I discovered the “cover song” web podcast site, Coverville, earlier today, and was musing over the way in which one band’s version of another band’s overly familiar song can chime the chords of the uncanny. But then I saw this video for Sour’s “Hibi No Neiro” — which I don’t think is a cover song… Continue reading A Choreography of Cameras: “Hibi No Neiro”
Category: Film
Cinematic manifestations of Das Unheimliche.
The Oobleck Effect: Living Liquid
Last year, writer Jason Jack Miller shared with me a popular YouTube video of uncanny monsters born by placing a layer of water and cornstarch on a subwoofer. I find myself returning to these videos often, contemplating the animism made possible by the rhythm of sound and the chaos of vibration. This neat effect “animates”… Continue reading The Oobleck Effect: Living Liquid
Uncanny Adaptation and The Watchmen
One of the unique concepts I broach in The Popular Uncanny is the notion of doublement — a term I employ to refer to the uncanny regress that occurs when a textual double (such as a remake or other adaptation) foregrounds the capacity for media to reproduce or “double” itself. In a recent entry on… Continue reading Uncanny Adaptation and The Watchmen
Pop Phantasmagoria
Neat find: Professor Heard’s Magic Latern Shows is a traveling act that nostalgically recreates the “phantasmagoria” of the 18th & 19th centuries for contemporary audiences. (I learned about Heard’s show via his article, “The Lantern of Fear” published by Grand Illusions, a fun online shop for offbeat science toys, uncanny gizmos, and illusionary devices.) As… Continue reading Pop Phantasmagoria
David Lynch’s Doppelgangers
In psychology, the shadow is the part of the unconscious that swallows threatening information and experiences that a conscious mind cannot hold onto and, at the same time, remain functional. However, a periodic confrontation with the shadow is necessary for a healthy psyche. In a Lynch film it is often the job of some sort… Continue reading David Lynch’s Doppelgangers
TRON, Gaming and the Death Drive Crash
Software designer Daniel Wellman writes about an uncanny experience where a game he was programming seemed to come to life with a will all its own in his essay, “Real Life Tron on Apple IIgs”: One day, when Marco and I were playing against two computer opponents, we forced one of the AI cycles to… Continue reading TRON, Gaming and the Death Drive Crash