Theoretical Lens

With millions of vague ideas coursing through my mind and panic taking hold of me, I met with my advisor, Carl DiSalvo, to discuss ways of actually getting my work done. He suggested, firstly, that I not wig out and, secondly, that I make some definitive decisions. One decision in particular: choose a theoretical model. He suggested either Lynch's Elements of the City or Susan Leigh Star's Ethnography of Infrastructure, and, once decided upon, abstracting it, and applying it to my field work.

It's interesting how themes reemerge within the Digital Media program. A lot of the work I've done in this program returns to one text in particular: Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City. So it's no surprise, when overstimulated, over-read, and wigging out, I found some comfort in returning to Lynch.

Elements of the city image, according to Lynch, are Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes and Landmarks. Here's an extremely brief delineation of the elements. Lynch also talks about form qualities of the elements, like singularity, dominance, visual scope and continuity, to name a few, and how they inform a Sense of the Whole and the Metropolitan Form.

When I go out to strip malls, when I analyze my experiential notes and look at my pictures, I'm ultimately looking for: elements of the city image within the strip mall; form qualities of these elements; and what, if possible, might be the sense of the whole.

While my panic is temporarily at bay, there is a menacing question that looms: what does this have to do with digital media? While I may be using software to trace and abstract maps of strip malls, I'm still not showing the benefits of doing so nor am I developing a system that employs digital media to effectively convey the image of the city through the lens of a strip mall. And therein lies the real challenge, and relevance, of masters work in Digital Media.