Tag: mannequins

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… Continue reading The Uncanny Valley: Expanded and Uncut! Notes on Mori’s Groundbreaking Essay

JC Penney — Screaming For Retail

In their latest campaign, “Enough. Is. Enough,” JC Penney is running what is, to my mind, a hilarious television commercial, involving a serial montage of consumers shouting for outrageously loud and extended time periods at sales tags and other marketing tricks familiar to us all. What makes this commercial so great is all the horror… Continue reading JC Penney — Screaming For Retail

You Are What You Urn

England’s Telegraph is running a “Best Pictures of The Year” gallery to wrap up 2009…and with images like the above from the “Weird Inventions” gallery — or even from their other bizarre and weird and spectacular galleries — one can only marvel over what a strange year it’s been…and how remarkably stranger it is going… Continue reading You Are What You Urn

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 (removed from Vimeo) The wax/flesh boundaries are blurred in unexpected ways in that video that leave even… Continue reading Late Night with Wax Figures in the Men’s Room

Medical Manikins and Suffering

Today I stumbled onto Oobject — a weird multiuser “curations collection” that exhibits photos that members spot online, organized by offbeat themes.  One of the most uncanny exhibits of them all is a collection of “medical manikins”. The above shot by Tomer Ganihar (a shot taken as part of a series he did in an Israeli hospital… Continue reading Medical Manikins and Suffering