Hypertext and Metapictures; stuff within stuff

   While reading Mitchell’s theory of metapicture I saw many similarities in Landow’s theory of hypertext. Although one involves text and the other is about picture many of the concepts discussed in both Mitchell’s Metapicture and Landow’s Hypertext and Critical theory seem to have the same basis behind each of these theories function. Both theories are about text within text, and pictures about pictures. This was very hard to grasp at first, but after reading the two text and connecting those similarities, it helped me better grasp the concept of how each function.

   Hypertext, is and text that can lead you to another text. It “is a fundamentally a intertextual system” (Landow 35) Most people tend to lean towards online articles, where it is extremely easy to move from page to page, connecting different reading through simple phrases, statements, questions, etc; that are able to lead you to the next page. I feel thought that it is more interesting when it hyper text is on a physical page in a book. An example of this could be James Joyce’s story Ulysses. Where Joyce, in a section of his story, mentions other text. This draws the reader to read another text. Where in that text might lead him to another text. Landow also discuss, Deleuze and Guattori’s theory of rhizomes as hypertext. This was definitely the hardest part of the theory to understand. According to Deleuze and Guattori, “Rhizomes connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even non sign states.” (Deleuze and Guattori 40) These rhizomes are made of plateaus. A person can start reading one plateau that links to another plateau and the reader should be able to start anywhere on the second plateau, and be able to understand what is being talked about. Which leads me to another part of Landow’d theory. The center of the text can be forever changing, one could call it decentering. “Hypertext, provides an infinitely recenterable system whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader.” (Landow 36) “As reader move through the text they continually shift the center - and hence the focus or organizing principle - of the investigation and experience. 

   The theory of decentering was where I really drew a connection to Mitchell’s theory of metapicture. Which is a theory of “pictures about pictures”. (Mitchell 36) “Its aim is not to derive a model for pictorial self-reference from art or language, but to see of pictures provide their own metalanguage.” (Mitchell 38) so the connection that I drew from these two theories in relation to metapictures, is that a picture can lead us to think differently about picture. In other words I may have my own theory of what the picture stands for or represents, and someone else can have a completely different opinion of how the picture functions. The central theory of the picture is always changing from person to person, which when put through discourse, will help further uncover a new theory of how the picture functions. “metapictures are pictures that show themselves in order to know themselves: they stage the self knowledge of other pictures.” (Mitchell 48) They are basically images within images or as mitchell liked to call it “nesting” (Mitchell 48).