Andrea Zittel. N55. ELSEWHERENESS BY ANDERS WEBERG AND ROBERT WILLIM. INFO The Elsewhereness series deals with questions of site specificity, juxtaposing the nomadic with the place-bound. Early site specific artworks in the 1960s – 70s were often massive in form and commented on the commodification of the prevailing artworld. In keeping with artist Richard Serra’s expression” to remove the work is to destroy the work”, most of this work was place-bound. Site specific art has since then been transformed. Often it is about the social, about engagement and relations between people living in a certain place and visiting artists. Elsewhereness subverts these approaches. It is instead about the ephemeral, about urban alienation and non-presence. It takes the possibilities for digital media in relation to site specific art to its extremes. The works in the Elsewhereness series are made solely from audio and videomaterial found on the web, material that emanates from a specific place.
Upcoming editions 2010 is Utrecht [Impakt Festival] and New Orleans. Guy Debord: Theory of the Dérive. One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll. In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.
If chance plays an important role in dérives this is because the methodology of psychogeographical observation is still in its infancy. (To be continued.)