A Story of Interfaces - 1990-2023
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- 1 Image et Communication published only one issue, but with the expanded interest in the project by (...)
1In Image et Communication, Cahier du Centre de Recherches du Department d’Anglais de la faculté des langues,1990, No 11, the predecessor and “ur” publication to what would become Interfaces: Image, Texte, Language, the editors lay out their driving impulse for creating an advanced research center. They hoped to attract and embrace DEA students (those preparing for a doctorate) and unify a faculty which had diverse research interests--one could even say different research identities (e.g. translation, Anglophone literature, civilization and linguistic, literary theory, history of ideas, etc.). This diversity was not to be reconciled in a general manner. Rather, it rested upon their common acknowledgement of a specific fact: we cannot think without creating concrete images, “imaginer.” The five contributions to this slim, single issue demonstrate both a diversity of interests (theory, linguistics, media advertisement, film, graphic illustration in novels) and a unity of focus: on the specific function of images in text and language.
- 2 See the list at the end of this article.
2Specifically, the contents of Image et Communication included focus on the narrative function of the illustrations in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair; an analysis of the evocative power of linguistic signs; a discussion of graphic images and verbal text relationships in a commercial advertisement; and an exposition of the narrative conventions common to film heroes. I list the contents of this volume to stress the journal’s founding variety of interests--the journal’s embrace of various research methodologies and its consistent attention to word and image. This variety of features has been maintained in the present volumes. The common denominator that holds them together is the timeless relationship of language and image.2 While that sole issue of Image et Communication remains, for those of us involved, as only a nostalgic reminder of an adventure well begun, it did set a pattern for Interfaces.
3Like its “ur” predecessor, therefore, the mission and embracing interests of Interfaces are evident, from the onset, in the variety of its articles. For example, Interfaces, Volume 1 includes essays on the function of words integrated in the visual images of Hogarth; descriptions / ekphrasis in the novels of Radcliffe and Smith; a survey of images, myths and narrative in Anglophone literature which memorialize its history and culture; illustrators and illustrations of Dickens novels; 18th century medicine and the graphic images of Hogarth; and representations of Grasmere landscapes by painters and poets.
- 3 It is useful to recall that computer screens, and certainly not i-phones, were not ubiquitous even (...)
4Why the title Interfaces? The “Avant-Propos” of Volume 1 of the new journal addresses this question. It was intended to explore the interface of language/literature/image. Furthermore, the exploration would be other than and more than the traditional comparative approach of the “sister arts.” The advent of film and television3 in which images moved and spoke raised questions about the complexion of their functions and relationships. The moving and speaking image also invited a reconsideration of what had always been areas of attention: the poetic image, prose description, mental representations and enunciation in language, metaphor, scenery, text in theater, and book illustration.
- 4 See e.g., the transformation of the Egyptian hieroglyphic image of the bull’s head into the Phoeni (...)
5The syntactic order of journal’s subtitle, Image, Texte, Language, at once differentiates these elements, mediates their distinction, and informs their relationship. A graphic image creates and communicates in its own language, albeit a language felt and understood verbally. Verbal language, even when not particularly descriptive, manifests itself graphically in the mind’s eye, and indeed the very mark which we recognize as a letter is a graphic image4. The choice of fonts as well as the design of the page are visual choices and silently convey a cultural milieu and its word and image nexus. For example, change the Times New Roman font of these pages to Lucida Blackletter [or any gothic black letter] or Herculanum, or even less drastically to American Typewriter and see the difference these choices make in one’s response to the text. Both graphic and verbal texts convey explicit and implicit referents (le dit et le non dit). The material text’s context, or medium, is central in informing the nature of the image/language relationship. The journal’s full title, Interfaces: Image, Texte, Language, manifests these complex plural relationships, as well as the bilingual and diverse characters of the Francophone and Anglophone cultures. Hence the plural title.
