ABSTRACT
The notion of a target evokes several kinds of image: a shield, an arrow flying towards a bullseye, the cross hairs of a gunsight. Such images might appear to converge on a single meaning: the exclusivity of a target inviting attention in the form of force applied with penetrative intent; however, there is a different dimension to the metaphor in which a targeted entity is transformed but not destroyed. This mode of targeting isolates an object as the focus of vision: the thing that matters most. It is a form of penetrative attention that intends to reach the targeted entity, touch it, transform it, become one with it. To this form of attention, the target is a destination, or a point of arrival, or the projected fulfillment of desire. When cities become the function of such desire, we could say that the intention of targeting is not to hit an urban center, but to hit on it.
