Subjectivity, Substrate, Genre & Context: Metatextual & Metapictorial Approaches

Self-reflexivity encompasses a lot of factors based on the genre and the given substrate of a text or a work. Self-reflexivity in accordance with metapictures has the ability to “make visible the impossibility of a strict metalanguage, a second-order representation that stands free of its first-order target,” (Mitchell 83). As a whole, self-reflexivity possess both formal and structural qualities of the first and secondary variety. In Metapictures, W. J. T. Michell examines three unique examples where metatextuality, metapictures, and self-reflexivity come together. My aim is to further elaborate on the subject of metapictures and metatext as they relate to one another in the exploration of metatextuality in regards to self-reflexivity and how it varies from one substrate, genre, and context to the next.

To begin, self-reflexivity in itself can be defined as a text or work of art directly becoming metatextual and metapictorial, as W. J. T. Mitchell defines it. It is more than just art for arts sake, making a point to bring attention to itself within a given frame. For example, “self reference is the uniting theme for accounts of modern art that might seem, at first glance, to be radically opposed,” adding to the fact that self-reflexivity in its most basic concept is actually more of a paradigm than one would imagine, (Mitchell 36). The reason being that art is not meant to draw attention to itself, but rather is to be used as a means of analysis or a deeper meaning than what can be seen on the surface. However, when art changes, and becomes self-reflexive it is almost like art itself is no longer art, but more of a critique of itself, through the formal qualities that it undergoes to become self-reflexive in the first place. As previously stated, this is a concept that can vary from substrate, to genre, to context.

Next, “a “medium” could be understood to include all those determining conditions,” (Mitchell 36). By medium, we can begin to include different substrates. Different substrates will be more self-reflective than others. With the case of Mitchell’s text, he directly addresses three examples: Steinberg’s The Spiral, Alain’s “Egyptian Life Class”, and Jastrow’s “The Duck-Rabbit. These are outstanding examples of metapictorial occurrences, but are not exactly metatextual in the formal way that the term would be defined. What I mean by that is when given a specific medium, the message of a given text will change. For instance, hypertext has the ability to be self-reflective, and even interactive with itself to an extent. Different readers, and different viewers will take advantage of hypertext’s self-reflexive qualities in a different manner. A various range of multimedia platforms also have the ability to be self-reflexive, it just depends on the ability of the user and the manner in which they are utilized; this can include blogging and even social media.

With regards to genre, the aim with metatextual and metapictorial elements is to compartmentalize “the problem of […] self-reference from the polemics of modern and postmodern aesthetics, the battles to determine what is “authentic” or “good” or “powerful” in twentieth-century art, and resituate the issue in a rather different context,” (Mitchell 36). What is meant by this approach is that within genre, context is a significant factor when determining, with a postmodern scope, whether or not a given work has self-reflexive qualities in the first place. Certain factors must be embodied by a given work in order to be considered metatextual or metapictorial. These can be formal or ambiguous qualities, and most of the time determining what exactly these qualities are tends to be quite a subjective process, and it can vary from person to person, or reader to reader. The way that this is done is through the clarification by juxtaposition of “an account of pictorial self-reference that starts outside the institutions of art and cuts across the debates about modernism,” (Mitchell 37). Furthermore the “sublime” is brought into question in regards to metatextuality and metapictorial images because of the after effects that a text or a work of art may have caused, due to the “dangers of self-reflective art,” (Mitchell 41). The lens through which the postmodernist world views genre in relation to context and substrate is very skewed. It is multifaceted, and it differs greatly with each individual and their own experiences with text and art. To an extent, Mitchell describes this sort of approach as a “parody of modernist” views, (Mitchell 43).

Moreover, I wanted to also discuss the formal qualities which a meta-scope have given those of us in a postmodern society. “[Metapictures] in the strict or formal sense, a picture about itself, a picture that refers to its own making, yet one that dissolves the boundary between inside and outside, first- and second-order representation, on which the metapictorial structure depends,” (Mitchell 42). Clearly the explanation here is that metapictures acknowledge themselves as existing. Metatext has the ability to do this as well. On the other end of that spectrum, dialectical images and how their “primary function is to illustrate the co-existence of contrary or simply different readings in the single image, a phenomenon sometimes called “multistability,”” (Mitchell 45). When dealing with multistable images, the meta-scope becomes even more differentiated because “most multistable images are not metapictures in the formally explicit way,” (Mitchell 48). Again, these dialectical images and text in some cases are subject to change when given a specific genre, context, and substrate. With regards to the metapicture specifically, within our postmodernist readings we have come to look at a “metapicture [as] a piece of moveable cultural apparatus, one which may serve a marginal role as illustrative device or central role as a kind of summary image,” (Mitchell 49). The viewer in this case, forms their own accord of the situation, again all relating back to the subjective viewing individuals can have. The reasoning for the “observer’s dialogue with the metapicture—do not occur in some disembodied realm outside of history but are embedded in specific discourses, disciples, and regimes of knowledge,” (Mitchell 48). First and foremost, the aim of anything metatextual or metapictorial is as follows: “the principle use […] is, obviously, to explain what pictures [or a text] are—to stage, as it were, the “self-knowledge” of pictures,” (Mitchell 51). These pictures have “a “life” of their own, talking and looking back at us,” and the same goes for a work of written text, (Mitchell 57).

To enumerate, due to the hybrid nature of metatext and metapictures, these concepts have become very interchangeable given their particular presence within a certain context, genre, or substrate; “metapictures [and metatext] are notoriously migratory, moving from popular culture to science, philosophy or art history, shifting from marginal positions as illustrations or ornaments to centrality and canonicity,” (Mitchell 57). The ultimate interpretation and agency of a metatextual or metapictorial work is therefore subjective to the individual who is viewing or reading it.