Semester 3 Paper 2
Frances Muldoon
October 1, 2014
Adv. Lynne Cooke
The Visual Effects of
The Uncanny in Art
The
word uncanny has many different facets and explanations. It remains however, Sigmund
Freud’s 1919 essay The Uncanny that
stands out as one of the first and the most notable essays concerning the
subject. It is this, which I will use as
foundation for this essay. Freud’s The
Uncanny focuses mainly on determining what may be considered uncanny.[1] Representing
real life scenarios of the uncanny as well as examples in fiction – most notably
the example of E.T.A Hoffman’s The Sand
Man.[2]
Freud goes on to argue that the true uncanny is more easily come upon in fiction
than in reality, a fact that makes the uncanny in fiction less relevant or potent.
Fairytales, to Freud’s mind cannot be considered uncanny despite the fact that
if similar situations arose in the realm of reality they would undoubtedly be
considered as such. Further more Freud’s essay is vastly lacking in the discussion
of the visual – a fact Freud openly admits. It is my intent therefore to expand
on this previous essay and discover whether, based on Freud’s definition; the
Uncanny can be present in visual arts.
First it is important to outline
what to Freud’s mind may be considered uncanny. Once this has been established
the roll of the uncanny in modern art may be more easily determined. In The New Uncanny Freud’s eight tropes of
the uncanny are simply put (Eyre Introduction). “Inanimate objects mistaken as animate[3],
animate beings behaving as if inanimate or mechanical[4],
being blinded[5],
the double[6],
coincidence or repetitions[7],
being buried alive[8], some
all-controlling evil genius and lastly confusion between reality and
imagination[9]” (Eyre Introduction).
The
uncanny has been and remains a popular topic of discussion and exploration. [10]
Ultimately – how is the uncanny portrayed in the visual
arts, and which tropes are most widely or deeply involved with the visual arts,
assuming that these tropes for literature hold true for the visual?
The Surrealists’ interest in the uncanny is well documented
and quite clear, considering their attention to the subconscious and their many
attempts to access it through games of chance, extreme juxtapositions and
automatic writing and drawing ("surrealism"). Many more contemporary artists
and galleries have delved into the realm of the Uncanny as well. For the sake of brevity I will focus on three
artists who employ and embody Freud’s tropes of the uncanny; Mike Kelly, Robert
Gober and Loretta Lux.
Mike Kelly’s 2004 Tate Liverpool exhibition entitled The Uncanny is an obvious and direct
link to Freud’s essay. This show was an
updated version of a previously curated show almost a decade earlier (Mike Kelley: The Uncanny | Tate). In The Uncanny,
Kelly explores memory, recollection, horror and anxiety through the
juxtaposition of a highly personal collection of objects with realist
figurative sculpture” (Mike
Kelley: The Uncanny | Tate). Kelly’s main allusion to Freud’s work can be
seen in his interest in the animate and inanimate. By the inclusion of “a substantial number of polychrome figurative
sculptures that embody the feeling of the uncanny through their scale and use
of color, form and material” Kelly is able to bring forward the idea of the
human figure somewhere in between reality and imagination, animate and
inanimate. Kelly’s show also included “non art objects . . . including . . .
wax figures, animatronic puppets and mounted (stuffed) animals” (Mike Kelley: The Uncanny | Tate). All elements lead
back to Freud’s thoughts on the uncanny and elements of dolls or the inanimate
becoming animate.
Sculpture Robert Gober also walks the line between the
human and non-human. His severed, human like appendages of feet, pelvises,
torsos and ears are meticulously crafted. Often Gober’s pieces contain evidence of real
humans in his uses of human hair attached to waxy flesh like figurations. These
human-like body
parts are
often combined with inanimate objects, such as walls and most often and
perhaps
most famously sinks. [11]
Untitled
1999-2000
Plaster, beeswax,
human hair, cotton, leather, aluminum pull tabs, enamel paint
50
3/4 x 47 x 26 1/4 inches; 129 x 119.5 x 67 cm
Gober’s work delves into the uncanny when the waxwork-severed
limbs, representative of that which is animate (but in fact inanimate), are combined
with every day objects, which are explicitly inanimate.[12] While one may imagine an inanimate doll, toy
or waxwork coming to life (presumably for its life like appearance or
references to the human body), it is a stretch to imagine the same of a sink,
door or candle.[13]
Dorothea
2001 Lux
German born artist Luretta Lux enters the world of
the uncanny on different terms than Kelly or Gober. A painter turned photographer, Lux creates
haunting “imaginary portraits” (Rijlaarsdam) of children. For Lux, her focus is not about the children
themselves but rather the metaphor of a childhood lost and innocence (Rijlaarsdam). The children are never smiling in the world
of Lux, but often look off into the distance as if seeing something just beyond
the viewers’ reach. The pale color pallet and disassociation between child
subject and background all work to create a startling and unnerving effect.
