Exploring the uncanny: 1

Unit 3 explores creating a digital set comprised of Maya and Photoshop that gives of a sense of the uncanny or unheimlich. The uncanny is a unique topic as it's neither a style nor genre per se, it more of a sense of the human psyche. It is not however a horror depiction or something scary even though sometimes it could seem like that; it is when we see something we are familiar with and it lacks normality, the suggestion that something is wrong.

David Hilliard explores our subconscious fear for mirrors in this picture, Tepid. Uncanny plays on our deepest fears of abnormality.

 Joe Collier - Deserted buildings which normally should be bustling with activity but are barren are a favourite of Colliers' as he chooses them for his projects for their unusual look.

  Joe Collier

  Joe Collier - Here we 'know' we are in a room but the door up high out of reach isn't something we're used to and makes up feel trapped.

  Joe Collier - Another uncanny effect that works on our psyche is when objects related to children or children themselves are put within an environment that has been destroyed or ruined.

 Again the use of mirrors to change the mood of an otherwise normal scene is used in the photograph by Melanie Pullen.

Melanie Pullen - An everyday staircase that one would be familiar with, ends at the bottom with a very unfamiliar site. Death and ruin are not normally part of our lives so when we see it within a scene it instantly makes it unheimlich.