Projekt: The Uncanny

I have dealt with the uncanny in art strongly refer to the article "the uncanny" by the Viennese psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Especially in the 1960's and the 80's several artists tried to give their artworks an uncanny aura.

"Sigmund Freud -
Exploration of The Uncanny"
Sigmund Freud had been researching this topic between 1917 and 1920. He has been collecting articles from other psychoanalysts for example Ernst Jentsch and other literature dealing with this topic. In his article "The Uncanny" he specially covers stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann and William Shakespeare.

"Sigmund Freud - What Is The Uncanny"
Sigmund Freud also classifies feelings like horrifying, scaring and frightening as uncanny.
The sensitivity regarding these feelings is different for everybody. It strongly depends on what experiences people made or did not make. But still the feeling of the uncanny is one of the strongest human feelings.

The Source Of The Uncanny, after Freud
The uncanny is also related to the well known and familiar such as bad memories.These experiences could have been repressed as a safety mechanism. The feeling of the uncanny is being triggered in you by certain stimulations such as persons, things, impressions and specific situations. The word uncanny is the opposite to the word familiar. From that you can gather, that uncanny describes something, which is too or completely not familiar with you. If something is new to you, you easily can regard it as discomforting. But still you need an additional stimulation to really feel it as uncanny.