Malang City of Media Arts: Narasi Visual, Estetika Urban, dan Kontestasi Identitas Kota di Era Digital

Abstract

The branding of Malang City of Media Arts introduces a new discourse on urban identity formation through visual narratives, urban aesthetics, and digital cultural practices. Malang is represented as a creative city through various forms of artistic expression, public space management, architectural characteristics, visual archives, and cultural memories that continue to be reproduced within social and digital media spaces. This study aims to examine how the concept of media arts contributes to the construction of city image through a visual archaeological approach focusing on symbols, representations, and collectively produced urban aesthetics. This research employs a descriptive qualitative method within the perspective of cultural studies, utilizing observation, visual documentation, and literature review related to the development of Malang’s visual culture. The analysis applies visual archaeology and genealogy approaches to identify the relationship between discourse production, power relations, and the transformation of urban identity within the context of digital culture. The findings reveal that the development of Malang City of Media Arts represents a negotiation process between the preservation of local cultural memory and the demands of global digital aesthetics. The continuous reproduction of visual culture, influenced by the logic of popular culture and the phenomenon of Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), potentially encourages identity homogenization through the emergence of universal aesthetic standards that may shift the city’s local character. Nevertheless, these visual dynamics do not completely eliminate Malang’s cultural identity but instead generate a form of visual hybridity that integrates historical heritage, creative community expressions, and new media technologies. Therefore, the evolution of Malang City of Media Arts can be understood as a genealogical process of urban identity formation that continuously operates within the contestation between collective memory, digital cultural transformation, and the political economy of urban space.