The Uncanny in Photography
Yi-Ting Wang
National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan
Diane Arbus
(1923-1971)
Diane Arbus’ works are uncanny for it’s not only
because of her shooting objects with
extraordinary appears, diseases or occupations.
For me, there is an ambiguous feeling beyond
words in Diane Arbus’ works. It’s close, it seems to
invite viewers to look into her woks in a short
distance, however, it’s also alienated as well, it
makes people unable to stay close, even can’t
help but avoiding their sight.
one photo observed by different viewers
in different time with different ways will
end up with different judgments; even
when I look at the same picture next time,
the feeling of the uncanny in mind will be
different.
“If one wants to come closer to the essence of
the uncanny, it is better not to ask what it is, but
rather to investigate how the affective excitement
of the uncanny arises in psychological terms, how
the psychical conditions must be constituted so
that the “uncanny” sensation emerges.”
– On the Psychology of the Uncanny (1906),
Ernst Jentsch
Is photography uncanny ?
“If photography emerged as the material
support for a new positivism, it was also
experienced as an uncanny phenomenon.”
—”Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations
Spirit Photography”, Fugitive Images From
Photography to Video（1995）, Tom Gunning.
there is no other form of art than photography
that is more like a two-way-directed mono
scope: in one hand it reflects the look of the
outside world faithfully; in the other hand the
image of the outside has the ability to look
back through the inside both of the
photographer and the viewer.
William Kentridge, Felix in Exile, 1994
Essentials of the uncanny
‧A crisis of the proper:
Comingling of “Heimlich” and “Unheimlich”
‧The beginning of the uncanny is already haunted
Essentials of the uncanny
‧A crisis of the proper:
Comingling of “Heimlich” and “Unheimlich”
‧The beginning of the uncanny is already haunted
“the uncanny is that class of the frightening
which leads back to what is known of old and
long familiar.”
—”The Uncanny”, Sigmund Freud, 1919
Heimlich
- Belonging to the house, not
strange, familiar, tame, intimate,
friendly, etc. …
- Of animals: tame, companionable
to man. …
- Intimate, friendly comfortable; the
enjoyment of quiet content, etc.,
arousing a sense of agreeable
restfulness and security as in one
within the four walls of his house.
- Concealed, kept from sight, so that
others do not get to know of or
about it, withheld from others.
Unheimlich
- eerie, weird, arousing gruesome
fear
-
the name for everything that ought
to have remained…secret and
hidden but has come to light.（by
Schelling）
Daniel Sander, ”Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache”, 1860
” Heimlich” and ”Unheimlich” are the opposite
word for each other, in the same time, they both
exist by the meaning of each other. In the one
hand, ‘friendly and comfortable’ of ‘heimlich’
and ‘weird and gruesome’ of ‘Unheimlich’ are on
the contrary; in the other hand, ‘concealed and
safe’ of ‘heimlich’ and ‘about to exposed and
revealed’ of ‘Unheimlich’ are similar and
continuity.
presence of the uncanny
Essentials of the uncanny
‧A crisis of the proper:
Comingling of “Heimlich” and “Unheimlich”
‧The beginning of the uncanny is already haunted
“The uncanny entails another thinking of
beginning: the beginning is already haunted.
The uncanny is ghostly. It is concerned with
the strange, weird and mysterious, with a
flickering sense (but not conviction) of
something supernatural.”
—’The Uncanny: an Introduction’, The Uncanny ,
Nicholas Royle, 2003
“In fact it was doing nothing, even to the silk ,
but still I can feel it. Just like in tales, the man
who witness the ghosts’ feast, he didn’t see
them eat and drink, but he can sense that.”
—’The Ghost’, Walter Benjamin
it is haunted, and really uncanny, not
because what they did, but for they
didn’t do anything.
The Uncanny in Photography
Compared with other form of art which also take
real world image resources as materials like
cinema and video art, photography is a more
silent way of art expression, it’s quiet, solitude
and dark; it never makes a move, but it can
scratch and make inner noise which can’t be
heard, the noise continuingly resounds
backward , and the uncanny emerges just like the
blank with distance after the noise suddenly
stopped.
1. Alienation: photo as a mirror reflecting the appearance
William Kentridge, Felix in Exile, 1994
A photo is the appearance of an appearance, a
material outside of the object being taken. In other
words, when we see a flat, 2-dimensional picture, we
often mislead ourselves that object is in front of us.
In fact, however, all the ways of seeing is at least with
two kinds of distances（object→appearance→photo）
Then when do we start to feel unnatural and uneasy?
When our familiar circles of convenience is crossed.
（object→appearance→mask→photo）
2. Identity: through the photo, two parallel universe
encounter with each other.
William Kentridge, Felix in Exile, 1994
I had a dream before. In that dream, I was in an
amphitheater. I was a performer on the stage. In the
halfway of the show, the stage curtains suddenly
split open. I looked into the crack on curtain, in back
of my stage, there was a stage and an amphitheater
which looked the same as I was, and there was girl
who looked the same as me was performing on the
stage. I could never forget that dream. For me, the
uncanny in photography, just like this dream, reveals
the existence of the double.
Diane Arbus, Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. 1967
If we thought photos are uncanny, there might be
a possible reason that photos are not just
appearances, they looked with their own lives,
even extended a inner or outer parallel universe
which we never knew.
Diane Arbus, Woman With a Veil On Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C. 1968
Post-Mortem
photography
3. Connectedness: Photography is a passage like a twoway-directed mono scope, it calls out inner landscapes of
photographer and viewer.
William Kentridge, Felix in Exile, 1994
In the early period when photography was invented,
people once thought it was an evil thing. Chiefs of
Indian tribes in North America describe cameras as
“a box full of shades of all people”. People tended
to believe that cameras catch not only images but
also human souls. Like people in 19th century also
once believed that photography can call out to their
dead families.
Ann Hamilton 1956-
Spirit Photography
“What’s thrilling to me about what’s called
technique, but what moves me about it is
that it comes from some mysterious deep
place. I mean it can have something to do
with the paper and the developer and all that
stuff, but it comes mostly from some very
deep choices somebody has made that take a
long time and keep haunting them.”
-Diane Arbus
Francesca Woodman 1958-1981
” Atget is no more. His ghost, I was going to
say ’negative’, must haunt the innumerable
poetic places of the capital.”
--- French Poet Robert Desnos
The uncanny, both a kind of
form and content;
photography is both form and
content as well. These two are
treated as corresponding
metaphors, including symbols
and meanings, for each other.
The paper concludes that
exploring the uncanny in
photography can inspire a new
way of philosophical thinking
among viewers, artists and
critics that lies between
psychological vision and
aesthetic practice.
Thank you