driftingspace 
The website Drifting Space is a digital platform dedicated to exploring urban environments through the practice of psychogeography and drifting, or dérive. It presents an evolving collection of essays, reflections, and visual documentation focused on the relationships between people, space, and place. The content frequently engages with themes of walking as a mode of artistic and spatial investigation, mapping the emotional and social dimensions of everyday urban landscapes.
The site highlights projects and writings that examine the impact of architecture, infrastructure, and social dynamics on mobility and perception within the city. It draws upon theories from geography, sociology, and contemporary art to deepen understanding of how urban spaces are experienced and transformed by the act of moving through them. Overall, Drifting Space functions as a resource for both practitioners and scholars interested in the intersection of walking practices and cultural geography.
Most recent articles
Tactics of Disruption and Distraction
Tactics of Disruption and Distraction in Creative Education Abstract For this talk Jason Hirons and Sally Hall will discuss how their inclusive practice engages and challenges students to reimagine the context of their learning. They consider how the tactics of ambulation, distraction and play change the teacher-learner role and shape the dialogue between educators, students […]
Vellum
For the Plymouth Art Weekender 2015 festival Driftingspace produced a short video piece on the changing terrain and topography of Devonport and Mount Wise in Plymouth. The work combines our interests in the building typologies, materialities and landscape naming of the regeneration of the area. The work was show no n the Mayor’s Parlour at the […]
Textually Active: Beating The Bounds
Driftingspace led a walk that responded to artists’ work in the four venues displaying the Walk On exhibition in Plymouth. This was the first ambulatory event for Textually Active as we wandered parts of the city plan, playing on artistic ideas of walking arts practice. It included all, none, or some of the following: Establishing desire lines Making the bounds Pointing […]
Sally Hall for Driftingspace: Karst Short Residency
driftingspace will be undertaking a short residency at Karst in April which will culminate in a Textually Active event at the end of the residency. During the residency we will be generating individual enquiries and explorations of the space/site as ...
Related
The art of ‘getting lost’: how re-discovering your city can be an antidote to capitalism
‘Situationists’ believe the physical spaces around us, and how we interact with them, has a significant impact on how we feel. Source: The art of ‘getting lost’: how re-discovering your city can be an antidote to capitalism
Black Country Type
The first major retrospective of the work of artist Tom Hicks. Taken between 2017 and 2023, the images in Black Country Type document the post-industrial landscape of the Black Country. With a strong emphasis on colour, Hicks focuses on words, typography, handmade lettering and signs. He also photographs ‘types’ of architectural features, objects and structures. Hicks applies
Dérive app
Dérive is a mobile application designed to encourage exploratory walking through cities using playful prompts and chance-based instructions. Inspired by the Situationist concept of the dérive, a method of drifting through urban environments to experience their psychological and social effects, the app nudges users to move through places in unfamiliar ways rather than following conventional routes. Instead of maps or predefined routes, the app presents users with “task cards” that propose actions, observations, or small interventions in the surrounding environment. These prompts might ask users to follow a particular sound, look for overlooked details, interact with strangers, or reinterpret the built landscape. By introducing randomness and curiosity into walking, the app transforms everyday urban movement into a creative and reflective practice that reveals hidden histories, spatial patterns, and social dynamics. Dérive is used by artists, educators, and curious pedestrians alike to explore cities from new perspectives. It functions both as a personal exploration tool and as a platform for curated “decks” of task cards created by artists, researchers, or communities. Through these decks, the app supports workshops, participatory art projects, and psychogeographic experiments that invite participants to question how cities are structured and how people move through them.
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