First Lesson

For the first lesson we were introduced to the module and what it entails. We were then asked to look in to the Uncanny and write up a 300 word proposal  involving certain elements such as fire, smoke, an entity emerging from a body, blood and something strange in a mirror.

We were advised to do some research in to the 'Uncanny' specifically looking at Sigmund frauds work.

We were given an article on Sigmunds Frauds (1) understanding on the word, even though I only roughly read through the article (I will go in to much more detail at a later date), there was one part that stood out to me and made sense;
Sigmund Fraud quotes E. Jentsch who also tried to find the meaning of un-canny-

 “In telling a story, one of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure in the story is a human being or an automaton; and to do it in such a way that his attention is not directly focused upon his uncertainty, so that he may not be urged to go into the matter and clear it up immediately, since that, as we have said, would quickly dissipate the peculiar emotional effect of the thing."

'The Sandman' by E.T.A Hoffman (2) is a tale about a boy, Nathaniel, who fears 'The Sandman'. The sand man is a 'Wicked man who comes when children won't go to bed, and throws handfuls of sand in their eyes so that they jump out of their heads and bleed.' This fear of 'The Sandman' stays with him his entire life, sending him mad and eventually to suicide. Freud brings upon the uncanny of childhood anxieties which we carry in to adult life. A great example would be the fear of Clowns due to a high percentage of the population having Clourphobia. Another example would be the fear of spiders, this is played on quite a lot in films. In my opinion, a major anxiety in childhood is porcelain dolls, the way they stare at everything but nothing, their features are very life like making the inanimate becoming the animate.

'Hypothesised emotional response of human subjects is plotted against anthropomorphism of a robot. The uncanny valley is the region of negative emotional response towards robots that seem 'almost human'. Movement amplifies the emotional response.' (3)

Very quickly I wrote a small paragraph on my understanding of the 'Uncanny'.

'A feeling of unease, unsure about whether something is real or not. It's something that isn't right to the human right that instinctively, we may be afraid of coming alive. A form shimmering, shadows moving freely, Human forms coming out of walls, dead coming back to life. It's something that shouldn't happen in reality.' - Masahiro Mori

References

(1) FREUD, S (1919) Sigmund Freud the Un-canny., Penguin UK, Imago
(2) HOFFMAN, E.T.A (1816) The Sandman., Edward Rios
(3) MORI, M (1970) The Un-canny Valley., [online]  -  www.androidscience.com/theuncannyvalley/proceedings2005/uncannyvalley.html (accessed 23rd April 2013)