The Uncanny – Jasmine Murray Photography

Week 7: Research; Phillips, Sex Dolls, Objectification and the Uncanny

Valerie Phillips

“…seem to challenge the preconceptions of true beauty, finding it instead without manipulation and through Phillips’ lens which is, above all else, unfiltered.”
Coop, E. (2016)

**Figure 1** Phillips, V. (2014) *Hi You Are Beautiful How Are You.*

I’ve been catching up posting last module’s work to Instagram over the weekend, and have received subsequently some feedback that I might find looking at the works of Valerie Phillips. Although Phillips work is arguably better suited in a discussion to last module’s series e-maGen, Phillips overarching practice revolves around more recently (internet) identities and challenging gender norms, the latter of which The Mirror Hack’d discusses in depth, and the former something that arguably runs throughout my current practice.

**Figure 2** Phillips, V. (2013) *This is my drivers license.*

The work I am best familiar with of Phillips are Figures 1 & 2, due to the sitter being a fellow practitioner I have researched two modules back, Arvida Byström. Historically Phillips, has produced a series of books that focus on a girl at an important crux in their life, becoming an adult. Unlike my own practice where I adopt artifice mockingly to challenge the tropes I am commenting on Phillips instead opts to depict her subjects without manipulation, to highlight natural beauty, rather than refined artifice.

Sex Dolls, Objectification & The Uncanny

“…the sex doll always risks both the pitfalls of the uncanny valley and ethical censure. Sex dolls depict women just well enough for discomfort, while turning a mirror back unflatteringly upon the men who consume them.”
Clark, R. (2020)

**Figure 3** Moo, H. (1919) *Alma Doll (Heritage Images via Getty Images*)

This week I’ve been thinking around the concept of objectification through the vehicle of dolls. My current exploration within The Mirror Hack’d I’ve been using dolls, predominantly a male doll, as a vehicle to enact and depict the misogynistic messages aimed at women, reflected back, indirectly also commenting on the idea that “incels” should seek companionship from sex dolls. Largely when one thinks on objectification in dolls you end up either thinking of Barbie’s unrealistic beauty standards or sex dolls themselves that primarily exist for manipulation and the eyes of men. In extreme cases such as the Alma Doll (Figure 3) ordered by Oscar Kokoschka at the turn of the 20th century the result of having a sex doll ended”…in a unbelievable display of violent misogyny, well, that was perhaps pretty much inevitable.” (Frank, P. 2018) This leads me to the work of van Duyvendijk and Xu.

Marco van Duyvendijk and Xiaoxiao Xu

““I think they’re the epitome of patriarchy,” says Xu when asked her opinion on love dolls and what they might mean for society. “It insinuates that women’s bodies are only flesh and the existence of flesh is for men’s use.””
Xu, X. [in] Clifford, E. (2018)

**Figure 4** van Duyvendijk, M. & Xu, X. (2012) *Love Doll Factory*

Marco van Duyvendijk and Xiaoxiao Xu’s series the Love Doll Factory (2012) depicts the assembly and production line inside a inflatable sex doll factory in Zhejiang province, China, the images themselves provoke a sense of the eerie uncanny, whilst also being a commentary piece on the rise in popularity of sex dolls in Asia and beyond, how the premise is largely a sexist vision of woman as object of pleasure and desire.

**Figure 5** van Duyvendijk, M. & Xu, X. (2012) *Love Doll Factory*

van Duyvendijk and Xu’s series aligns with the messages found in the work of Laurie Simmons‘ The Love Doll, or Stacy Leigh‘s Everyday Americans who Happen to be Sex Dolls, however with both of these series Simmons and Leigh instead seek to humanise the dolls, by giving them personalities and a narrative. The Love Doll Factory is like a literal ‘meat’ market of plastic, and this connotation is perhaps closer to Sharon Wright’s (Figure 6) Skinning a Sex Doll (2015) a series which documents Wright and her husband dismantling a silicone sex doll to it’s wired shell, with the mounds of silicone flesh piled much like van Duyvendijk and Xu’s visuals in Love Doll Factory.