6From its inception, Interfaces organized its volumes around an overarching and coherent theme. Its articles are never a miscellaneous gathering on “image, texte, language,” but center more narrowly on a common topic. The journal’s multidisciplinary embrace of subjects and methodologies has been sustained throughout its history. The binding denominator is the timeless relationship of language and image. The variety as well as the commonality of these topics is evident in the announced focus of each issue.
7It is neither appropriate nor possible here to summarize and review each of the 50 Volumes of Interfaces, the accumulation of thirty-two years of work. A sample of volume titles will convey the consistency of its mission and the variety of its individual issues. First, the variety of approaches to “word and image” maintained the promise of its founding volumes. As noted by Michel Baridon, Interfaces’ founder and first editor, word and image research is aligned along several axes and categories: e.g., from language to the image (e.g. film adaptation, book illustration, as well as paintings and bas-reliefs depicting historical, biblical, or mythological narratives); from image to language (e.g. the discourse of art and media historians or the driving force of the image in literary works); within linguistics (e.g. the porosity of language to image); and within epistemology, especially as concerns the function of images in the creation of concepts. While these categories are usually present in every issue, at the same time, a specific ‘topic’ or theme, announced in the issues’ title, organizes each volume (see Appendix). Over time, some topics needed to be revisited or considered from a different perspective.
8Allow me to highlight a few Interfaces volumes. In line with the journal’s mission, many volumes specifically explore and re-examine word and image theory: Vol.3, 1993, Literature et cognition, Vers une epistémolocritique? Vol.5, 1994, La Théorisation de la relation Image/Texte/ langage; Vol.8, 1995, Mélanges Henri Dieuzeide: Transculturalité, Multimedia, Didactique; Vol.32, 2011, Texte et image: la Théorie au 21ieme Siècle / Word and Image: Theory in the 21st Century. Other volumes could be added to this list. Similarly, a number of volumes focus on “adaptations or appropriations”: Vol.34, 2013, Expanding Adaptations; Vol.35, 2014, Re-Reading and Re-Viewing of Sacred/Archetypal Narratives in Literature and the Arts; Vol.37, 2016-17; Appropriation et réappropriation des récits / Appropriation and Reappropriation of Narratives; Vol.38, 2017, Crossing Borders: Appropriations and Collaborations; Vol.47, 2022, Borders in/of Adaptations / L’adaptation à ses frontière : Frontière de l’adaptation; Vol.48, 2022, Confluences between Film and other Media / Confluences cinéma et autres médias. Yet others are concerned with the paradox of sensation: Vol.9, 1996, La couleur parle; Vol.11/12,1997, Ecriture et paysage; Vol.33, 2012, Definitions of Color/ Definitions de la Couleur; Vol.36, 2015, Synesthesie / Synaesthesia. These sets are illustrative, even as they leave out special issues addressing book illustrations, garden and landscape, illness, and so on.
9In the introduction to Volume 45, 2021, Jeux de formats / Playing with Format, the editors reflect on format as vehicle and message:
la double nature du format comme contrainte et moteur de la création. Les notions de dimension, d’échelle, de proportion et de durée sont connexes à celles de format, terme qui se situe entre la forme et la norme, se rapproche de la matrice et peut tendre dangereusement vers le formatage (Sophie Aymes, Candice Lemaire, Valérie Morisson).
10The editors of Interfaces have been very conscious of the journal’s presentation. Over its 33 years of publication and in its present 50th volume, Interfaces has undergone significant changes in format and has even introduced innovations. We should count the metamorphosis of Image et Communication, Cahier du Centre de Recherches du Department d’Anglais de la faculté des langues, 1990, No 1, into Interfaces: Image, Texte, Language, 1991, No 1 as the first and perhaps most important change. The cahier had a new title and new face. It had taken on the format of a serious academic journal. The format of Image et Communication, its page and font designs, were those of the typewriter, its mustard cover that of a notebook. It marked itself an “in house” departmental publication. Interfaces presented a new format and identity. In the very quality of the paper on which Interfaces was printed, in the design of the page and in the choice printing font, as well as in its multicolored and illustrated cover, the journal cast itself as professional and declared its authority to an international academic community. The illustrated cover, and even the two-colored font shading of its title, visually referenced the word and image nexus.
