What is the relation?

When reading Metapictures by W. J. T. Mitchell, I could not help but be reminded of hypertext and rhizome. These three ideas relate to the reader itself when comprehending a text.


When reading Landow, we were able to understand hypertext as a series of works or texts that can take you down a number of experimental paths. When reading and comprehending hypertext, the reader is able to determine their own path and make their own decisions to read the text, thus ending with a different work for every reader. This is what makes hypertext so interesting, is that it can be read a number of ways. One reader can read one page and direct themselves to the next page, while another reader could read the same page and direct themselves elsewhere, and they both come up with completely different stories in the end.

When reading Delouse and Guattari, we were able to understand hypertext as a rhizome. Rhizome is understood to mean, in this context, a mass of roots that continuously branch out and expand without any real central point. This characteristic of a rhizome is very much like a hypertext, although I could argue that hypertext does have a central point because it has to start somewhere. Both of these ideas create paths to the reader to take of their own way and to interpret themselves.

For me, it is easy to see that hypertexts and rhizome can be understood as original thought. With both of these ideas you are able to make your own decisions and create your own path, resulting in different stories and knowledge. While these ideas are more direct in exactly how they are meant to be read, meaning we all understand as readers that we create our own knowledge, then why can't every story be considered in this way? With any book, the reader reads and retains the story and is able to interpret every detail to their own understanding. Although there are not necessarily "different paths" one can take to create alternate endings, we still create these within our own minds, even if it solely based off of what a character is imagined to look like in one's head. This idea brings us to the understanding of metapicture. A metapicture is "strictly and formally a drawing that is 'about itself.'"We can take this to mean that basically we see something as the whole picture. Metapicture is the idea that we are calling attention to ourselves and are aware that we as the reader are a part of the picture as well.

Metapicture can be related back to hypertext and rhizome as a branch of them both. Metapicture shows us how to take a step back from the reading and examine it as ourselves, while in hypertext and rhizome we are doing this simultaneously.