Introduction: Archipelagic Intermediality

Abstract

This introduction to a special forum on intermediality in Southeast Asia starts with an overview of prominent theories about interchanges between different media modalities. While the majority of these ideas conceive of intermediality as a seamless hybridization or convergence, the essay explores how such an understanding might be complicated by the Southeast Asian milieu, which is archipelagic and multicultural. It inquires if the indeterminate form of a mandala, whose conjunction is contingent and provisional, might be a more suitable framework for visualizing diverse and horizontal networks of intercommunication and interconnectivity.