“The concept of the uncanny was introduced by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche, in which Freud explores the eerieness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. Expanding on Freud’s 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,”
From the second I saw that cat-in-a-hat in the Museum of Childhood I knew it would never leave me, at least for a while. Its uncanniness is almost overpowering, having a lasting presence. Its expression is so animated that I can expect it to make a sound. The fact that it is so eerily silent and unmoving, unlike its original setup (which includes the sound of a music box, and the springing up when the time is right), makes me imagine its inner dialogue, blurring with mine. Placed in “wealthy families’ homes to amuse guests” (museum label), I can hardly imagine this automaton being entertaining and not downright terrifying to anyone.
I knew that an image like this, a PRESENCE like this, something that was so impactful from one brief glance, needed to be digested and processed and thought over until I get something workable as a hopefully painted outcome. That began my long process of doodling, collaging, painting freehand, before collaging again with my own photo in the end (I went over the process briefly with some more images in a separate post) and eventually deciding to replace my own head with. Why did I replace my head with its head? Well, a few months before, when that picture of me was first taken, I played around with morphing/covering parts of the image so that my face is concealed. The result is a dark eerie presence that seemed to be looking back at you even though you couldn’t see its face. Something inhumane was created, something almost demon-like. I feel that it represented the human in a much more truthful way. What I want to do with my work is to show a perspective that is truthful from my eyes, and that was what it was. Not only that, I also feel like the overwhelming volume of suffering and burden is oozing out of that darkness, as if someone allowed a lens in which you look through to see what pain we are all hiding underneath.
I didn’t end up doing anything further with those quick edits. It was truthful and eerie, sure, but it did not call out to me in a way that is urgent enough to be pinned down in paint. When I met the ‘cheeky’ cat (that is how the label described it) however, and played around with taking it out of its hat context and onto the base of my neck, I knew, this was exactly what it was missing. The uncanny impact! It was wonderful. There is a reason why I have always been so intrigued by animal heads on human bodies, which is quite common imagery. On the same day I went to the Museum of Childhood, I also went to the deeply disturbing Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities (which made me feel sick to my gut, even physically nauseous, but I loved it so much, even though it disgusted me in levels I could not comprehend, it had everything that I find terrifying, especially in taxidermy) where I was within reach of multiple (taxidermy) animal heads connected to human figures dressed in suits. I cannot possibly describe the overwhelming fear I have for taxidermy, the intensity of that fear could engulf me whole. You could say that is my biggest (physical/material) fear. But to see the animal head/human body in person.. it made me want to end my life, every time I think about it I physically freeze up and my throat closes. I’ve always thought the worst case scenario to give me the greatest amount of fear is to toss me into the darkest depths of the ocean with live large marine animals (my other great fear) and dead taxidermy ones surrounding me. I would go insane thinking about how these SILENT alive and dead creatures are watching me, watching me, floating, unmoving, just like me, watching them, watching them, unmoving, sinking.
That lack of movement or sound, of the thing in question, is also the cause of my lack of movement or sound, frozen in fear. Comically, we are caught in a silent game. One in which only I am terrified to my core. So why did I combine the two? put their head as mine? Is it to show some strength, that I can conquer IT, to the point where I can be IT? Is it to show that I became IT because IT was so overpowering that it engulfed me and now we have become a disturbing entity? Is it to show that actually, I have been IT all along? or that IT has been a central part of me this whole time? Am I IT?
Is IT me? Is my fear a reflection of who I am?
I have had many nightmares where silent things (cursed dolls, human-like spirit creatures, long limbed flesh-toned monsters) follow me, come into my dream-view, shadow me even when I am awake. I have had many sleep paralysis experiences where I am trapped in my body in movement and sound while the darkest of shadows create demons out of themselves and crawl over me while I screech in silence. This reminds me of that well-known short story and later turned video game ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’… there is something SO immensely terrifying about the imagery of not having the means to make noise but hearing that noise anyway. This also reminds me of the last scene of the recent horror film Hereditary which I find the most frightening, when everyone in the treehouse was beheaded but were all alive and TALKING and CHANTING like normal. I have never shaken off that scene and I never will. You can say I have been traumatized, every time I think about it, I cannot sleep.
