Ekphrasis of the default mode: Simulating past, future and fictional worlds

Abstract

Perspectives on ekphrasis theory are advancing cognitive approaches. Despite this, the science of the brain’s default mode network rarely emerges in cognitive literary studies or ekphrasis discussion. When left unfocused, the brain in its default mode tends to ruminate on the past, speculate about the future, daydream about unlikely events and analyse the meaning of what others might say or think. The memory-imagination system, also referred to as “mental time travel”, helps us construct simulations of past, future and/or fictional events. This essay proposes an understanding of ekphrasis which engages activities of mental time travel and simulation to help render experience in the minds of readers/writers. This paper does not venture into the neuroscience debate, but rather, it explores the brain’s default mode in the contexts of ekphrasis criticism and cognitive literary studies. I refer to Jessica Au’s novella Cold Enough for Snow (2022) to illustrate examples of ekphrasis writing which – through the depiction of art, objects and images (imagined or real) – engages the systems of mental time travel and simulation to interpret complexities of the world and help render perceptual experiences in the narrative imagining.