Deriva en Santiago

Psychogeography experience in Santiago de Chile

Media arts, Psychogeography, Urban space perception
Santiago de Chile (CL) / Universidad de Chile, April 2005

Blindfolded and confused by pre-recorded urban noises, brought by unknown people through unknown city outskirts of Santiago de Chile, abandoned in strange and uncertain places. This is the experience in which the participant to Deriva en Santiago is taken into before to make his way back without using public transports or asking for informations.

Details

Deriva en Santiago was organized as a first project during the “Aesthetics for a Calm Technology” workshop at the Arts department - Universidad de Chile. It was meant as a practical way to explore urban environment qualities from a non-technological perspective taking inspiration from the Situationists’ drifting experiences. In three different sessions, around 80 participants were assigned to two different roles, the guide and the drifter. The drifters were blindfolded and equipped with earphones playing urban noises in order to sensorially deprive them of the common feedback signals that we receive while moving in a city. The guides' task consisted in bringing the drifter to the outskirts of Santiago and leave him in a randomly selected place. After few minutes, the drifter was supposed to remove blindfold and earphones and to walk back alone to the meeting point. In the exploration (lasting from 2 to 5 hours), the drifter was asked not to take advantage of technologies, asking informations nor look at maps. As soon as the meeting point was reached, the drifter was asked to recompose the path on a large-format map of Santiago adding personal thoughts on the experience.