One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive, a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences. 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.
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. In this latter regard, ecological science, despite the narrow social space to which it limits itself, provides psychogeography with abundant data.

Psychogeography an inventive way of navigating the urban environment in order to examine its architecture, culture and spaces. The term psychogeography was developed by the French theorist and film-maker Guy Debord in 1955 in order to explore the ways places and environments make us feel and behave. Debord was a founding member of the avant-garde Situationist International movement, and proposed a ways of exploring the modern city through improvisation and play within the urban landscape, by registering the effects of urban geography on personal emotions and the behaviour of individuals whilst drifting and wandering through the urban environment.

Psychogeography an inventive way of navigating the urban environment in order to examine its architecture, culture and spaces. The term psychogeography was developed by the French theorist and film-maker Guy Debord in 1955 in order to explore the ways places and environments make us feel and behave. Debord was a founding member of the avant-garde Situationist International movement, and proposed a ways of exploring the modern city through improvisation and play within the urban landscape, by registering the effects of urban geography on personal emotions and the behaviour of individuals whilst drifting and wandering through the urban environment.