**Figure 6** Wright, S. (2015) *Skinning a sex doll*

Marcel Duchamp – Étant donnés and the Surrealists

“…the readymade’s parallel with the photograph is established by its process of production. It is about the physical transposition of an object from the continuum of reality into the fixed condition of the art-image by a moment of isolation or selection.”
Krauss, R. (1985; 206)

**Figure 7** Duchamp, M. (1946-66) *Étant donnés*

Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés is an installation piece that can only be viewed through a peephole, meaning you can never see the full scene or views of the installation, just the perspective that Duchamp wants the viewer to see. Étant donnés is almost a form of commentary on voyeurism and peepshows, and a readymade which seems to comment on the photograph being a means of selected fixed view, staged, a process of production. Duchamp’s installation is reminiscent I feel to Bellmer’s La Poupée in that the figure is fragmented, not completely seen with head, lower leg and one arm invisible to the viewer. The usage of a mannequin doll form in both Bellmer’s and Duchamp’s work can be associated to Smith’s observations that:

“Since the nineteenth century, dolls have served as commodities but also as objects of possession and obsession, love and lust.”
Smith, M. (2013)

The surrealist movement in particular adopted using mannequins, with Bellmer specifically using it to discuss themes of perversion through provocative depiction, this nature of surrealist photography seen from Bellmer to Ulbac (Figure 8) has led to theorists such as Krauss considering the movement to be a ‘fetishization of reality’ (Krauss, R. 1985; 69)

**Figure 8** Ubac, R. (1938) *Mannequin d’André Masson*

References

Figures

Figure 1 Phillips, V. (2014) from the photobook ‘Hi You Are Beautiful How Are You.‘ [Online] Available from: https://www.dashwoodbooks.com/pages/books/14623/valerie-phillips/hi-you-are-beautiful-how-are-you?soldItem=true [Accessed 02/11/2020]

Figure 2 Phillips, V. (2013) from the photobook ‘This is my drivers license.‘ [Online] Available from: https://www.dashwoodbooks.com/pages/books/13277/valerie-phillips/this-is-my-drivers-license?soldItem=true [Accessed 02/11/2020]

Figure 3 Moo, H. (1919) Alma Doll (Heritage Images via Getty Images) [Online] Available from: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/artist-doll-creepy-oskar-kokoschka-alma-mahler [Accessed 04/11/2020]

Figure 4 van Duyvendijk, M. & Xu, X. (2012) Love Doll Factory. [Online] Available from: https://xiaoxiaoxu.com/work/love-doll-factory/ [Accessed 03/11/2020]

Figure 5 van Duyvendijk, M. & Xu, X. (2012) Love Doll Factory. [Online] Available from: http://www.marcovanduyvendijk.nl/product/love-doll-factory/# [Accessed 03/11/2020]

Figure 6 Wright, S. (2015) Skinning a sex doll. [Online] Available from: https://www.shesalwayswright.com/toystories/2015/10/7/skinning-a-sex-doll-nsfw [Accessed 03/11/2020]

Figure 7 Duchamp, M. (1946-66) Étant donnés. [Online] Available from: https://www.toutfait.com/marcel-duchamp-atant-donnas-the-deconstructed-painting/ [Accessed 04/11/2020]

Figure 8 Ubac, R. (1938) Mannequin d’André Masson. [Online] Available from: http://www.artnet.com/artists/raoul-ubac/mannequin-dandr%C3%A9-masson-oOKd-IE3r5whYEnma37TaA2 [Accessed 05/11/2020]

Bibliography

Aron, N. A. (2019) The New York Times: What Does Misogyny Look Like? [Online] Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/style/misogyny-women-history-photographs.html [Accessed 04/11/2020]

Bell, J. (2014) “Uncanny Erotics: On Hans Bellmer’s Souvenirs of the Doll” [IN] Feral Feminisms. Feminist Un/Pleasure: Reflections upon Perversity, BDSM, and Desire. Issue 2 . Summer 2014. [Online] Available from: https://feralfeminisms.com/uncanny-erotics/ [Accessed 05/11/2020]

Burton, T.I. (2018) Vox: We’re talking about “sex robots” now. We’ve been here before. [Online] Available from: https://www.vox.com/2018/5/4/17314260/incel-sex-robots-sexual-redistribution-ross-douthat-history [Accessed 04/11/2020]

Clark, R. (2020) Post 45: Gag Reflexes: Sex Doll Slapstick and Fran Ross’s Oreo. [Online] Available from: https://post45.org/2020/01/gag-reflexes-sex-doll-slapstick-and-fran-rosss-oreo/ [Accessed 04/11/2020]

Coop, E. (2016) Dazed & Confused: Fifteen years of capturing girlhood with Valerie Phillips. [Online] Available from: https://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/33412/1/capturing-girlhood-with-valerie-phillips [Accessed 02/11/2020]

