Heteromediality

Abstract

In the first part of this essay1 I will offer a very short description of what has been identified as interart studies and intermediality studies. After this I will propose, by way of Lars Elleström’s model, a new multimodal definition of medium. This, in turn, will lead me to my attempt to rethink the field of intermediality studies by way of a new concept, heteromediality. In the second part of my essay I will describe two future possibilities for intermediality studies: either the field may try to establish itself as an academic discipline by strengthening its formalistic foundations, or, on the other hand, a field of investigation based on a more critical and ideological discourse can be imagined. I shall argue in favour of the second possibility. First, a few pragmatic definitions: when talking about ‘text’ I refer to the semiotic idea of ‘complex signs or sign combinations’;2 ‘art’ refers to the conventionally defined forms of music, painting, literature, architecture and so on. I use ‘ideology’ as a term expressing a relatively coherent value system, though not necessarily organized in a political system (consequently it does not refer to the Marxist idea of ideology as merely ‘false conceptions’). ‘Intermedial’ or ‘intermediality’ refers to objects and phenomena whereas ‘intermediality studies’ refers to the activity of investigating intermedial phenomena. The concept of medium, as mentioned above, I shall try to define below.