Being frozen in fear, to me, seems to relate to the idea of taxidermy, being trapped in your own body, not from sleep paralysis, but a prolonged life-death. Having a shell of a body that you cannot move, waiting to be released from all this built up frustration and fear and anger and sadness. Though the cat-in-the-hat was not real taxidermy, somehow that makes it even more terrifying - it was man-made. Something human created something so inhumane, to Amuse other humans. I wonder how many laughs they got out of it, how many breaths it took every time it sprung from its hat. To have that at the front of your home…a warm welcome indeed.
The elongated tongue is definitely its most frightening point, where the eyes are drawn to. It is an immediate indication that what you are perceiving is something rogue, something wild, something dangerous. An example of an elongated tongue for a frightening effect is a scene in the 1984 British gothic fantasy horror film ‘The Company of Wolves’…I was definitely horrified when the man turned around and the tongue was rolled out all the way. The elongation of the physical body, such as the limbs, is a common trait applied in horror…an obvious example being the video game slenderman. From my favorite horror game, Alice: Madness Returns, a lot of the well-known characters have been adapted to have longer body parts for the same chilling effect, it’s fantastic.
As for the original picture itself, it was a one taken of me when we went to Norwich for the Ken Kiff show (which was very inspiring as well). I was walking up the spiraling staircase, halfway in the air, when I looked back at olive. There is something otherworldly about the buildings behind me as well, I don’t know if it is the muted colours or, the cloudy weather, the atmosphere seemed rich with promise. Perhaps there is the sense of travel/exploration hinted in the image, which is also something I ponder about regularly. Another note from Bill Viola’s book (p.149):
“…My travels have taught me that there is always just one “right place” where an idea can come to life; that the single effort in making a video piece is finding this “right place;” that video is sensitive to far more than what the camera sees and what the microphone hears; that what we call culture and the human spirit can be viewed as the collective expression and interpretation of the overwhelming power of the landscape.
…They find their unification in what for me is the original place of the landscape in art and culture: the natural raw material of the human psyche.
I do not distinguish between inner and outer landscapes, between the environment as the physical world out there (the “hard” stuff) and the mental image of that environment within each and every individual (the “soft” stuff) It is the tension, the transition, the exchange, and the resonance between these two modalities that energize and define our reality. The key agent in this exchange of energies is the image, and this “space between” is precisely the place in which my work operates,”
The in-between… I often feel that is where my work sits… between the real and unreal…fact and fiction… fantasy and reality. I used to focus on the contrast between the cute and horrific, the beauty and violence, but as I am progressing as a painter I hope that I am doing so in more subtle ways. Sometimes you don’t want to shock your viewer into your perspective, but to suggest it, like a whisper heard from seemingly, no sources. Did you imagine it all? maybe, probably, certainly.
I had a little brainstorm with the title..
[are you amused? entertained?
amusement, park, made to laugh/entertain, ___ in amusement
found article: ’what these abandoned amusement parks looked like before they became ruins..’ Abandoned Amusement
are you amused? abandoned? alive?
who’s laughing now / (hold on to your) last laugh
To amuse, to abandon / to amuse and to abandon
amuse me, how amusing]
but I think I am going to go with ‘are you amused?’ referencing to its original purpose ‘to amuse guests in wealthy families’ homes’. I am also someone who likes rhetorical questions a lot because you are not only provoking the possibility of an answer but multiple ones, it is ambiguous. The questioning from the cheeky cat also relates back to the idea of the silent, uncanny Thing having an imagined voice, or the fact that it is questioning something when it has no means to speak. There is a slight suggestion that the cat head itself is disconnected from the body, like the beheading/speaking notion I mentioned. I hope the viewer is able to feel its uncanniness to some extent.
