A DESERT TRANSECT
A transect can be a path along which occurrences of studied objects are counted and recorded, or it can refer to dividing something by cutting across it. It can also be used to describe a line across a habitat. Brian O’Neill reflects on these multiple meanings as a methodological proposition for his inquiry into the nascent logics of urban development in the cultural and physical geographies of Phoenix, Arizona.
Cities in the American Southwest uniquely function without a center yet also contain tenuous sinews of infrastructure struggling to sustain a specific urban modality amid sprawling expansions resistant to traditional urban “densification.”
O'Neill takes us on an autoethnographic journey, integrating images, reflective writing, and sound recordings to illustrate daily life along Phoenix’s transit routes.
His work highlights the distinctive challenges and complexities inherent in desert urban environments and, more broadly, in crafting unique socio-cultural documents of our times.
Using the notion of transect as a methodological heuristic, O’Neill has crafted a unique image-text-sound book that takes the reader through the phenomenal, multi-sensory experience of daily rides, through the profound intensity of summer heat waves to the height of snow-bird tourist season, from experiences of casual, normalized inequality and violence to the tranquility of post-modern urban mobility. Throughout, the reader experiences desert urbanism alongside the author through handwritten notes, sound recordings, and images.
This project is augmented by a sonic album, a music video created in collaboration with composer Wyoming Toad, and an extended dialogue and contextual essay.
A Desert Transect offers an alternative approach to conducting and presenting social and visual research.