Frank, P. (2018) Huffington Post: The Creepy Tale Of An Artist Who Ordered, Then Decapitated, A Doll Made To Look Like His Ex. [Online] Available from: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/artist-doll-creepy-oskar-kokoschka-alma-mahler_ [Accessed 04/11/2020]

Krauss, R. (1985) The Originality of the Avant-garde and other Modernist Myths, pg 206. USA; MIT Press. [Online] Available from: https://monoskop.org/File:Krauss_Rosalind_E_The_Originality_of_the_Avant-Garde_and_Other_Modernist_Myths_1985.pdf [Accessed 05/11/2020]

Krauss, R. (1985) “Corpus Delecti.” October. 33. Summer, 1985, pg 69. Print.

Smith, M. (2013) The erotic doll: a modern fetish. New Haven & London; Yale University Press.

Xu, X. [in] Clifford, E. (2018) Huck magazine: An eerie look inside a Chinese Love Doll Factory. Sex for dummies. [Online] Available from: https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/an-eerie-look-inside-a-chinese-love-doll-factory/ [Accessed 03/11/2020]

Practice & Preparation: A Post on the Uncanny

PHO702: Critical Research Journal

“While the shift from a passive “spectator” to an interactive “user” seems to offer more agency, this agency is limited to pre-established configurations – peer-to-peer sharing, file transfers, self-curation, posting, posting for selfies and surfing – that conceal backend data analytics such as profiling, personally targeted advertising, sophisticated identification practices, geo-tagging and geo-locating”.
Ravetto-Biagioli, K. (2019; 22-23)

A long running theme to my practice has been around challenging the Uncanny. In the past this has led to me researching in depth into theorists and psychoanalysts theories around the phenomena of the uncanny, referred by some as the unheimlich. One of the first theorists I looked at (other than Freud and Mori who I had mentioned before as theorists fundamental to my current practice) was Jentsch who theorised that “…the effect of the uncanny can easily be achieved when one undertakes to reinterpret some kind of lifeless thing as part of an organic creature, especially in anthropomorphic terms, in a poetic or fantastic way.” (1906) whilst I do agree with elements of Jentsch’s theories around the uncanny, I personally feel Mori is more relevant and visual when discussing the uncanny and the relationship with the automaton.

More recently, in this module I have been looking into more recent theorists, in particular Ravetto-Biagioli’s theories around the Digital Uncanny (2019), which ultimately explores how the rise of the digital has changed and provoked human anxiety, in that it reveals we are closer to machine than we like to think, mentioning projects such as Face2Face as devices which democratize “…the face, facial expressions, and human personalities, allowing anyone to occupy the face and virtual speech of another- as long as there is enough data to generate a simulation. Yet this democratization (or occupation) of the face also presents another problem concerning who or what embodies this aesthetic feeling: if art is a product of calculation (an aggregration of data on past movements and expressions), then how far can we extend an act of aesthetic feeling beyond that of the human relation between experience and thinking?” (Ravetto-Biagioli, K. 2019; 163) Her commentary aligns deeply with my current series produced for this module an Authentic Lie? (2020) which comments on how the rise of the smartphone has introduced the notion of the authentic lie, where reality is distorted, the truth is hard to believe as editing becomes simpler.

Another theorist who discusses the uncanny in relation to the digital age is Suler, his comments very much align with that of Ravetto-Biagioli, but also ties back to the automaton of Jentsch and Mori. He states:

“We project this anxiety into the ambiguously human machine, for it too might harbor a hidden force operating inside it, a force that might be hostile, with evil intentions to harm us, steal our identity, or consume the essence of who we are.”
Suler, J. (2016)

Suler’s theory I feel better associates with my work in the last module Transhumane (2019) as it literally commented on this phenomena, though I suppose the ongoing usage of dolls within my practice hints subtly towards the notion of the other taking over our identities, consuming us, replacing us.

Figure 1 Tinwell, A. & Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. (2009) Bridging the Uncanny: An impossible traverse?

