If you are interested in hosting a Dérive workshop, contact us to talk about the possibilities of hosting a Dérive app workshop in your city. You can read up on our previous workshops and take a look at our workshop brochure.
What will happen during a Dérive app workshop?
Lasting for up to two days, the workshop will begin with a lecture on the concept of a dérive, which, put simply, is walking in the city without any pre-defined route or destination. Then, we will go out into the city, in small groups, using Dérive app. The app will present us with task cards that can work in any city, suggesting things like ‘follow someone using a cellphone’, ‘turn right when you see a taxi’ etc. During this walk users are asked to think about task cards that would work within their city, and would be unique to this city alone. On arriving back at the workshop venue, everyone will get together in a workshop-setting and discuss these newly conceptualised location spesific cards, and in a hands on way, through drawing, printing out pictures and creating collages, will create new task cards for a new location-specific deck. On the second day of the workshop we will go on a second walk, but this time using the newly created task-cards, to see the different experiences that are to be had of the urban space when these new ‘tasks’ and urban ideas are employed.
Who would benefit from a Dérive app workshop?
We expect participants to be diverse and engaged individuals with a general interest in urbanism. No previous expertise or knowledge is required, just an enquiring and rigorous mind.
What can I expect from a Dérive app workshop?
Typically, a workshop consists of three parts.
First, a discussion around the local space is begun by the convener and the participants, this discussion then moves out into a discursive walk through the relevant public space. The participants are asked to take special note of certain urban, economic and social traits of their space, to think of the structures that might be below the surface for someone unfamiliar with the space. The walk will typically end with a drinks break to allow the participants to discuss their observations.
In the second part of the workshop, participants are asked to conceptualise their observations through task cards that may contain visual and/or textual elements to portray their understanding of the space. Here, participants are aided in using various ready-to-use templates (paper, PowerPoint, Keynote, OpenOffice, InDesign) and employing various modes of creation (drawing, painting, collaging) to create the final series of cards. The final cards are then presented to the entire group where each card is reviewed and discussed on its implications on its surrounding urban space.
The contents of these workshops will then be selected and presented in the exhibition space as a growing repository of social-urban understanding. The presentation will take the form of display ledges where contents from the workshops (drawings, paintings, photographs, videos) are displayed.
From selected cards, produced during Part B of the workshop, a new deck of cards is created for Dérive app, specifically for the urban space or city where the workshop has been held.
The participants of the workshop are then invited, perhaps in small groups, to utilize the new deck of cards in their urban space as part of a collective dérive. The results, the mappings of their actions, can then be presented in a collaborative environment.
See an example of a Dérive app workshop programme here.