This juxtaposition, so important to surrealists, gives the images an unsettling
quality, but none of this justifies Lux’s work as uncanny. Rather it is the
doll-like quality of the children that, to my mind. allow this work to be categorized
in the realm of the uncanny. It is that as a viewer I am unsure what I am truly
looking at. Am I viewing a child or a
doll or some horrific hybrid? We see here
once again the confusion between the animate and inanimate. The static nature
of the images leads the viewer to see the children as dolls where the
incredible detail and arresting expressions turn the viewers’ mind to
children—but of what world? [14]
Throughout this essay I am only able to scratch the surface
of the uncanny in the visual arts. I have chosen only three artists who, to my
interpretation, represent specific aspects of what Freud considers uncanny.
Each of the artists discussed in some way allude to the confusion between that
which is animate and that which is inanimate.
Mike Kelly and Robert Gober do so quite obviously through the use of
sculpture and human based materials while Loretta Lux belonging to this same
camp, does so through her painterly photographs and intensely detailed digital based
alterations. This is only the very surface of a broad and fruitful topic.
Bibliography
Eyre, Sarah, and Ra Page. "Introduction."
The New Uncanny. Manchester, England:
Comma, 2008. N. pag.
Kindle file.
Freud, Sigmund, David McLintock, and Hugh Haughton.
The Uncanny. New York:
Penguin, 2003. Kindle
file.
Gholson, Craig. "Bomb." BOMB
Magazine — Robert Gober by Craig Gholson. BOMB
Artists
in Conversation, Fall 1989. Web. 26 Sept. 2014.
Gober, Robert. Untitled.
1999-2000. Matthew Marks Gallery, New York. Matthew Marks
Gallery. Web. 20 Sept. 2014.
Hoffmann, E. T. A. The Sand Man. Whitefish,
MT: Kessinger, 2004. Kindle file.
Jones, Ann. "Tales of the
Uncanny." IMAGE OBJECT TEXT. N.p., 27 Apr. 2012. Web.
20
Sept. 2014.
"Loretta Lux." Vimeo.
N.p., 2014. Web. 26 Sept. 2014. <http://vimeo.com/38856344>.
Lux, Loretta. Dorothea. 2001. LorettaLux.
Web. 21 Sept. 2014.
"Mike Kelley: The Uncanny | Tate." Mike
Kelley: The Uncanny | Tate. Tate, 2004. Web.
26 Sept. 2014.
Rijlaarsdam, Jochem. "Interview: Loretta
Lux." GUP. GUP Magazine, 2011. Web. 26
Sept. 2014.
"surrealism." Online Etymology
Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 29 Sep. 2014.
[1] Freud’s essay The Uncanny sets two possible paths to explore the uncanny; first
to “find out what meaning has come to be attached to the word “uncanny” in the
course of history” and secondly to “collect all those properties of persons,
things sensations, experiences and situations which arouse in us the feeling of
uncanniness and then infer the unknown nature of the uncanny from what they all
have in common.” (Freud)
[2] A story in which the reader
is left wondering weather the narrator is in fact mad or his judgments to be
trusted. (Hoffmann)
[5] An idea, which Freud
associates with the castration complex (Freud).
[7] Especially the
unplanned/unknowing return over and over to the same place or location for no
apparent reason, (Freud).
[8] Which Freud feels is a
secret or forbidden desire to return to the safety of the mothers’ womb
(Freud).
[10] In The New Uncanny fourteen authors were sent copies of Freud’s The Uncanny and asked create new stories
in response to the famous essay, in order to find “which archetypes still rang
true and which, if any paled” (Eyre Introduction). It turns out the most popular topics
were “dolls/automata, sleepwalking/epilepsy, blindness and doubles.” However
there were no stories concerning the confusion “between imagination and reality
or of being buried alive” (Eyre Introduction). As there are only fourteen authors
included in this book the uncanny tropes, which stand the test of time
concerning fictive writing are not definitive.
[11] In a 1989 interview Gober discusses his
repetitive use of sinks in his work. Craig Gholson: Do you get images from your dreams? Robert
Gober: I wish it were that simple. Once in a while;
yes and no. With the sink, only after I was making it as a series did I realize
that I had had, years before, a recurring dream about finding a room within my
home that I didn’t know existed. That room was full of sinks, but it was very
different—there was sunlight pouring in the room, and there was water running
in all the sinks. They were functional. So it was an image that I had a
recurring dream about, but it’s not like I woke up and I said, “Gee, that would
make an interesting sculpture.” It’s after-the-fact. You look back and you see
all these different influences: dreams, people you’ve known, things you’ve
read. (Gholson)
[12] In the use and reuse of the
Gober’s sinks one could make the argument that they begin to embody the idea of
the doppelganger or even the ideas of unintentional coincidence or repetition.
[13] Gober discusses the meaning
behind his choice in inanimate everyday objects that he uses. “For the most
part, the objects that I choose are almost all emblems of transition; they’re
objects that you complete with your body, and they’re objects that, in one way
or another, transform you. Like the sink, from dirty to clean; the beds, from
conscious to unconscious; rational thought to dreaming; the doors transform you
in the sense that you were speaking of, moving from one space through another”
(Gholson). In other words the human, or that which is animate
completes the inanimate.
[14] In addition Lux’s work also include a piece entitled The Walk, 2004 in which two children appear together presumably
siblings or possibly twins which leads to Freud’s idea of the double,
doppelgangers and twins. (Jones)
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