Experimenting with Edmonton

First of all, I would like to thank Erika for putting out the call to continue blogging about Edmonton. I look forward to writing alongside fellow students who have such a diverse range of backgrounds and views on the city. I decided that for my first post I would try to put into words my thoughts about what I want to accomplish, as well as the thinking behind it.

The direction I want to take my investigations of Edmonton is highly influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze, whose philosophy calls for radical experimentation. It’s only through experimentation that you can begin to understand the intensive processes of an object, which lies in opposition to merely observing external characteristics. For example, say that there is a chair in front of you, whose form and colour you perceive, but it isn’t until you move it--in my case I prefer to kick things--that you begin to understand the potential becomings (changes) of the chair. This isn’t to say that I want to kick Edmonton, but more so kick-start it in hopes of seeing how it functions in a more stressed / intensive state.

But how can I go about this? Honestly, on an individual level this task seems fairly daunting, especially if you rule out the idea of running down Jasper Avenue naked during rush hour, or yelling in a library. So in my attempt to avoid jail time and the loving glares of annoyed library patrons, I want to call on the literature from and about the city: fiction, non-fiction, creative non-fiction--everything--maybe even tourism pamphlets! And through these sources I want to see how Edmonton can be deterritorialized (how its habits can change) through events both internal and external to it.

With that said, I see myself examining Edmonton in primarily two different ways:

1. Looking at how large external events influence the city (e.g. A Federal Election)

2. Looking at how literature can bring a deeper understanding of Edmonton.

Through these two activities I hope to plot a map of Edmonton’s potential changes/becomings so that an image of a future-Edmonton or a city-to-come may be brought to light. Hopefully the rest of my posts will be more exploratory in nature, but I think this was a good place to start. Lastly, if you have any any ideas, suggestions, or corrections please feel free to comment.