Uncanny

For other uses, see Uncanny (disambiguation).
Repliee Q2 is a lifelike robot developed at Osaka University, often named as an example of the uncanny valley due to its similarity to humans, even replicating functions like blinking, breathing and speaking.

The uncanny is the psychological experience of an event or thing that is unsettling in a way that feels oddly familiar, rather than simply mysterious.[1] This phenomenon is used to describe incidents where a familiar entity is encountered in a frightening, eerie, or taboo context.[2][3]

Ernst Jentsch set out the concept of the uncanny, later elaborated on by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay "Das Unheimliche", which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks.[4] For Freud, the uncanny is located in the strangeness of the ordinary.[3] Expanding on the idea, psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real.[5] The concept has since been taken up by a variety of thinkers and theorists like roboticist Masahiro Mori's uncanny valley[6] and Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection.[7]

  1. ^ Royle, p. 1.
  2. ^ Royle, p. vii.
  3. ^ a b D. Bate, Photography and Surrealism (2004) pp. 39–40.
  4. ^ Freud, Sigmund (1919). "Das Unheimliche". Archived from the original on July 14, 2011.
  5. ^ Lacan, Jacques (2005). O Seminário, livro 10: A Angústia. Jorge Zahar Editor.
  6. ^ Mori, M. (2012). "The Uncanny Valley". IEEE Robotics and Automation. 19 (2). Translated by MacDorman, K. F.; Kageki, Norri: 98–100. doi:10.1109/MRA.2012.2192811.
  7. ^ Kristeva, Julia (2018-07-31). ""Approaching Abjection," from Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection". Classic Readings on Monster Theory: 91–100. doi:10.1017/9781942401209.008. ISBN 9781942401209.