Drift
Drift was a one-day online conference exploring mapping practices for a group of Masters Graphic Arts students at UWE in Bristol in the early part of 2021. This was a time when government lockdown restrictions were in place in England and the event explored how an online conference experience could offer more than a day listening and watching a screen.
The day was co-designed and delivered with Nick Durrant, interaction designer and strategic thinker working with City ID. We built upon our common interest in design process and experiences of place. Our approach was to think about how the day might mobilise learners’ sense self as a professional practitioner by engaging with new ways of thinking and doing.
We devised a series of speculative walking and mapping activities inspired by fluxus event scores and the Situationists’ concept of the dérive. Punctuating the day were short conversations with Lottie Webb and Cal Jepps, specialist members of the design team at City ID who introduced an element of their practice and shared some of their work. Students carried out walks in their neighbourhoods, made maps using a mixture of digital and non-digital resources; the process and outcomes were shared in Padlet galleries.