From the second I saw that cat-in-a-hat in the Museum of Childhood I knew it would never leave me, at least for a while. Its uncanniness is almost overpowering, having a lasting presence. Its expression is so animated that I can expect it to make a sound. The fact that it is so eerily silent and unmoving, unlike its original setup (which includes the sound of a music box, and the springing up when the time is right), makes me imagine its inner dialogue, blurring with mine. Placed in “wealthy families’ homes to amuse guests” (museum label), I can hardly imagine this automaton being entertaining and not downright terrifying to anyone.
I knew that an image like this, a PRESENCE like this, something that was so impactful from one brief glance, needed to be digested and processed and thought over until I get something workable as a hopefully painted outcome. That began my long process of doodling, collaging, painting freehand, before collaging again with my own photo in the end (I went over the process briefly with some more images in a separate post) and eventually deciding to replace my own head with. Why did I replace my head with its head? Well, a few months before, when that picture of me was first taken, I played around with morphing/covering parts of the image so that my face is concealed. The result is a dark eerie presence that seemed to be looking back at you even though you couldn’t see its face. Something inhumane was created, something almost demon-like. I feel that it represented the human in a much more truthful way. What I want to do with my work is to show a perspective that is truthful from my eyes, and that was what it was. Not only that, I also feel like the overwhelming volume of suffering and burden is oozing out of that darkness, as if someone allowed a lens in which you look through to see what pain we are all hiding underneath.
I didn’t end up doing anything further with those quick edits. It was truthful and eerie, sure, but it did not call out to me in a way that is urgent enough to be pinned down in paint. When I met the ‘cheeky’ cat (that is how the label described it) however, and played around with taking it out of its hat context and onto the base of my neck, I knew, this was exactly what it was missing. The uncanny impact! It was wonderful. There is a reason why I have always been so intrigued by animal heads on human bodies, which is quite common imagery. On the same day I went to the Museum of Childhood, I also went to the deeply disturbing Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities (which made me feel sick to my gut, even physically nauseous, but I loved it so much, even though it disgusted me in levels I could not comprehend, it had everything that I find terrifying, especially in taxidermy) where I was within reach of multiple (taxidermy) animal heads connected to human figures dressed in suits. I cannot possibly describe the overwhelming fear I have for taxidermy, the intensity of that fear could engulf me whole. You could say that is my biggest (physical/material) fear. But to see the animal head/human body in person.. it made me want to end my life, every time I think about it I physically freeze up and my throat closes. I’ve always thought the worst case scenario to give me the greatest amount of fear is to toss me into the darkest depths of the ocean with live large marine animals (my other great fear) and dead taxidermy ones surrounding me. I would go insane thinking about how these SILENT alive and dead creatures are watching me, watching me, floating, unmoving, just like me, watching them, watching them, unmoving, sinking.
That lack of movement or sound, of the thing in question, is also the cause of my lack of movement or sound, frozen in fear. Comically, we are caught in a silent game. One in which only I am terrified to my core. So why did I combine the two? put their head as mine? Is it to show some strength, that I can conquer IT, to the point where I can be IT? Is it to show that I became IT because IT was so overpowering that it engulfed me and now we have become a disturbing entity? Is it to show that actually, I have been IT all along? or that IT has been a central part of me this whole time? Am I IT?
Is IT me? Is my fear a reflection of who I am?
I have had many nightmares where silent things (cursed dolls, human-like spirit creatures, long limbed flesh-toned monsters) follow me, come into my dream-view, shadow me even when I am awake. I have had many sleep paralysis experiences where I am trapped in my body in movement and sound while the darkest of shadows create demons out of themselves and crawl over me while I screech in silence. This reminds me of that well-known short story and later turned video game ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’… there is something SO immensely terrifying about the imagery of not having the means to make noise but hearing that noise anyway. This also reminds me of the last scene of the recent horror film Hereditary which I find the most frightening, when everyone in the treehouse was beheaded but were all alive and TALKING and CHANTING like normal. I have never shaken off that scene and I never will. You can say I have been traumatized, every time I think about it, I cannot sleep.
