The Uncanny Valley: Expanded and Uncut! Notes on Mori’s Groundbreaking Essay
I like to think I’m good at keeping up with research on the Uncanny, but somehow I missed an important event this June: IEEE Spectrum published the first complete English translation of Masahiro Mori’s highly influential article on “The Uncanny Valley” (originally published in what they call “an obscure Japanese journal called Energy in
Thing Addams, Photographer
I was very excited to stumble on this TV commercial from 1985 for the Nikon One Touch instant camera. Their slogan? “It puts great photography at everybody’s fingertips.” Their mascot? A dismembered hand, of course! Thing (sometimes spelled “Thingg”) — the ambulatory hand that lives in a box and serves as a literal “handyman” to
Late Night with Wax Figures in the Men’s Room
There was a particularly uncanny moment last night on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien. Wait for it: The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien – Wax Figures, Redux Creepy Wax Tom Cruise Stalks Wax Fonzie In The Bathroom from D-Train on Vimeo. The wax/flesh boundaries are blurred in unexpected ways in that video that leave
The Addams Family Returns…Online
A public service announcement: The Addams Family is now streaming for FREE on YouTube, from MGM. A pastiche of horror fiction iconography — and also an indictment of the 50′s nuclear family, the conventions of the sitcom, and all things domestic — this show is perhaps one of the most interesting and clear-cut manifestations of
The Uncyclopedia
I love dismembered hand jokes as much as anyone else, but this creepy image grabbed my attention as the featured image of the day on Uncyclopedia – a mock Wikipedia wiki that I stumbled upon when searching the web for material on the surrealist, Rene Magritte. At first I didn’t even realize I was ON
Smoking Stunts and Growths
Wow! This image from the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation’s (UK) anti-second hand smoke campaign stunned me for a moment, with its visual echo of my recent post about the website, Photoshop Disasters. (Via the excellent advertising watchblog, AdGoodness). In that original post, I wrote: “We always already understand that advertising is manipulative and fake, and yet when the flaw appears,
05/15/2013 at 8:15 pm 
05/11/2013 at 6:32 pm 
