Would Guy Debord use a smart phone?

The Naked City, a psychogeographic map by Guy Debord

How do smart devices change the way we experience the city? Do we rely on our smart phone’s suggestions due to the fear of uncertainty or do we still keep an arousal for drifting? If Guy Debord were alive today, would he use a smartphone in his daily life?

The answer to the aforementioned questions is not even partially exhausted in this short post, which aims to establish an open space for discussion and critique. But first of all, let me give a short introduction about the Situationist International’s history for those who are not familiar with it.

The Situationist International was founded in 1957 comprising of radical minds from all over Europe, but mainly Italy and France which were the core activity areas. During its short period of existence, the Situationists’ ideas had a great impact on the revolution of May 1968 and this historical event made them recognisable in various circles. Diverse philosophical arguments and personal controversies led to its oficial dissolution in 1972. The most dominant figure amongst its members was Guy Debord, mostly known for his political piece of writing titled «The Society of the Spectacle» (available also as a movie).

Based on the principles of Surrealism and Dadaism, the Situationists added their own fundamental concepts which are briefly described below:

• Construct situations which will «be lived by its constructors»! Humans must be promoted from ‘actors’ and passive consumers of their own experience to ‘livers’ who create moments of life collaboratively, consisting of elements they love. A ‘situation’ is characterised from its spatiotemporal durability and thus, must not be confused with an ambiance or a happening which is constrained in space and time. People will create desirable situations only if they experience the environment with various ‘dérives’.
• Dérive, is a term coined to describe the action of the experimental drifting in the urban environment, without the disruption of work, leisure or other issues, leaving only the landscape and the possible ‘rendez-vous’ to guide the drifter. Chance is not considered as crucial for route decisions as the psychological effect that the surrounding impose on the drifter. As it is logical, the dérive cannot take place very often, but even limited periods of time can potentially change the state of mind we hold for a particular urban landscape.
• ‘Psychogeography’ is embedded in the process of dérive. Situationists tactic was to encourage drifters to investigate the effects of the built environment on their affective state and behaviour. This would enable them to awake, criticise the current life conditions forced on them and reinvent life. By taking dérives across neighbourhoods of the city, the drifters capture their emotions for the terrain with photos, verses or collages on a map, which eventually represent their psychology and for that reason the outcome is called ‘psychogeographic map’ (e.g. Debord’s Naked City).
• Situationists were envisioning ‘automation’ of the production as a means to liberate humans from labour and exploitation. Automation can allow time for more playful and proactive opportunities. From this statement, it is clear that the Situationists were not opposed to the technological progress aiming for automation, unless it does not place the human as the master of this transformation.
• If such goal is achieved then the human will be transformed to a Homo Ludens, a creative and playful human being who creates situations and architectures nomadically, that is along with peers, according to their true desires and wills.

Situationists’ ideas and techniques have informed the art, political philosophy, music, architecture (e.g. Constant’s New Babylon) and most recently have been a source for inspiration and discussion in the Human-Computer Interaction (Leahu et al, 2008; Boehner, 2007; Gaver, 1999) and Ubiquitous Computing field (Paulos et al, 2004).

Discours sur les passions de l’amour, a psychogeographic map by Guy Debord

But, do smart phones support the construction of ‘situations’?

The introduction of smart phones altered remarkably our decision making in the urban environment. All those functions and capabilities which are embedded in a single device, have constituted it so powerful and influential on our way of living. Applications can offer directions on maps or even guide us visually and verbally. Additionally, they can propose places to eat according to our diet or even organise our night out with our beloved ones!

Someone might argue that smart-phones have made our lives easier, more secure and certain. The argument can go further by claiming that nowadays we don’t spend time digging on printed maps, asking strangers for the nearest good restaurant or wondering around to reach a desired location due to bad wayfinding system design. Beyond that, when people feel the need to take a walk with their partner, they keep their smart phones in the pocket and enjoy the trip without bothering about the final destination.

But let me be a bit more provocative and claim that alienation is spreading with high pace, leaving far less possibilities for us to turn in an unknown alley which will accidentally lead us to a hidden bar or take an unplanned Sunday walk to the unknown which will make us discover an inspiring illegal graffiti on the wall.

Many other thoughts lie in my head but to conclude, is it the silicon valley CEOs and designers or the end-users who accept their products to blame for losing awareness of the true values of an environment which is replaced by a virtual but augmented one?

Screenshot from the app Urbanspoon

References

Boehner, K., Vertesi, J., Sengers, P. and Dourish, P. (2007). How HCI interprets probes. In Proceedings of the CHI ‘07, 1077-1086. New York, NY: ACM.

Gaver, B., Dunne, T. and Pacenti, E. (1999). Design: Cultural Probes, ACM Interactions, 6, 21-29.

Leahu, L., Thom-Santelli, J., Pederson, C. and Sengers, P. (2008). Taming the situationist beast. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, 203–211. New York, NY: ACM.

Paulos, E., Anderson, K. and Townsend, A. (2004). UbiComp in the Urban Frontier. Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Paper 213. Retrieved from http://repository.cmu.edu/hcii/213