Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Literature and art have been playing with notions of authorship and authority for decades and forcing viewers and readers to consider subjectivity. In part, the nature of literature and art, which acknowledges its connection to individual perception, allows space to play with our notions of understanding. By making the process of creating a part of the work, whether visually in the final piece or the perception of how meaning is made by a character, it becomes clear the work itself is the result of choice and interpretation over observation. While there is space for the reader to question the truth in light of the instability presented in contemporary works, ultimately these narratives encourage skepticism towards the claim of objectivity and the obvious in favor of attention to every media production as a combination of interpretation and choice. Multimodal literature in particular tutors the reader in the processes of interpretation and creation by embracing visual and spatial elements. This poster will consider how multimodal texts play with images, language, and space to show the interplay of context, interpretation, and content in the reconstructive era in four texts: Newspaper Blackout by Austin Kleon, A Little White Shadow by Mary Ruefle, VAS: An Opera in Flatland by Steve Tomasula and Stephen Farrell, and A Girl Imagined by Chance by Lance Olsen.