11Founded and first edited by Michel Baridon, Volumes 1 (1991) through 20 (2002) had the format size of a typical academic journal (14 ½ x 20 centimeters; 5 ¾ x 8 inches). The shape and size of the journal changed with Volumes 21/22, 2003, Architecture Against Death / Architecture contre la Mort. when a square shape (19 ½ x 19 ½ centimeters; 7 ¾ x 7 ¾ inches) was adopted. This change of format was intended to distinguish Interfaces from conventional language-only oriented academic journals, and reframe the shape of the journal to affirm its equal focus on graphics. It aimed to have more impact as both a word and image text. Marshall Mcluhan’s phrase, “the medium is the message,” is often cited but rarely attended to. All communication vehicles have their advantages, and all have their limitations. The various modifications to the format of Interfaces have proven McLuhan’s maxim.
- 5 N.B. Interfaces. Image-Texte-Langage-Perse does not record the images on the CDs of Volumes 21 thr (...)
12At a time when reproducing quality-colored images was expensive and thus limited the number of illustrations each article could carry, these volumes also introduced an attached CD which allowed contributors as many full color illustrations as their discussion warranted, as well as opportunity to include videos and film sequences. However, these advantages of the CD had unforeseen constraints: a) readers had to scan the CD on screen as they read the printed word, alternating between two texts; b) word and image were separate texts, unwittingly undercutting the journal’s raison d’être; c) the attached CD could, when separated, be lost; d) by 2012 technology progressed and CDs, like the floppy disks before them, could no longer be read by desktop or laptop computers. Special equipment was needed to read CDs.5 In 2018 the journal was circulated electronically on PREO. It then migrated to Open Edition Journals in 2020. Volumes 1-35 can now be perused on Persée: Interfaces, Image-Texte-Langage-Perse (https://www.persee.fr/collection/inter): and Volumes 36-50 on Open Edition: Interfaces- Image Texte Langage (Interfaces - OpenEdition). As long as these websites are maintained (caveat noted!), the availability of Interfaces online, both current and past issues, allows the journal to reach a far larger readership than did the printed issues. That offers a significant material advantage for disseminating the journal: in costs and in addressing the habits of current readers and researchers. On the other hand, if online researchers and readers tend to target “key words” in search of articles particularly relevant to their interest, do those readers peruse, not to say read, a whole volume? Does discreet, targeted reading, circumscribe inquiry? For these reasons, efforts are being made to keep printing a limited number of ‘hard’ copies. Like wandering through library stacks, one sometimes lights upon overlooked connections.
13Volumes 21/22 also included an original signed and numbered artwork: this feature was maintained through volumes 38. Some of these contributing artists are internationally known: e.g. Arakawa and Madeleine Gins, Volumes 21/22; Michael Phillips’ facsimiles of William Blake, Volume 30. Others have a national reputation: e.g. Canadian photographer Dara Gellman, Volume 29; Scot surrealist Calvin Colvin, Volume 27; US painter and lithographer, James Stroud; English painter Pete Clark, Volume 37; French painter, Gabrielle Thierry, Volume 36. Most contributing artists, talented as they are, have a local reputation: e.g. from North Carolina, Allison Sidder, Volume 33; from Massachusetts, Sharon Matys, Volumes 31, 35; from Paris, France, Fanny Pochon, Volume 28 and Claudio Cambon, Volume 38.
