Aberration
"It is part of what we regard as awful, dreadful, and terrifying"
-Sigmund Freud
Stahel, U. "Thick Skinned and Ambiguous: Uncanny Beauty, Uncanny Familiarity and Uncanny Everydayness" Uncanny (1999).
In her essay, German author Urs Stahel analyzes the work of five contemporary photographers, whose artwork embodies the spirit of the supernatural and aberrations from daily life. Stahel explores the etymology of the German word "unheimlich", which roughly translates to the Engish word "uncanny" and explains just what, according to Sigmund Freud and other famous minds, qualifies as uncanny. Each of the featured artists (Vanessa Beecroft, Anna Gaskell, Dana Hoey, Natacha Lesueur, and Wendy McMurdo) employ the idea of the uncanny to different effect. The book includes vivid tableaux of children encountering doppelgangers, unusual, sinister events occurring amidst familiar scenery, and other bizarre scenarios. The author connects these images to a sense of fear associated with the unknown, and the discomfort we experience when we are removed from familiar surroundings.
This essay has helped to articulate and enrich some of the deeper themes I have been exploring. With the current series that I am creating, events unseen by the audience, but witnessed by the characters in the photographs, disrupt daily activities and force the figures into a standstill. The occurrence of the supernatural amidst the safety of familiar surroundings continues to fascinate me.
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