This webtext is a collaboratively created manifesto on the value and complexity of transmodal composition. When we use the term transmodality, we are referring to translating the primary modes of expression in a text into new and different modes while maintaining the essential meaning of the original text.
Our understanding of this process and its significance is reflected not just in the content of this document, but also in its form. We have chosen to demonstrate transmodal composition within this manifesto by creating three variant forms: an alphabetic statement, an audio discussion, and a video trailer. Not only do each of these works employ different modes and media, they also engage different genres and rhetorical strategies. Our alphabetic statement is structurally modeled after the Riot Grrrl Manifesto published in the feminist punk zine Bikini Kill Zine #2 (Hanna & Vail, 1991). The audio piece was designed as a podcast-style discussion and is somewhat informal and conversational. Finally, our video emulates the movie trailer genre and uses humor to convey the same key points made in our other texts.
The content of these works, and of this hypertext manifesto as a whole, are primarily our own thoughts and feelings about transmodality as it exists and should exist, but our ideas and terminology have been informed by a number of sources that we provide on our resource page. This list may serve as both a demonstration of the works our ideas are grounded in and a place to begin further reading and exploration for others interested in transmodality.
