The Text is Not Enough: Visibility in Asian diasporic Digital Narratives

Abstract

Using W.J.T. Mitchell’s (1994) Picture Theory, this paper explores the use of the visual image in electronic literature. It examines three recent works that combine multiple media elements. The first, The Boat (2015) is an interactive graphic novel by Vietnamese-Australian visual artist Matt Huynh. It is adapted from the short story The Boat (2008) by Vietnamese-Australian author Nam Le. By comparing the digital adaptation with the source text, I explore contemporary notions of ekphrasis in digital literature. Secondly, I explore Leise Hook’s The Vine and the Fish (2020), an interactive graphic narrative. Here, I examine not only the interplay between text and image, but also how the piece uses visibility as its central concept (i.e. with the images of the titular vine and fish). Finally, I examine Reeducated: Inside Xinjiang’s secret detention camps (2021), an ‘animated, ambisonic 360 V.R. film that reconstructs the experience of detention and political reëducation in Xinjiang, China, guided by the recollections of three men who were caught in what is likely the largest mass-internment drive of ethnic and religious minorities since the Second World War’ (Huynh, 2022). The work is directed by Sam Wolson and contains illustrations by Matt Huynh. In discussing ekphrasis, American English and media theorist W.J.T. Mitchell (1994) describes three phases: ekphrastic indifference, ekphrastic hope, and ekphrastic despair. The first, ekphrastic indifference, stems from the ‘commonsense perception that ekphrasis is impossible’, that words can ‘cite’ but never ‘sight’ (152). In Reeducated, I am using a very liberal definition of text as image and image as text. In either case, the concept of Reeducated as a work of electronic literature is somewhat controversial, and is used to properly define what we talk about when we talk about visibility in electronic literature.

Le, N. (2008) The Boat, Sydney: Penguin.

Hook, L. (2020) The Vine and the Fish. Accessed at https://culture.org/the-vine-and-the-fish/

Huynh, M. (2015) The Boat, SBS. Accessed at https://www.sbs.com.au/theboat/

Huynh, M. (2022) https://www.matthuynh.com

Mitchell, W.J.T. (1994) Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Wolson, S. (2021) ‘Reeducated: Inside Xinjiang’s secret detention camps’, The New Yorker. Accessed at https://www.newyorker.com/news/video-dept/reeducated-film-xinjiang-prisoners-china-virtual-reality