14While Interfaces had from the beginning published illustrative images discussed in its verbal text, the addition of original lithographs, photographs, etchings, Zen tangle, digital art, and giclées affirmed and re-enforced the tripartite focus of the journal’s subtitle—image and language as texts. The solicited original art work has a specific relevance to and is integral to the volume at hand. To cite only one example, the architectural drawings, giclées, Arakawa and Gins provided for Volumes 21-22, Architecture Against Death / Architecture contre la Mort, are not the familiar line drawing and blueprint. Their word and image drawings for the Biocleave House / Gallmann Residence built in East Hampton, Long Island, New York (on the covers), and the giclée for their “Museum of Living Bodies,” (signed and numbered) are disruptive, and re-order and re-orient one’s sense of personal living and community spaces. These giclées concretely articulate the agenda of Architecture Against Death. Arakawa (painter and student of Marcel Duchamp) and Gins (poet and philosopher) ask for a reconsideration of the humanistic paradigm which centers upon ‘man’. They call on us to rethink the fundamental assumptions of what it means to be human in a world in which humanity is de-centered. It is a post-modern parable to disrupt complacency—self-satisfaction is intellectual and moral death. Electronic publication does not allow the publication and distribution of artworks on paper, but it can accommodate original videos, digital art, documentaries, film clips, live interviews, as well as sound and music. Again, different formats constrain as well as can be a driving force for creation.
- 6 See “Index des auteurs” https://www.persee.fr/collection/inter. Interfaces always encouraged the p (...)
15Interfaces quickly earned critical recognition. Rigorously assessed by CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) for the importance of its innovations and the excellence of its research contributions, the journal first displayed the CNRS imprimatur on its cover in 1995. CNRS has reevaluated Interfaces every five years, and the journal has retained its approval. The Open Edition of Interfaces has successfully competed for and earned grants to help sustain its electronic publication. In 2010 Interfaces also earned the CELJ’s (Council of Editors of learned Journals) Parnassus Award for “Significant Editorial Achievement.” A subdivision of The Modern Langue Association (MLA), CELJ’s recognition parallels that of the CNRS, and affirmed the journal’s critical stature on both sides of the Atlantic. A short glance of the Index of contributors to Interfaces6 reveals the journal as a major international platform.
16Thirty-three years and fifty volumes is already a long run for an academic journal. Every indication shows that, thanks to the continuous vitality of successive editors and the quality of the research it publishes, the story of Interfaces is just beginning. If we have always thought and imagined with images, we are today more than ever bombarded with their manifestations. We need to research their effects as language and on language, on our perceptions and our knowledge. Interfaces has much yet to explore. We wish it well.
A List of Interfaces Issues
- Vol.1, 1991, “Pourquoi Interfaces?” / “Why Interfaces”?
- Vol.2, 1992, Samuel Beckett: Intertextualités et Psychanalyse.
- Vol.3, 1993, Epistémologie
- Vol.4, 1993, Connaissance et création au siècle des Lumières.
- Vol.5, 1994, Théorisation de la relation Image/Langage.
- Vol.6, 1994, Médias: entre fiction et réalité / The Media: Between Fiction and Reality.
- Vol.7, 1995, Peinture.
- Vol.8, 1995, Mélanges Henri Dieuzeide: Transculturalité, Multimedia, Didactique.
- Vol.9, 1996, La couleur parle, volume 1.
- Vol.10, 1996, La couleur parle, volume 2.
- Vol.11/12,1997, Ecriture et paysage.
- Vol.13, 1998, Les Avant-gardes: Littérature; Musique.
- Vol.14, 1998, Les Avant-gardes: Peinture; Architecture; Médias, Cinéma.
- Vol.15, 1999, Le Livre, l’image, le texte, volume 1.
- Vol.16, 1999, Le Livre, l’image, le texte, volume 2.
- Vol.17, 2000, Images de soi dans la littérature et les arts visuels / Self-representation in Literature and the Arts, volume 1.
- Vol.18, 2000, Images de soi dans la littérature et les arts visuels / Self-representation in Literature and the Arts, volume 2.
- Vol.19, 2001, The Representation of Time in Literature and the Arts / La Représentation du temps dans la Littérature et dans les Arts, volume 1.
