1. Mădălina Diaconu Urban drifting as a work methode of the creative class ESA Conference 2010 Udine

2. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine “Les fleuves m’ont laissé descendre où je voulais.” (Rimbaud) “Allez-vous faire influencer.” (Gil J Wolman)

3. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine What is drifting? Dérive (Debord): 1.drain off water (12 th century) 2.leave the shore (rive) (14 th century) 3.(nautic) to drift (16 th century) Drifting as: physical locomotion (strolling) work method of the creative class way of life Paradoxical project of steering casualness

4. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine The flâneur: empathy at distance (Walter Benjamin) Conversion of historic knowledge into emotional knowledge Emotional intensity and reflexive distance Ivresse (Baudelaire, Benjamin) & Blasiertheit (Simmel) Otium and negotium: the flâneur‘s productive „idleness“; trendscouter and agent on the market of ideas.

5. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine The social reporter: hostage of impressions (Siegfried Kracauer) Primacy of emotions → loss of self-control → no methodical drifting I wanted to cross speedily the short distance which was separating me from the thoroughfare. But it suddenly happened: No sooner had I detached myself from the white, exaggerated high theatre wall than I felt it hard to go further, as if invisible nets would have held me back. The street where I was did not let me free. Ethical flâneur: city of poverty, violence, indifference

6. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine Constructing situations (Situationism) Guy Debord, Gil J Wolman, Isidore Isou, Asger Jorn etc. New means of action – programme of social change Reaction to the crisis of modern culture, functionalism and consumerism Creation of playful environments Techniques of conditioning moods Dérive: „a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances“, „the practice of a passional journey out of the ordinary through a rapid changing of ambiances”

7. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine

8. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine Constructing situations (Situationism) Alternative to Kevin Lynch’s “image of the city” (legibility, orientation, identification) Object of psychogeography: „[…] exact laws and specific effects of geographical environments, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals“ Ephemeral situations: passages

9. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine The stroller’s freedom Contemporary commodification of feelings (Post)modern aestheticism and the flâneur‘s ethics Social and economic conditions of the flânerie The fitness of the consumer‘s body (Bauman)

10. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine Hobo and urban research (Robert E. Park) The urban sociologist as a „tramper through cities“ The Hobo‘s Mind (1915): existential homelessness artistic temperament: hobo poets „[…] for the hobo is the bohemian in the rank of common labor.“

11. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine The Tramp’s improvisations (Charlie Chaplin) From existential drifting to creative improvisation as a way of life Parody of the flâneur and dandy Social mimicry Passion for individual freedom vs. solidarity Drifting as narrative technique The situationists‘ critique: „swindler of feelings and suffering“ The Circus (1928)

12. Mădălina Diaconu – Urban drifting ESA Conference 2010 Udine Univ.-Doz. DDr. Mădălina Diaconu Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien madalina.diaconu@univie.ac.at http://homepage.univie.ac.at/madalina.diaconu