Crowning

found treasure, originally uploaded by agnisflugen.

"I can see the head"

Call for Papers

Uncanny Media: The Gothic Shadows of Mediation

Interdisciplinary conference, artistic Salon and Gothic event hosted by the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands 7-9 August 2008

Confirmed keynotes: Fred Botting • Steven Bruhm • Jeffrey Sconce

To tell a story is always to invoke ghosts. The act of narration, by nature, invites the spectres of the past, and is haunted by long-hidden anxieties or desires. The uncanny is an indispensable part of storytelling; it is the unrepresented lurking behind presentation, the unknown saliently present in the known. Nor is it only literature that is uncannily destabilized by its own technology; indeed, every act of mediation, be it textual, visual or auditory, evokes a Gothic conflation of overlapping temporalities and realities.

Examples of uncanny mediation are as numerous as they are varied. David Lynch has experimented with the uneasy borders between mediation and reality in the dreamlike topology of his films; Patrick McGrath allows the voice of past trauma to simultaneously narrate and haunt the literary present; rock bands from Bauhaus to Apoptygma Berzerk employ music technology to lend the ghosts of the Goth a voice; daily life has acquired a spectral dimension through the virtual ‘absent presence’ of wireless technology; and, like many other emblems of the uncanny, Dracula has been renarrated, remediated and re-enacted in film, literature, and computer games.

How can we describe the uncanny agency of media in such phenomena? To what extent does the book, the camera, the iPod, or the computer invite ghosts, create a voyeur, or a doppelganger? How does this shadow side of mediation influence our perception of the Real, the virtual, the unconscious, the Self? And what happens when the uncanny itself is mediated? Can we create spectral reflections of the spectre, a hyperreality of the simulacrum?

This conference aims to raise interdisciplinary discussions regarding mediation and uncanniness. Papers on both historical and contemporary topics are welcome. Possible themes include but are not limited to

Ø Mediating the uncanny: literature, film, music, computer games
Ø Spectrality and hauntology of mediation and technology
Ø Reality, hyperreality and simulacra
Ø Mediation of the Self: online identities and technological doppelganger
Ø Schizophonia, ventriloquism and backmasking in auditive media
Ø Dreams and the unconscious
Ø Spiritualism and mediumship

Proposals should include the name and contact details of the proposer, the title of the proposal and an abstract of no more than 250 words. Please send proposals to Isabella van Elferen, isabellavanelferen@uncannymedia.nl The deadline for proposals is 1 April 2008.
The conference website will be updated regularly. It can be found at www.uncannymedia.nl.
_______________________________________________

Luminosity

mannequins in the mist, originally uploaded by annette62.

Cage

, originally uploaded by 'stpiduko'.

The Uncanny Valley

Of course, human beings themselves lie at the final goal of robotics, which is why we make an effort to build human-like robots. For example, a robot's arms may be composed of a metal cylinder with many bolts, but to achieve a more human-like appearance, we paint over the metal in skin tones. These cosmetic efforts cause a resultant increase in our sense of the robot's familiarity. Some readers may have felt sympathy for handicapped people they have seen who attach a prosthetic arm or leg to replace a missing limb. But recently prosthetic hands have improved greatly, and we cannot distinguish them from real hands at a glance. Some prosthetic hands attempt to simulate veins, muscles, tendons, finger nails, and finger prints, and their color resembles human pigmentation. So maybe the prosthetic arm has achieved a degree of human verisimilitude on par with false teeth. But this kind of prosthetic hand is too real and when we notice it is prosthetic, we have a sense of strangeness.

Mori, Masahiro, Bukimi no tani [The uncanny valley], trans. K. MacDorman & T. Minato, Energy, Vol 7 No 4 (1970), pp. 33–35.

Eyeless

Head for the Beach
Originally uploaded by alterednate.

The Sandman

My father silently and gloomily drew off his dressing gown, and both attired themselves in long black frocks. Whence they took these I did not see. My father opened the door of what I had always thought to be a cupboard. But I now saw that it was no cupboard, but rather a black cavity in which there was a little fireplace. Coppelius went to it, and a blue flame began to crackle up on the hearth. All sorts of strange utensils lay around. Heavens! As my old father stooped down to the fire, he looked quite another man. Some convulsive pain seemed to have distorted his mild features into a repulsive, diabolical countenance. He looked like Coppelius, whom I saw brandishing red-hot tongs, which he used to take glowing masses out of the thick smoke; which objects he afterwards hammered. I seemed to catch a glimpse of human faces lying around without any eyes - but with deep holes instead.

'Eyes here' eyes!' roared Coppelius tonelessly. Overcome by the wildest terror, I shrieked out and fell from my hiding place upon the floor. Coppelius seized me and, baring his teeth, bleated out, 'Ah - little wretch - little wretch!' Then he dragged me up and flung me on the hearth, where the fire began to singe my hair. 'Now we have eyes enough - a pretty pair of child's eyes,' he whispered, and, taking some red-hot grains out of the flames with his bare hands, he was about to sprinkle them in my eyes.

My father upon this raised his hands in supplication, crying: 'Master, master, leave my Nathaniel his eyes!'

Whereupon Coppelius answered with a shrill laugh: 'Well, let the lad have his eyes and do his share of the world's crying, but we will examine the mechanism of his hands and feet.'

And then he seized me so roughly that my joints cracked, and screwed off my hands and feet, afterwards putting them back again, one after the other. 'There's something wrong here,' he mumbled. 'But now it's as good as ever. The old man has caught the idea!' hissed and lisped Coppelius. But all around me became black, a sudden cramp darted through my bones and nerves - and I lost consciousness. A gentle warm breath passed over my face; I woke as from the sleep of death. My mother had been stooping over me.

Hoffmann, E. et.al. Tales of Hoffmann. New York: Penguin Books, 1982.