Being frozen in fear, to me, seems to relate to the idea of taxidermy, being trapped in your own body, not from sleep paralysis, but a prolonged life-death. Having a shell of a body that you cannot move, waiting to be released from all this built up frustration and fear and anger and sadness. Though the cat-in-the-hat was not real taxidermy, somehow that makes it even more terrifying - it was man-made. Something human created something so inhumane, to Amuse other humans. I wonder how many laughs they got out of it, how many breaths it took every time it sprung from its hat. To have that at the front of your home…a warm welcome indeed.
The elongated tongue is definitely its most frightening point, where the eyes are drawn to. It is an immediate indication that what you are perceiving is something rogue, something wild, something dangerous. An example of an elongated tongue for a frightening effect is a scene in the 1984 British gothic fantasy horror film ‘The Company of Wolves’…I was definitely horrified when the man turned around and the tongue was rolled out all the way. The elongation of the physical body, such as the limbs, is a common trait applied in horror…an obvious example being the video game slenderman. From my favorite horror game, Alice: Madness Returns, a lot of the well-known characters have been adapted to have longer body parts for the same chilling effect, it’s fantastic.
As for the original picture itself, it was a one taken of me when we went to Norwich for the Ken Kiff show (which was very inspiring as well). I was walking up the spiraling staircase, halfway in the air, when I looked back at olive. There is something otherworldly about the buildings behind me as well, I don’t know if it is the muted colours or, the cloudy weather, the atmosphere seemed rich with promise. Perhaps there is the sense of travel/exploration hinted in the image, which is also something I ponder about regularly. Another note from Bill Viola’s book (p.149):
“…My travels have taught me that there is always just one “right place” where an idea can come to life; that the single effort in making a video piece is finding this “right place;” that video is sensitive to far more than what the camera sees and what the microphone hears; that what we call culture and the human spirit can be viewed as the collective expression and interpretation of the overwhelming power of the landscape.
…They find their unification in what for me is the original place of the landscape in art and culture: the natural raw material of the human psyche.
I do not distinguish between inner and outer landscapes, between the environment as the physical world out there (the “hard” stuff) and the mental image of that environment within each and every individual (the “soft” stuff) It is the tension, the transition, the exchange, and the resonance between these two modalities that energize and define our reality. The key agent in this exchange of energies is the image, and this “space between” is precisely the place in which my work operates,”
The in-between… I often feel that is where my work sits… between the real and unreal…fact and fiction… fantasy and reality. I used to focus on the contrast between the cute and horrific, the beauty and violence, but as I am progressing as a painter I hope that I am doing so in more subtle ways. Sometimes you don’t want to shock your viewer into your perspective, but to suggest it, like a whisper heard from seemingly, no sources. Did you imagine it all? maybe, probably, certainly.
I had a little brainstorm with the title..
[are you amused? entertained?
amusement, park, made to laugh/entertain, ___ in amusement
found article: ’what these abandoned amusement parks looked like before they became ruins..’ Abandoned Amusement
are you amused? abandoned? alive?
who’s laughing now / (hold on to your) last laugh
To amuse, to abandon / to amuse and to abandon
amuse me, how amusing]
but I think I am going to go with ‘are you amused?’ referencing to its original purpose ‘to amuse guests in wealthy families’ homes’. I am also someone who likes rhetorical questions a lot because you are not only provoking the possibility of an answer but multiple ones, it is ambiguous. The questioning from the cheeky cat also relates back to the idea of the silent, uncanny Thing having an imagined voice, or the fact that it is questioning something when it has no means to speak. There is a slight suggestion that the cat head itself is disconnected from the body, like the beheading/speaking notion I mentioned. I hope the viewer is able to feel its uncanniness to some extent.