23.7.20 Uncanny valley
uncanny valley
[ uhn-kan-ee val-ee ]
noun
Sigmund Freud's essay The Uncanny (1919) however repositioned the idea as the instance when something can be familiar and yet alien at the same time. He suggested that ‘unheimlich’ was specifically in opposition to ‘heimlich’, which can mean homely and familiar but also secret and concealed or private. ‘Unheimlich’ therefore was not just unknown, but also, he argued, bringing out something that was hidden or repressed. He called it 'that class of frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.'
Artists, including some associated with the surrealist movement drew on this description and made artworks that combined familiar things in unexpected ways to create uncanny feelings.
Now, the term 'uncanny valley' is also applied to artworks and animation or video games that that reproduce places and people so closely that they create a similar eerie feeling.’ (Tate, no date)
“The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.” (Tucker, 2013)
Dictionary.com (no date) Uncanny valley Available at: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/uncanny-valley(Accessed: 23 July 2020)
Tate (no date) Uncanny Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/t/uncanny (Accessed: 23 July 2020)
Tucker (2013) The uncanny valley Available at: https://artblot.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/the-uncanny-valley/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,of%20revulsion%20among%20human%20observers.%E2%80%9D (Accessed: 23 July 2020)
uncanny valley
[ uhn-kan-ee val-ee ]
noun
- a psychological concept that describes the feelings of unease or revulsion that people tend to have toward artificial representations of human beings, as robots or computer animations, that closely imitate many but not all the features and behaviors of actual human beings.
- the dip in positive feelings toward such artificial representations.
Sigmund Freud's essay The Uncanny (1919) however repositioned the idea as the instance when something can be familiar and yet alien at the same time. He suggested that ‘unheimlich’ was specifically in opposition to ‘heimlich’, which can mean homely and familiar but also secret and concealed or private. ‘Unheimlich’ therefore was not just unknown, but also, he argued, bringing out something that was hidden or repressed. He called it 'that class of frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar.'
Artists, including some associated with the surrealist movement drew on this description and made artworks that combined familiar things in unexpected ways to create uncanny feelings.
Now, the term 'uncanny valley' is also applied to artworks and animation or video games that that reproduce places and people so closely that they create a similar eerie feeling.’ (Tate, no date)
“The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of human aesthetics which holds that when human features look and move almost, but not exactly, like natural human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.” (Tucker, 2013)
Dictionary.com (no date) Uncanny valley Available at: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/uncanny-valley(Accessed: 23 July 2020)
Tate (no date) Uncanny Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/t/uncanny (Accessed: 23 July 2020)
Tucker (2013) The uncanny valley Available at: https://artblot.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/the-uncanny-valley/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20uncanny%20valley%20is%20a,of%20revulsion%20among%20human%20observers.%E2%80%9D (Accessed: 23 July 2020)
