Alain Robbe-Grillet's texts-dialogues: “generating image” of narration

The article describes the issue of constructing a media-hybrid narrative based on both verbal and visual media. In the 20th century, in contrast to the classical principle of illustration, artists and writers create texts-dialogues, i.e. a special artistic form in which the visual and verbal components would co-exist on an equal basis. This interaction of media in experimental narratives can be defined by the concept of the “generating image” (Mourier-Casile & Moncond’huy), according to which the verbal text does not speak directly about the visual image by which it was generated, but operates from a distance, creating a complex network of semantic relationships between the media. The article describes the concept of the “generating image” based on Alain Robbe-Grillet’s texts-dialogues, or collaborations - part of his novel “Topologie d’une cite fantome” (1976). The narrative of the novel, integrating the artist’s books (livres d’artiste) created by Robbe-Grillet in collaboration with artists Paul Delvaux and Robert Rauschenberg and photographer David Hamilton, is constructed with the direct involvement of a visual medium. This type of relationship between text and image can be treated within the framework of transmedial narratology exploring the principles of maintaining narrative properties in different media. At the same time, transmedial research practically does not consider the aspects of the text generation created by the collision between media. Applying methodological and analytical tools of transmedial narratology and the analysis of drafts and manuscripts, the author formulates the basic principles of the initiation of narration based on the visual image.