The Popular Uncanny

I recently came across The Blog of the Damned — a group weblog that has compiled some interesting instances of “forteana 2.0 and the uncanny internet.”
One entry in particular really jumped out at me: The Browser as Scrying Tool — that is, the literalization of the metaphor that “the Internet is haunted, [...]

Obviously, no one believes bread can talk. But Schwebel’s ‘taliano — “The Bread with the Foreign Accent” — would like us to believe its Italian bread has an identity so Italian that it can speak to us. 
I used this example in my recent lecture at the Alpha Science Fiction & Fantasy Workshop for [...]

A little known fact (to me, anyway…and it may not be a fact at all) about signs of the horns (aka “Devil’s Horns” aka “the Goat” aka “Satan Fingers”):
Though not necessarily the first to ever use [horned hand gestures] in a “rock” setting, [heavy metal singer Ronnie James] Dio was without question the one who [...]

On Sarah Langan’s “Why I Write Horror” (The Humanities Review, Spring 2008)
All genres have their intended effects. In mysteries, readers are asked to analyze. They solve puzzles. In science fiction, they imagine new, and occasionally better, worlds. But in horror, readers are asked to feel. That is why, when they put the book on the [...]

In his essay on “The Uncanny,” Sigmund Freud writes:
…an uncanny effect is often and easily produced when the distinction between imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality, or when a symbol takes over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes, and [...]

Parody is a good barometer for popularity.  The humor magazine, Cracked, sends up The 7 Creepiest Real-Life Robots.  Robert Brockway’s bawdy, Rated-R write ups include hilarious (yet astutely observed) rationales for “why it’s so, so creepy,” like this one for the “Actroid” robot pictured above:
The Actroid is fairly tame on the creepy scale … just [...]

Improv Everywhere has performed a fun uncanny experiment called “Human Mirror”: in it, a long line of identical twins sit in opposite seats in a subway car to catch commuters off guard.
Here is the video from their site (if you don’t see it, it’s also available on youtube):

The trick is fascinating, and provides a sly subtextual [...]

Today I stumbled onto Oobject — a weird multiuser “curations collection” that exhibits photos that members spot online, organized by offbeat themes.  One of the most uncanny exhibits of them all is a collection of “medical manikins”. The above shot by Tomer Ganihar (a shot taken as part of a series he did in an Israeli hospital [...]

Wade Marynowsky’s weblog, Autonomous Mutations, highlights current uncanny art projects and other manifestations of das Unheimliche and is full of fantastic and unique examples of the aesthetic (like Karakuri ningyo), links to Machine art, and also references to uncanny theory.
I say he features the “aesthetic” of the uncanny because his blog is an offshoot of his [...]

In addition to sharing his published research online on his website, Karl F. MacDorman has a series of youtube videos from his presentation on the the “uncanny valley” in android science, given at the 2007 NMC Summer Conference , hosted by the Indiana University School of Informatics (June 6, 2007).  Below is part VII of the lecture.  Mind [...]

On Vanneman, Alan. “Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone.” Bright Lights Film Journal 42 (Nov 2003).
In the “Dead or Alive?” section of his photo essay, “Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone,” mystery writer/film critic Alan Vanneman gives us a veritable slide show lecture that reveals [...]

 
Meet Julio — the singing robot.
“Voice of Julio” is an art project by David Byrne (Mr. Big Suit from the rock band, Talking Heads) and David Hanson (creator of “conversational character robots”) currently on exhibit at the “Machines and Souls” exhibition in Madrid (ends mid-Oct 2008).  Julio is made of electrons and rubber, but sings with Byrne’s [...]

Uncanny Media is “An International Conference on the Gothic Shadows of Mediation” being held next month on Aug 7-9, 2008 in Utrecht, Netherlands. With keynote speakers like Fred Botting (author of Gothic) and guest authors like Patrick McGrath (author of Trauma and The Grotesque), in addition to numerous academic panels, performances, and various gothic lifestyle [...]

On: “Looking For The Quintessential Scary Moment: Hughes’ Tiger, The Uncanny Valley and the Eye of Yamamura Sadako” by Adrian Bott (aka “Cavalorn”). 03/28/2004
The very first concrete thing I wanted to do with this weblog is call attention to one of my favorite weblogs — Stephanie Gray’s wonderful doctoral research project, “Exploring the Uncanny Valley”. [...]

This blog will someday end, whether by choice, by ennui, by hacker attacks, or by the author’s demise.
In anticipation of its death, I begin with this first post.  A post of the living dead.
And the zombie hoard is only rising:
“Dead Blogs” (Times Daily, June 2007)
“Millions of Dead Blogs Won’t Stop Blogging” (Bloggers Blog, June 2007)
 Emphemerality [...]