Further Reading
In Week 5, I came across the website and film journal Another Gaze due to their interview with Laura Mulvey, at the time I stumbled upon the following article A Woman Escaped? The Female Automaton in Robert Bresson’s ‘Mouchette’ (2019) which critically reviews and discussed the female automaton through the lens of Mouchette referencing to the Pgymalion (Ovid’s Metamorphoses) myth as well as back to the (1886) Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam’s novel L’Ève Future. Taylor’s comments:
“In Bresson’s most despairing film, Mouchette (1967), the Pygmalion fantasy as the ancient desire to producing a living woman out of inert matter resurfaces as the modern desire to reduce a living woman to a machine.”
Taylor, M. (2019)
This I find intriguing in regards to my own practice of using dolls to signify the uncanny I am in a sense turning the works of Mouchette on it’s head and returning to the origin of Ovid’s Pgymalion myth. On the subject of the uncanny reading Ravetto-Biagioli’s article on the digital uncanny this week has helped me reinterpret and further my connection to the uncanny due to the following passage:
“The Uncanny is driven by the compulsion to repeat, and that compulsion is automatic.”
Ravetto-Biagioli, K. (2016)
My practice takes inspiration and influence of images already in the visual lexicon and iconography of clichés found on social media. The repeated usage of dolls not only references to the notion of the Uncanny Valley, but also by reusing the same brunette female doll in a multitude of series (and her subsequent world expansion to including ‘friends’) is an almost automatic compulsion of repeating and arguably turning that doll as an extension of my own self.
Artist Research
Vincent Fournier’s The Man Machine stages a fictionalised reality where robots are effectively placed in scenarios that are decidely human in terms of actions and pose, challenging the Uncanny Valley that the robots are aware, sentinel and reflective beings on his website, Fournier states “…we tend to look for ways to relate to them, but our psychological response can shift from empathy to revulsion when they fail to attain a truly lifelike appearance.” (Fournier, V. 2009-) Fournier’s comments are intriguing when reflecting on my own practice, how I aim to make my doll figures in my series to mimic human behaviour as a form of commenting is in itself challenging the notion of the Uncanny Valley.
References
Figures
Figure 1 Fournier, V. (2010) Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro and replicate Geminoid HI-1, [Intelligent Robotics Laboratory], Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, 2010, from the series The Man Machine. [Online] Available from: http://www.vincentfournier.co.uk/www/portfolio/the-man-machine-photography/ [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Figure 2 Fournier, V. (2016) Johnny 05, Darmstadt, 2016, from the series The Man Machine. [Online] Available from: http://www.vincentfournier.co.uk/www/portfolio/the-man-machine-photography/ [Accessed 13/03/2020]
Bibliography
Clute, J. Grant, J. (1997) Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Pygmalion. [Online] Available from: http://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=pygmalion [Accessed 12/03/2020]
Fournier, V. (2009-) The Man Machine. [Online] Available from: http://www.vincentfournier.co.uk/www/category-portfolio/works/the-man-machine/ and http://www.vincentfournier.co.uk/www/portfolio/the-man-machine-textes-words/ [Accessed 12/03/2020]
Ravetto-Biagioli, K. (2016) [in] Screen 57:1 (Spring 2016) The digital uncanny and ghost effects. [Online] Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjw002 or https://www.academia.edu/24324567/Digital_Uncanny_and_Ghost_Effects [Accessed 11/03/2020]
Taylor, M. [in] Another Gaze: A Feminist Film Journal. (2019) A Woman Escaped? The Female Automaton in Robert Bresson’s ‘Mouchette’. [Online] Available from: https://www.anothergaze.com/woman-escaped-female-automaton-robert-bressons-mouchette/ [Accessed 11/03/2020]
Jasmine Murray Photography 