#semestertwo

[k00261376]

Project Statement

I was fascinated by how people with disabilities or restricted movement could create art or use every day items. The use of prosthetics was a main focus of my work because I found the robotic nature fun and was interested in how they must feel to use because they're often very mechanical and there isn't enough research to make them move through natural means. I had hoped to investigate how to create works that reflected this restricted movement and people's opinion on these disabilities and movement in general.

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SEMINAR TASKS - Evaluation

The theme of this C&CS project first came to me a year ago, when I developed a project that I loved for Foundation Part Three, Fear of Ghosts. It was a very emotional work, but as I had less experience, I regretted not taking enough out of it. I then decided I wanted to go deeper, into the meaning of the ghost motif and why I chose to talk about it in the first place. I feel I needed to further my investigation since it’s a theme that continues as one of my biggest and most genuine interests. I had wanted to explore more, but I hadn’t had the right ideas about where to look until a couple of months into this semester. I felt every research I made about this subject lead me into a dead end, such as the one I made about Goya’s Black Paintings. I no longer knew how I could relate to that or how to relate it to my inquiry.

It was by the time I first started reading The Uncanny that things started getting clear. In the book Freud mentions the fact that there were few people in his time talking about the weird, the uncanny. And that made me think about how I was already familiar with the concept even before knowing of that text; there are now a lot of people discussing and producing content about the uncanny. It drew me back to one of my main art references and interests: horror manga by Junji Ito, who uses the element of the unfamiliar brilliantly, and whose work I’ve been reading for over five years.

I was led to a video essay I watched multiple times – How Media Scares Us: The Work of Junji Ito – in which the uncanny was mentioned, and that had given me very interesting insights about his work, such as the page turn, used to inflict fear utilising visuals and the aid of the media of comic books. I had decided upon that investigation for my research report, but as I dug deeper, I found myself reading about gothic motifs that directly related to my first and foremost inquiry: ghosts. I could have gone back to the start, but at the same time I was able to see just how both Ito’s manga and gothic literature (which I both love) have one thing in common for me to explore: the horror in the uncanny.

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SEMINAR TASKS - Summaries and Annotations

Gothic motifs

What does it mean to say a text is Gothic? Professor John Bowen considers some of the best-known Gothic novels of the late 18th and 19th cen

Strange locations and space

Conflict between times: past comes to derange the present/modern (THE GHOST)

Juxtaposition between powerful and vulnerable beings/characters (sexual)

The uncanny – what looks human, but is not quite human, like dolls, ghosts.

Sublime – overwhelming and overpowering beauty

Supernatural/real

This article was a walkthrough of the most important gothic literature motifs. There are a lot of overlapping themes between gothic novels and they all have a historical or contextual reason to appear. That is the case of the locations in which stories take place; usually innocuous, isolated, haunted places. Being haunted is also a common theme, and it usually has to do with the clashing between the past and the present (or future). This relationship between time is why the ghost is such a recurring figure in gothic novels. The supernatural, although rejected by some gothic authors, was a way of conceding great power to characters and leaving other (usually the heroes or protagonists) as completely vulnerable. This power play is not limited to the supernatural, however, and it can be manifested through sexual power or perversity. Also, the elements of mystery and terror can also go beyond the unknown, bringing the concept of the uncanny into play, and introducing themes and characters who possess an eerie familiarity to them. At last, there is the sublime motif, which relates to the locations and the beauty that can be found in gothic culture in most unexpected, sometimes even dangerous of places, such as a thunderstorm.

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SEMINAR TASKS - Referencing

BOWEN, J.

Gothic motifs

Gothic novels are full of such uncanny effects – simultaneously frightening, unfamiliar, and also strangely familiar.

Bowen, J., 2014. Gothic motifs. [online] The British Library. Available at: <https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/gothic-motifs#> [Accessed 16 June 2021].

Gothic literature has always been a theme of my interest, and I feel the uncanny is one of the most important reasons why that is. It doesn’t rely solely on the terrors of the unknown, but also in warping what is, in fact, familiar. It is able to create scenarios that subvert the things we know and turn them into something else, something to be feared.

WOLF, S. E.

How Media Scares Us: The Work of Junji Ito

It's rare that any pre-established horror convention appears in his work […], rather, Ito’s illustrations are primarily centered around the disorientation of the natural world.

Wolf, S., 2016. How Media Scares Us: The Work of Junji Ito. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIIA6QDgl2M> [Accessed 9 May 2021].

The same concept appears in the manga by Junji Ito. The author/artist subverts and corrupts elements of the day to day and the natural world so they appear as a fright. With this he creates horror much more tangible and dreadful than any conventional trope; making what we take as safe and familiar into a terrible monster or phenomenon.

FREUD, S.

The Uncanny

[...] everything is unheimlich that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light.

Freud, S., 2021. The Uncanny. [ebook] Penguin Books. Available at: <https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Uncanny.pdf> [Accessed 9 May 2021].

The unheimlich, or the uncanny, is the link between these three texts. It is the feeling of unfamiliarity and dread that is used by author of gothic and/or horror literature. Here the author refers to the hidden aspects, something that lurks just beyond what we know and take as safe.

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SEMINAR TASKS - Word Analysis

Goya's Black Paintings: ‘Some people can hardly even look at them’

Goya’s bleak visions were originally painted onto the walls of his house – and remain some of the most disturbing artworks ever made

Goya’s Black paintings caught my attention because of their name and because of their reputation for being disturbing. He is already an artist known for his dark subject matters and in this series, they became much bleaker. The article focuses a lot on telling us how little is actually known about the Black Paintings. They were first painted on Goya’s house walls and never meant to be seen by the public. That’s why it puzzles historians so much; there is no one “correct’’ interpretation or explanation for them since they were first created in isolation and for only Goya himself to see.

This text offers a few interpretations, and I find them all to be very cohesive, except for the one that offers a satirical approach to them. Even though this assumption was made by a Goya specialist, I do feel like satirical images wouldn’t be the choice for covering the walls of your house. I feel there was a yearning to extract emotion and to keep it around himself at all times, be surrounded by it. I can only think the paintings have an overwhelming sense of dread that wouldn’t be possible to achieve without intention.

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SEMINAR TASKS - Image Analysis

Les Nuits Blanches (Sleepless Nights) by Sophie Lecuyer is a monotype series that deals with nocturnal apparitions. What's most interesting about them is, perhaps, the fact that the background isn't necessarily defined; they appear in the night rather than a physical place. With this, there is a more open perspective of the context in which these apparitions are. They aren't an object of fear because they aren't placed as such: there are no spectators to them except for the viewer. With this, again, there is no way to know where they fit into our world or if they do at all - the dimension in which they exist may be completely foreign. This uncertainty makes the work all the more interesting, as it creates an expanding dimension that isn't limited only to what we can understand. This specific image, especially, suggests a shift in dimension and form that is unique to a ghost or to an apparition that we can't quite grasp in the pre-defined concepts of our world. It goes beyond the idea of physicality, of life, suggesting that maybe this alternate dimension is, in fact, death itself.

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SEMINAR TASKS - Mind Map