Blog Post Four

Daniel Anderson’s video, “I’m a Map, I’m a Green Tree”, brings up the question of what is a text and what is not.  He suggests metaphor as one way for creating meaning, and thus a text to convey that meaning.  A metaphor has a vehicle, which is compared to the tenor, the literal object being described.  Any metaphor can have meaning, and any thing with intentionally created meaning is a text.  But does a text need to be created by an author, or can it be the accidental creation of nature or technology?  In order for a metaphor to have meaning, it must have a vehicle and a tenor, but the connection of those elements need not be conceived in the mind of the author.  If a juxtaposition is accidentally or unintentionally created, the concept of metaphor might well be created in the mind of the author, and this juxtaposition, no matter how it is created, has meaning.

It is therefore my argument that any set of objects or media which contain meaning are a text, even if these objects or media are not intentionally arranged to have meaning.  Anderson’s example is of a picture of a leaf online.  Natural processes resulted in the revelation of veins, which resemble a network or digital tree structure for storing information.  This potential comparison became more relevant when an internet user took a picture of the leaf and posted it to flickr, likely without any intentions of its being viewed as a statement about the internet.  Thus this is a perfect example of meaning being accidentally created, and of an object and its environment becoming a text whether or not that was the intent.