Picture About a Picture & Hypertext: Mitchell vs. Landow

Both Landow's essay on hypertext and Mitchell's essay about metapictures discuss the importance of images and their effect on the reader. For Landow, one fundamental characteristic of hypertext is how it is composed of bodies of linked texts that have no primary axis of organization, in other words it essentially has no center. I can't take all of the credit for this idea, but after reading another classmates blog post they asked the question: how is one able to find the center? Before finding out the answer to this I think it's essential to note how Landow's idea of hypertext in some some ways relates to that of Mitchell's idea of metapictures. 

In his essay Mitchell discusses the idea of "a picture about a picture." Seems a bit confusing at first, but he explains it further by explaining "that pictures might be capable of reflections on themselves.. of providing a second-order discourse" (38). Landow states that for one to truly understand a certain text we must look at everything that surrounds it. We have to understand the text that is about or references the previous text. When it comes to the image, however, it can be looked at just the same. 

"As readers move through a web or network of texts, they continually shift the center... of their investigation and experience" (36). In Mitchell's essay he gives examples by using the image of "The Duck-Rabbit" and My Wife and my Mother-in-Law." Both of these images are left to interpretation of the viewer. Mitchell explains that a main part of meta-pictures is to know how to explain the image. When it comes down to the explanation however, it goes to his idea of self-reflexivity. Does the explanation of the image differ with everyones own interpretation of it? 

I believe with Mitchell's explanation of self-reflexivity, the answer to that question is yes. No matter what the viewer sees when looking at either of those images, the reasoning for it purely comes from self-reflexivity. Which leads us back to decentering; "all hypertext systems permit the individual reader to choose his or her own center of investigation and experience" (38).