Citational Aesthetics: For Intermediality as Interrelation

In this chapter the concept of intermediality is brought in contact with a specific branch of that approach, namely, quotation. In line with a concept of inter-temporality called “pre-posterous history,” quotation is a specific way of integrating older and newer media products and their connections to different media. The chapter develops a variety of forms of quotation through a close look at cases from recent media history. These quoting media products present theoretical issues as they are implied in the representational practice of the past yet can only be perceived through the detour of the present, which transforms both these theoretical issues and the preceding works that are quoted. The insistence on the preposition “inter” implies a focus on relationality, rather than the border-crossing that “trans-” signifies. Meaning-making appeals to semiotic, a theory of signs and sign-use not bound to any specific medium. The integration of theory and the practice of analysis of concrete cases is also an element of the chapter’s lesson: intermediality’s teachability.