The Medium is the Metaphor
MATX 601 l Melinda
M. White l Fall 2007
Medium is a tool through which
we create, communicate, and understand meaning. As Marshall McLuhan
says, "the medium is the message" or "the medium is the
massage" (McLuhan). Although other theorists, such as Baudrillard
and Virilio hold a more reserved interpretation of medium and mediation,
medium is an integral element in literature, whether print or new media,
including establishing—often embodying—metaphor. In her
book, Writing Machines, N. Katherine Hayles blurs the distinction
that is often made between electronic mediums and those of print: “Electronic
text had its own specificities, and a deep understanding of them would
bring into view by contrast the specificities of print, which could
again be seen for what it was, a medium and not a transparent interface”
(43).
Long before electronic mediums, authors utilized the materiality of
the printed text to convey meaning. With the current capabilities of
electronic composition, this has become highlighted by the addition
of multimodal electronic environments that, for instance, can use the
link to form structure, and movement to create metaphor. The use of
materiality to establish metaphor is not new and can be found in many
postmodern texts, including Cortazar’s Hopscotch,
Calvino’s If on a winter’s night
a traveler, Coover’s Heart Suit,
and the poetry of e.e. cummings.
Anne Wysocki says:
we should call “new media texts” those that have been made by composers who are aware of the range of materialities of texts and who then highlight the materiality: such composers design texts that help readers/consumers stay alert to how any text—like its composers and readers—doesn’t function independently of how it is made and in what contexts. Such composers design texts that make as overtly visible as possible the values they embody (Wysocki 15).
This applies equally to print and electronic texts that use a specific medium to establish meaning. The author’s intention to use the materiality of the text, any text, to create additional layers of meaning, is as much a choice as the words or the characters they choose. Hypertexts, such as Michael Joyce’s afternoon, have long been using links to create fragmentation and ambiguity similar to that in some postmodern print texts. New media composers often integrate images, sound, and interactivity that add layers of metaphor to a poem. Some prevalent examples of electronic texts that use medium as metaphor in various ways are Ingrid Ankerson and Lori Janis’ dear e.e., Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar’s Cruising, and Talan Memmott’s Lexia to Perplexia.
Please click on each title or the image links on the left to see concise analyses of the print and electronic work. I have also included one of my own new media pieces, titled Closure, as an example to illustrate the idea of medium as metaphor from a compositional standpoint.
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