A Methodology of Dérive

The stairwell at Really Free School

DériveLab member Christopher Collier presented his ongoing research into the dérive at Really Free School on 8th February.

Really Free School, at their squatted premises of 5 Bloomsbury Square, describes itself as an occupied space, surrounded by institutions and universities, where education can be re-imagined. Amidst the rising fees and mounting pressure for ‘success’, it claims to value knowledge in a different currency; one that everyone can afford to trade. In this school, skills are swapped and information shared, culture cannot be bought or sold. It is an autonomous space to cross-pollinate ideas and actions.

If learning amounts to little more than preparation for the world of work, then this school is the antithesis of education. This space aims to cultivate equality through collaboration and horizontal participation: a synthesis of workshops, talks, games, discussions, lessons, skill shares, debates, film screenings.

Christopher's talk did not attempt to come to any concrete conclusions or to make a particular argument but instead sought to open up a theoretical landscape for engaging with dérive in wider and more varied intellectual frameworks in the attempt to uncover its continuing potential as a methodology. This, to an extent focussed on how we might usefully think dérive via certain poststructuralist theories of language and performativity.