Border Writing: The Multidimensional Text (Theory and History of Literature)

In it she explains how holography creates an image from more than one direction: "A holographic image is created when light from a laser beam is split into two beam and reflected off an object. The interaction between the two resulting pattern of light is called an interference pattern,' which can be recorded on a holographic plate." By analogy, the border metaphor produces an interaction between the connotative matrices of more than one culture. The holographic "real," then, is always understood to be a translation rather than a representation. It actively undermines any hierarchical original/alien distinction, resisting domination by the "monocultural or nonholographic" real and giving the reader the opportunity, instead, to "practice multidimensional perception and nonsynchronous memory. " In her discussion of Cienaos de soledad, for example, Hicks reflects on the collective amnesia about objects and their uses that afflicts the residents of Macondo after the arrival of the gypsies (with their ice) and the banana company.

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