The Art of the Wander: the Dérive that Ended in Human Suspension
Dispatches from venturing into the urban unknown
When it comes to courting serendipity, the Situationists had it down. An anti-authoritarian group of avant-garde artists and intellectuals, the Situationist International devised social experiments and artistic interventions critiquing the social alienation and commodity fetishism caused by mid-20th century advanced capitalism. One of their most well-known revolutionary strategies is the dérive, French for “drift”. Founding member Guy Debord defined the dérive as, “a mode of experimental behavior linked to the conditions of urban society: a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances.”¹
In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there… But the dérive includes both this letting go and its necessary contradiction: the domination of psychogeographical variations by the knowledge and calculation of their possibilities.²
At its heart, the dérive is the art of exploration, presence, and happenstance. When I was living in New York City, a friend and I organized group Mystery Days founded on this principle. The idea was to venture into the city without a destination (or a phone!), guided by an intention (“to listen”) or a random set of parameters (“to cross the street and continue in whichever direction the light turns green”). We each set out on our own, and at the end of the day, we regrouped to share our experiences over a meal. These experiments made me experience the city in a new way by making me hyperaware of and curious about the idiosyncrasies of my urban environment and opening me up to unexpected encounters.
In a pervious article on how to capture the magic of Burning Man in the default world, I offered a series of life-hacks designed to court serendipity. The dérive, or “art of the wander,” as I like to think of it, is a powerful hack to transform how you engage with your urban landscape. My experience at Burning Man often feels like a sustained dérive in which I am guided by intuition and chance encounters.(Indeed, situationist theory should be of particular interest to Burners for its emphasis on decommodification, anti-consumerism, anti-alienation, and direct experience.)
To inspire you and hold myself accountable, I will be sharing dispatches from my own experiments with the dérive in the coming weeks.
My main motivation for experimenting with the dérive is to activate a heightened state of wonder in otherwise mundane or familiar urban landscapes. When I engage with people I normally wouldn’t encounter, discover hidden spots I never knew existed, or learn something unexpected, I feel connected to the mystery of existence and am reminded that life is ripe with possibility and surprise. Such a reminder is enlivening, especially when the drudgery of the day-to-day can sap our sense of wonder.
::So now for my dispatch::
The other day, I walked out of my house, and instead of embarking on my usual trail up the mountain, I decided to follow the contours of the river wherever it took me. (I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, so my urban adventures still entail a healthy dose of nature.) I soon discovered an enchanting path that I’d never noticed in the six months of living here. It took me through open fields with tall grasses that tickled my shoulders, along sandy riverbanks sheltered by willow trees, and even around a stone labyrinth whose origins are a mystery to me. At times I had to balance on logs or climb up boulders to continue on my course. I even found a rope swing! Occasionally I would pass an inviting enclave of old furniture arranged on the river bank.
And then I came upon a most unexpected sight:
No, your eyes do not deceive you — that is indeed a human being suspended above a river from a tree by their skin. (Using “they” to avoid misgendering.)
A group of heavily pierced and tattooed people in their mid-twenties watched from the riverbank. Others of them had evidently partaken in the same activity prior to my arrival and were in various states of recovery. One person lay on a massage table while another dressed their wounds.
“I have to ask,” I started. “What have I just stumbled upon?”
“Skin suspension. You just missed it — there were several of us hanging just a few moments ago.”
“Wow.” I was speechless.
A person with large gauges in their ears and a snake tattoo wrapped around their neck approached me with a smile. “It was my first time.”
I congratulated them. “What made you want to try it?”
“It’s really cathartic. Meditative. The intense sensation sharpens your focus. It was beautiful to be held and supported through it by this community of positive people.”
Skin suspension is actually an ancient art that likely originated in India over 5,000 years ago. It is still practiced today as part of the Hindu festival Thaipusam and in various festivals throughout Southeast Asia for the purpose of devotion, atonement, and spiritual transcendence. The Mandan tribe, who inhabited the banks of what is now known as the Missouri River, also practiced this ritual as part of the Okipa Cermony. Today there is a modern movement of suspension art spearheaded by groups like Rites of Passage. You can read more about this fascinating ritual in this Atlantic article.
I stayed and chatted while the suspended human was lowered and detached.
Before I departed, they asked me to take a group photo for them.
“You’re the only person who stopped to talk to us. Everyone else just looked freaked out and rushed by.”
I could imagine that the average passerby (especially in the quaint town of Santa Fe, where wealthy white people come to retire) would dismiss these people as “freaks”. But I was impressed with their bravery, stoicism, compassion, and spiritual intent. As a meditator, I am fascinated by practices that help one find mental freedom by overcoming the sensations of the body. I admired these people for undertaking the challenge of mental mastery in such an extreme way and supporting one another through the process.
I won’t be signing up for skin suspension anytime soon, but I was delighted to encounter the unexpected, expand my mind, and connect with these unique strangers.
Such is the art of the wander. You never know what you’ll find.
¹Debord, Guy (1956). “Theory of the Derive”. Situationist International Online. Translated by Ken Knabb
²Ibid.
