Dérive: The Palimpsest
My first attempt at the dérive did not go so well. With every letter I typed into Google came a suggested word or phrase based on my past Google searches or suggestions to topics I may like. I did not want suggestions to topics I already know about; that defeats the whole purpose of this assignment. So, I gave up. I started reading a book my mom gave me called A Discovery of Witches. Within the first chapter the word “palimpsest” was used more than once. Since I had no clue what a palimpsest was and that it seemed imperative to the plot, I decided to look it up and start my dérive.
According to The Chicago School of Media Theory, a palimpsest is a text that was written on erased or partially erased text. During the renaissance, this was a popular practice because paper was in short supply. This led me to the statement in this article that claimed a palimpsest is ancient form of hypertext, which is incredibly relevant to upcoming topics in this class.
After learning that definition, I explored the Chicago School of Media Theory Further. There are hundreds of random words on a right-hand column of the website and if you click on the word it leads to an article. Within that article, words from that right-hand column are hyperlinked to other articles. The whole website itself was a palimpsest which blew my mind. However, most of the words somehow tied into media in some way and I did not anticipate my derive to lead me through such class-relevant topics. I started clicking on random words. One of them took me to a movie recommendation of Videodrome. I was intrigued so I saved it to my watch list on Amazon Prime. Another suggestion came in the form of a book entitled Palimpsest and was described only as “another world than the one that meets the eye.” I added it to my already bloated reading list.
Like any good informational search, my dérive took me on a Freudian adventure this time about his thoughts of the uncanny: a surprising change from his usual Oedipus complex ideals. I randomly clicked on a few more words and somehow landed on a brief history of the children’s toy the “mystic writing pad.” Somehow, I ended my dérive looking at a whimsical Magna Carta tie in the gift shop of the Walters Art Museum.
All in all, this was a successful derive. In the end I was shocked to where I had gone and where I ended up in such a short amount of time. In total, I spent about thirty-five minutes reading about as many different subjects as I could with no real intention. With Facebook and Google always suggesting topics you might like, it is so hard to learn new information. Today, I actually used the internet in a way that is was intended for: to gain knowledge. I learned so many random facts, learned about history, literature, movies, and most importantly the fact that someone took the time to print a Magna Carta tie and sell it for seventy dollars. I may not use any of this information for anything in the future, but I learned so much in a short amount of time. It makes me wonder what knowledge we can gain if we went on internet dérives as much as we went on social media. I bet we would learn a lot more than what a palimpsest is.
