Jamais Vu – The Journal of Strange Among the Familiar has just published its second issue, so I thought I’d mention this new forum of horror and fantasy here, as it relates to the Uncanny in its editorial mission. The journal is published by Post-Mortem Press, primarily known for their horror titles (like the fabulous… Continue reading Mini-Review: Jamais Vu – The Journal of Strange Among the Familiar
Author: Michael Arnzen
Michael Arnzen holds four Bram Stoker Awards and an International Horror Guild Award for his disturbing (and often funny) fiction, poetry and literary experiments. He has been teaching as a Professor of English in the MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University since 1999.
We Like Double: the Ford Fusion Hybrid Superbowl Ad
One of the first big budget TV commercials to air during this year’s Super Bowl programming was the “Nearly Double” advertisement for the Ford Fusion Hybrid, starring Rob Riggle & James Franco, which claims to “make history” by airing two commercials back-to-back, or following up the first commercial with a second one that is “double… Continue reading We Like Double: the Ford Fusion Hybrid Superbowl Ad
Bukimi-no-Tani – “The Uncanny Valley Revisited: A Tribute to Masahiro Mori”
Last November, Ken Goldberg at UC Berkeley organized a special conference on “The Uncanny Valley Revisited: A Tribute to Masahiro Mori” — hosted by the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in Tokyo, and there is fantastic coverage of this event — which includes streaming video of all the presentations — at… Continue reading Bukimi-no-Tani – “The Uncanny Valley Revisited: A Tribute to Masahiro Mori”
Design for Creeping Baby Doll Automaton, 1871
Happy holidays from The Popular Uncanny.
Zombie Video Games
In the video article, “Why all the Zombies in Video Games?” the popular gaming review site gamespot turns to Mori’s theory of the uncanny valley for an answer. “[Zombies] seem to encapsulate a perfect storm of repulsion. First off, they have horrible, glazed dead eyes. And eyes appear to be the crucial thing we look… Continue reading Zombie Video Games
AUDIO: China Mieville Keynote Address from ICFA 2012: On Monsters
In the following audio capture, author China Mieville delivers a keynote address entitled “On Monsters: Or, Nine or More (Monstrous) NOT Cannies.” It was presented at the 33rd Annual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida, in Spring 2012. Mieville performs an entertaining and trenchant re-examination of the term “uncanny” and… Continue reading AUDIO: China Mieville Keynote Address from ICFA 2012: On Monsters