holds sway by creating new conditions more favourable to our purposes.’ (ie its not random) ( * I disagree with this , I beleive he didn't really follow through with the randomness if he believes that... ...)
He often combined it with alcohol...
( as such activities are likely to be associated with leisure and most people combine leisure with intoxication this is not surprising , I should point out that I've carried the vast majority of them out in a sober condition (over 95%), else I would not know what was the effect of the random journey and what the effect of the stimulant...believe me it's worth it, but you have to deal with the "madness factor" that the market/capital/industrialism (See Foucault if you want to understand/get depressed about it) has introduced to associate any activity other than production/consumption replication with when in a sober state, and that has turned many of us into depressed versions of the system itself (the borg? ) with occasional awaydays into (legally sanctified) intoxication)
Debord ( deciding resistance was futile?) killed himself by the way... (I think in despair at how the 1968 project had turned out) .... as he mentions in the wonderful animation Waking Life (by Richard Linklater) "
...Now the "Flaneur..." (.) +!!!! (perhaps a contestant for favorite with the symbolic manipulators of "British" Corporate Establisment?)
This character from the poetry of Baudelaire, is as I understand a foppish detached upper class poet who trounces the pavements in a decadent manner observing the 'botany of the sidewalk...' (possibly a respectable pastime if you are french...)
(thereby perhaps characterizing quite a few of the current "enemies of our big society" and its purveyors)
add to this underlying anarchist tendencies and a certain news event and I am sure you can conjour up an appropriate spectacular image...of lurid terror
This character from the poetry of Baudelaire, is as I understand a foppish detached upper class poet who trounces the pavements in a decadent manner observing the 'botany of the sidewalk...' (possibly a respectable pastime if you are french...)
(thereby perhaps characterizing quite a few of the current "enemies of our big society" and its purveyors)
add to this underlying anarchist tendencies and a certain news event and I am sure you can conjour up an appropriate spectacular image...of lurid terror
The Surrealists reused (detourned) the concept, from Baudelaire, putting a greater emphasis on the role of random chances The Surrealist version of the flâneur was to devise experiments involving randomness and chances in order to experience the city without being blinded by mundanity. 3. The ultimate Surrealist goal was to reach a higher level of truth by attaining the point where ‘reality’ and ‘surreality’ converge. By playing with random occurrences while strolling the city, the surrealist flâneur expected to gain a higher awareness of the city, beyong immediate reality.
Therefore, the Surrealist flâneur is already a more active explorer than its decadent ancestor.
now this gets close....
but as usual desire takes centre stage
+french heavy breathing http://www.youtube.
Now of course attraction and its heavy breathing shadow could be argued to be a natural trait... ? and may be considered the only reason to engage in an explorative journey to some ... but there are other dimensions
This
as the surrealist knew
to reach a higher level of truth by attaining the point where ‘reality’ and ‘surreality’ converge... to gain a higher awareness... beyond immediate reality.
this reminds me of the classic beatles movie "Magical Mystery Tour" perhaps, not so far away, a bunch of familiar faces ...are waiting
of course ridicule of anything threatening to normalised patterned activity and profit will be close behind sponsored by the communion of domination : alcohol
I love Vic and Bob and this is very funny and (I love the voice over) , and as this has of course been commodified over the years.. free running shoes from 79.99 anyone?...
.but perhaps you can perceive how even here the celebrity combined with the ubiquitous communion drug sponsorship and stereotyping can feed potential restriction of serious alternatives to capitalisms mode to appropriated tribal forms with their language and essential commodities that suit the capitalist project...
and in opposition to this how complex critical language can itself create a tribe with access restrictions...
(critical theory in this case)
or 5. overtly spiritual, as an inter faith pilgrimage (walkabout?)
6.? Or an earth wisdom based awakening thing, which is what I really feel at the moment, I suppose that may have aspects of the others but is essentially wholistic, understanding our planet as a a dynamic performance artist.... combined with some escape from the construction of time thing (another faith?)
I feel Massumi says it best : "The world is in a condition of constant qualitative growth... every move, with every change, there is something new to the world, an added reality. "
The potential value of Random Journeys?
1. Noise/Irrelevance?
2. Devious Motives ?
3. Artistic/Transcendent?
4. Fitness/Sport?
5. Spiritual?
6. Wholistic /Emergent?
Conclusion : Potentially an open, dynamic method of Inclusive Listening!
Conclusion : Potentially an open, dynamic method of Inclusive Listening!
