26. 8 20 The uncanny valley, Freud and death
Is it ultimately a fear of death what motivates me to make copies of myself, in sculpture?
‘Freud hypothesized that (the uncanny valley) comes down to DEATH. Humans…have a primitive urge to avoid death, to be immortal, and we attempt to achieve this feat by creating copies of ourselves. Freud quotes Otto Rank, saying that “this ‘doubling’ behavior is ‘an energetic denial of the power of death’ and suggests the idea of the immortal soul was the first double of the body.”3 In modern times, we are aware that immortality does not really work that way, but we can’t quite suppress our primitive need to strive for it. Freud concludes when a human attempts to create such a double, the copy “reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.”3
In a 2005 study, Karl F. MacDorman tests the hypothesis that “an uncanny robot elicits an innate fear of death and culturally-supported defenses for coping with death’s inevitability.” He cites the Terror Management Theory, which describes how humans consciously and unconsciously deal with death.
1. Conscious thoughts are either suppressed or rationalized.
2. The unconscious mind tends to steer thoughts away from the anxiety of death by supporting that individual’s self-esteem and world view.
“…our ancestors developed a solution to the problem of death in the form of a dual-component cultural anxiety buffer consisting of (a) a cultural world-view — a humanly constructed symbolic conception of reality that imbues life with order, permanence, and stability; a set of standards through which individuals can attain a sense of personal value; and come hope of either literally or symbolically transcending death for those who live up to those standards of value; and (b) living up to the standards of value inherent in one’s cultural worldview.
MacDorman’s study revealed that participants who looked at images of uncanny-looking androids tended to have reactions similar to those outlined by the Terror Management Theory: “On average the group exposed to an image of an uncanny robot consistently preferred information sources that supported their worldview relative to the control group.”
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)
Is it ultimately a fear of death what motivates me to make copies of myself, in sculpture?
‘Freud hypothesized that (the uncanny valley) comes down to DEATH. Humans…have a primitive urge to avoid death, to be immortal, and we attempt to achieve this feat by creating copies of ourselves. Freud quotes Otto Rank, saying that “this ‘doubling’ behavior is ‘an energetic denial of the power of death’ and suggests the idea of the immortal soul was the first double of the body.”3 In modern times, we are aware that immortality does not really work that way, but we can’t quite suppress our primitive need to strive for it. Freud concludes when a human attempts to create such a double, the copy “reverses its aspect. From having been an assurance of immortality, it becomes the uncanny harbinger of death.”3
In a 2005 study, Karl F. MacDorman tests the hypothesis that “an uncanny robot elicits an innate fear of death and culturally-supported defenses for coping with death’s inevitability.” He cites the Terror Management Theory, which describes how humans consciously and unconsciously deal with death.
1. Conscious thoughts are either suppressed or rationalized.
2. The unconscious mind tends to steer thoughts away from the anxiety of death by supporting that individual’s self-esteem and world view.
“…our ancestors developed a solution to the problem of death in the form of a dual-component cultural anxiety buffer consisting of (a) a cultural world-view — a humanly constructed symbolic conception of reality that imbues life with order, permanence, and stability; a set of standards through which individuals can attain a sense of personal value; and come hope of either literally or symbolically transcending death for those who live up to those standards of value; and (b) living up to the standards of value inherent in one’s cultural worldview.
MacDorman’s study revealed that participants who looked at images of uncanny-looking androids tended to have reactions similar to those outlined by the Terror Management Theory: “On average the group exposed to an image of an uncanny robot consistently preferred information sources that supported their worldview relative to the control group.”
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)