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Unheimlich.
Jan. 10th, 2005 03:51 pmI don't have Freud's essay on the uncanny (in German "unheimlich," literally "unhomely") with me any more, but it's stayed with me ever since I read it in my cyborgs and postmodernism class. One of the things that he cites as triggering the feeling of uncanniness is sameness. Seeing the same number crop up over and over again, for example, or hearing the same phrase in three different conversations, continually getting tails when you flip a coin, etc. I don't remember his reasons for why this is so uncanny, but I think it has to do with a sudden feeling of unreality. Reality has lumps; reality is random; and when something that looks like a pattern emerges, it can jolt us into wondering if we're perceiving reality correctly.
The reason I bring this up is that uncanny moments are a staple of much science fiction, especially reality-blurring work. The hero of a story realizes that something's off when the same thing happens over again, or when deja vu occurs, or when different people have the exact same response to something. It's used as a signifier that something's gone wrong. In some stories, I seem to remember that repetition like this was a sign that reality was actually virtual reality; the computer couldn't produce enough differences to mimic real life. I've considered using a trope like that in some stories, e.g. having the protagonist realize that he's passed the same person on each street corner for the last ten blocks.
And then today I went into a T station in which every ad was for the same company, entered a T car in which every ad was for the same new series, and emerged into another stop in which every ad was for the same product.
Sameness in that sense is no longer as uncanny. In the same way that a man apparently talking to himself now could be using a headset for his cell phone, technology and societal change has made the uncanny familiar.
It makes me wonder what other things I currently find uncanny will become normal in the next few decades.
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In other news, I came out as Zoe in the Firefly character meme what's going around. I rock.
The reason I bring this up is that uncanny moments are a staple of much science fiction, especially reality-blurring work. The hero of a story realizes that something's off when the same thing happens over again, or when deja vu occurs, or when different people have the exact same response to something. It's used as a signifier that something's gone wrong. In some stories, I seem to remember that repetition like this was a sign that reality was actually virtual reality; the computer couldn't produce enough differences to mimic real life. I've considered using a trope like that in some stories, e.g. having the protagonist realize that he's passed the same person on each street corner for the last ten blocks.
And then today I went into a T station in which every ad was for the same company, entered a T car in which every ad was for the same new series, and emerged into another stop in which every ad was for the same product.
Sameness in that sense is no longer as uncanny. In the same way that a man apparently talking to himself now could be using a headset for his cell phone, technology and societal change has made the uncanny familiar.
It makes me wonder what other things I currently find uncanny will become normal in the next few decades.
---
In other news, I came out as Zoe in the Firefly character meme what's going around. I rock.
