The drift The Situationists were also practitioners of a special urban-analytic walking style, the dérive—the “drift”—which Debord described as “a technique of transient passage through varied ambiences. The dérive entails playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects; which completely distinguishes it from the classical notions of the journey and the stroll.” “In a dérive,” Debord deadpans, “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." The dérive joins the free association of surrealism, the LSD of hippiedom, and cinematic montage as tactics for overcoming the fixity of received ideas of order and logic. By putting progress through the city into a state of constant indeterminacy, it represents a schooled “style” of being lost. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan PsychogeographyRaindrops leaving an erratic trail psychologymovement
Mere retinal art Instead of an existentially grounded plastic and spatial experience, architecture has adopted the psychological strategy of advertising and instant persuasion; buildings have turned into image products detached from existential depth and sincerity. Architecture of our time often appears as mere retinal art. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses A set of potential photographs architectureimagesadvertisingpsychology
The effort heuristic Psychologists have noted that people tend to place greater artistic value on images when they can see the work that has gone into them — a tendency known as the “effort heuristic”. They are also more likely to connect emotionally with the work if they can detect the human hand, says Goldsmiths’ Chamberlain. “There’s an argument that if we see a brush stroke, we almost recreate it, and that’s part of the connection we feel with the artist — you can feel the intention.” Perhaps to capitalize on this, some architects now show presentation drawings that look hand-drawn but are actually generated entirely by computer. “It’s totally fake,” says Brillhart. “They just take a computer image into Photoshop and put filters over it to make it look like it’s drawn by hand. It’s kind of amusing — instead of just sitting down and drawing for an hour, they spend eight hours making it look like a hand drawing.” Nick Jones, Back to the Drawing Board liespsychologydeception
He hurries to the attic Here the conscious acts like a man who, hearing a suspicious noise in the cellar, hurries to the attic and, finding no burglars there, decides, consequently, that the noise was pure imagination. In reality, this prudent man did not dare venture into the cellar. Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul fearpsychology
Poetic drugs In the final chapters Bachelard lets slip (a confession really) how if he "were a psychiatrist," he would recommend a poem by Baudelaire to treat "anguish." His squabble then is not with the purpose but rather the approach of a still-young profession. And of course, why not treat the power of great poems as something akin to "virtual 'drugs'"? Mark Z. Danielewski, The Poetics of Space psychologypoetrypaindrugs
Principles of Psychology A Book by William James When the hour of dire need draws nigh psychology
We might as well make them beautiful The Macintosh team came to share Jobs's passion for making a great product, not just a profitable one. "Jobs thought of himself as an artist, and he encouraged the design team to think of ourselves that way too," said Hertzfeld. "The goal was never to beat the competition, or even to make a lot of money. It was the do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater." He once took the team to see an exhibit of Tiffany glass at the Metropolitan Museum in Manhattan because he believed they could learn from Louis Tiffany's example of creating great art that could be mass-produced. Recalled Bud Tribble, "We said to ourselves, 'Hey, if we're going to make things in our lives, we might as well make them beautiful.'" Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs Useless work on useful thingsSuch an unholy alliance artperfection