- Vol.20, 2002, The Representation of Time in Literature and the Arts / La Représentation du temps dans la Littérature et dans les Arts, volume 2.
- Vol.21/22, 2003, Architecture Against Death / Architecture contre la Mort.
- Vol.23, 2004, Imagining Ireland’s Dead / La Mort en Irlande, Le Corps imaginé.
- Vol.24, 2004 Texte et architecture / Text and Architecture.
- Vol.25, 2005-6 Envisioning / Envisager Shakespeare.
- Vol.26, 2006-7 Maladie : Représentations dans la littérature et dans les Arts Visuels / Representation of Illness in Literature and the Arts.
- Vol.27, 2007 Ossian: Then and Now.
- Vol.28, 2008 Representing Intimacy / La Représentation de l’intimité.
- Vol.29, 2009 Artists’ Words And Writers’ Images / Les mots de l’artiste /Les images de l’écrivain.
- Vol.30, 2010 Blake Intempestif / Unruly Blake.
- Vol.31, 2011 Images of Fear / Les images de la peur.
- Vol.32, 2011 Texte et image: la Théorie au 21ieme Siècle / Word and Image: Theory in the 21st Century.
- Vol.33, 2012 Definitions of Color/ Definitions de la Couleur.
- Vol.34, 2013 Expanding Adaptations.
- Vol.35, 2014 Re-Reading and Re-Viewing of Sacred/Archetypal Narratives in Literature and the Arts.
- Vol.36, 2015 Synesthésie / Synaesthesia.
- Vol.37, 2016-17 Appropriation et réappropriation des récits / Appropriation and Reappropriation of Narratives.
- Vol.38, 2017 Crossing Borders: Appropriations and Collaborations.
- Vol.39, 2018 Gestures and Their Traces.
- Vol.40, 2018 Gestures and Transmission.
- Vol.41, 2019 Images / Memories.
- Vol.42, 2019 Creative Paths / Les sentiers de la création.
- Vol.43, 2020 Création-Destruction / Creation-Destruction
- Vol.44, 2020 Les manières de faire vernaculaires /Vernacular Ways.
- Vol.45, 2021(1) Jeux de formats / Playing with Format.
- Vol.46, 2021(2) Jeux de formats / Playing with Format.
- Vol.47, 2022 Borders in/of Adaptations / L’adaptation à ses frontières : Frontière de l’adaptation.
- Vol.48, 2022 Confluences between Film and other Media / Confluences cinéma et autres médias.
- Vol.49, 2023 Ruines contemporaines / Contemporary ruins.
Notes
1 Image et Communication published only one issue, but with the expanded interest in the project by scholars throughout France as well as in the UK and US, it was succeeded by Interfaces.
2 See the list at the end of this article.
3 It is useful to recall that computer screens, and certainly not i-phones, were not ubiquitous even in the late 1980s.
4 See e.g., the transformation of the Egyptian hieroglyphic image of the bull’s head into the Phoenician geometric abstract lines, then to the Greek reorientation and reduction of the Phoenician character. Finally, the Romans almost return to the Phoenician model and upend its direction, resulting in the Latin letters A, and a. (https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/1037798/view/history-of-the-letter-a-illustration). Letters (characters) are graphic markings whose designs change over time; different font designs communicate and provoke different responses.
5 N.B. Interfaces. Image-Texte-Langage-Perse does not record the images on the CDs of Volumes 21 through 38.
6 See “Index des auteurs” https://www.persee.fr/collection/inter. Interfaces always encouraged the participation of young researchers everywhere. At the same time, the journal has, from the beginning, attracted internationally known scholars from the world’s major institutions.
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Maurice A. Geracht, « A Story of Interfaces - 1990-2023 », Interfaces [En ligne], 50 | 2023, mis en ligne le 31 décembre 2023, consulté le 23 mars 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/7786 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/interfaces.7786
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