The Secret Language of Desire

The Secret Language of Desire (2015) is an electronic literature app exploring the narrative and touchscreen affordances of digital tablets. Merging 27 ultra-short chapters with interactive animations and sound, The Secret Language of Desire traces a woman’s journey from everyday life into a landscape of sensuality and desire. Every chapter of The Secret Language of Desire contains elements to enrich the narrative – objects can be touched, triggering animations and sound, or images can be rubbed off, revealing hidden contents.

The Secret Language of Desire differs from Heyward’s early works by emphasising textual content over image, sound and interactivity, reworking the balance of multimedia elements into an electronic literature form that is predominantly textually-driven. The project was supported by funding of $15,000 in 2014 from the Australian Government through the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.The work includes mature content and themes. It was produced for iPads and was available in the AppStore from 2015 to 2018.

The Secret Language of Desire was written and developed by Megan Heyward using Adobe InDesign DPS (Digital Publishing System) and Adobe Animate. It features original sound design by Michael Finucan and original music by Australian saxophonist Martin Kay.