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Article

Open Access

Urban Drifting: An Approach to City Comprehension and Mapping

Author(s)

Alexandros Daniilidis

Full-Text PDF Download XML 1248 Views

DOI:10.17265/2159-5526/2016.07.001

Affiliation(s)

University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

ABSTRACT

Iain Sinclair, in his Lights Out for the Territory (1997) declared that “walking is the best way to explore and exploit the city”. But what exactly is that we are looking for in our contemporary cities? And how can walking contribute in tracing (explore) and therefore mapping (exploit) all those elements or situations that we seek for? Urban space is constantly mutating. Our experience of space as a practiced place changes gradually as the surrounding urban environment evolves around us. Amidst “sterile” private spaces and misleading billboards, the neo-urban walker drifts through the city in search for the peculiar, the original, the intriguing, and the fringe. An urban journey/drifting starts and ends without any predefined plan in mind, while remaining alert and receptive to all incentives given by the practiced urban locus (audio, visual, olfactory, and psychological incentives). Originating from the post-Romantic English writers and the mid-nineteenth century Parisian flâneur, urban drifting has been practiced in multiple ways with different outcomes, but yet highly contributory in the depiction and specific mapping of our urban environment. This paper attempts to investigate the roots of urban drifting, its evolution, and its potential utility as a spatial practice in visual arts, architecture, and mapping.

KEYWORDS

Spatial practice, derive, city mapping, walking

Cite this paper

Sociology Study, July 2016, Vol. 6, No. 7, 417-435

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