Looking at the theory behind The Uncanny Wall (2011), which is arguably the antithesis of the Uncanny Valley theory, in that Tinwell et al, consider those made from the image of humans yet are not, can never ascend to being accepted as full human ever with a barrier obscuring any further progression, they write:

“The Uncanny Valley holds out some hope for a traversal to the other side in achieving believable realism, comparable to that of a human. However, the Uncanny Wall concept works against such aspiration. Similar to the outcomes of myths, fables and legends of ancient times and modern day stories, characters created by man (such as Frankenstein or Pinocchio) will always be regarded as lesser than those created by gods.”
Tinwell, A. et al (2011)

Personally I’m not sure I agree with this theory in that I consider the Valley as a metaphor of the very real fear we humans project when we see something in our likeness become close to human. On the subject of the Uncanny Valley Saygin et al’s paper “The thing that should not be: predictive coding and the uncanny valley in perceiving human and humanoid robot actions.” (2011) discusses the potential reasoning behind this notion of the uncanny valley assigning it as a behavioural response when something doesn’t behave in the way we anticipate, to be precise they write:

“Here we hypothesized that the uncanny valley may, at least partially, be caused by the violation of the brain’s predictions: When an agent looks like a human, based on a lifetime of experience, the brain generates a prediction that this appearance will be associated with a particular kind of behaviour (e.g. movement kinematics). When the behaviour of the agent violates the predicton, an error is generated…”
Saygin, A.P. et al (2011; 414-415)

Figure 2 Looser, C.E. & Wheatley, T. (2010) The Tipping Point of Animacy: How, When, and Where We Perceive Life in a Face

Saygin et al are not alone in their thoughts behind what causes the sensation of the uncanny valley, in 2010 Looser and Wheatley wrote a paper that explored the tipping point of animacy, the conclusions they made after completing a series of experiments aligns with the theories and also Saygins comments, they suggest “…that this hyperacuity in perceiving meaning in subtle facial cues extends to the perceptual inference of animacy. It may be evolutionarily advantageous to overimpute animacy (better to have a false alarm regarding a rock than to miss a predator)…” (Looser, C.E. & Wheatley, T. 2010; 1860)

References

Figures

Figure 1 Tinwell, A. & Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. (2009) Bridging the Uncanny: An impossible traverse? [Online] Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Uncanny-Wall_fig2_30502965 [Accessed 04/04/2020]

Figure 2 Looser, C.E. & Wheatley, T. (2010) The Tipping Point of Animacy: How, When, and Where We Perceive Life in a Face. [Online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti9o_HDAXwk [Accessed 06/04/2020]

Bibliography

Crist, C. (2018) WIRED: Use Science (Not Surgery) to Create Your Best Selfie. [Online] Available from: https://www.wired.com/story/use-science-not-surgery-to-create-your-best-selfie/ [Accessed 05/04/2020]

Freud, S. (1919) Uncanny. [Online] Available from: https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf and http://courses.washington.edu/freudlit/Uncanny.Notes.html [Accessed 04/04/2020]

Jentsch, E. (1906) On the Psychology of the Uncanny. [Online] Available from: http://www.art3idea.psu.edu/locus/Jentsch_uncanny.pdf [Accessed 04/04/2020]

Lay, S. (2015) The Guardian Opinion: Uncanny valley: why we find human-like robots and dolls so creepy. [Online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/13/robots-human-uncanny-valley [Accessed 04/04/2020]

Looser, C.E. & Wheatley, T. (2010) Psychological Science 2010 21: 1854. “The Tipping Point of Animacy: How, When, and Where We Perceive Life in a Face.” [Online] Available from: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/12/1854 [Accessed 06/04/2020]

Middleton, N. (2005) Photography & The Uncanny. [Online] Available from: http://www.nicholasmiddleton.co.uk/thesis/thesis4.html [Accessed 06/04/2020]

Mori, M. MacDorman, K.F. Kageki, N. (2012 | 1970) 不気味の谷 The Uncanny Valley. [Online] Available from: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6213238 [Accessed 04/04/2020]

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 04/04/2020]

Ravetto-Biagioli, K. (2019) Digital Uncanny. pg 22-23 & 163. New York; Oxford University Press.

Saygin, A.P., Chaminade, T., Ishiguro, H., Driver, J. & Frith, C. (2011) Scan (2012) 7, pg 413-422. “The thing that should not be: predictive coding and the uncanny valley in perceiving human and humanoid robot actions.” [Online] Available from: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article-abstract/7/4/413/1738009/ [Accessed 05/04/2020]

Suler, J. (2016) International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies: Vol 13, Issue 4. pg 374-379. “The Uncanny in the Digital Age.” [Online] Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/aps.1479 [Accessed 04/04/2020]

Tinwell, A., Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. & Williams, A. (2011) Int. J. of Arts and Technology. 4. 326 – 341. “The Uncanny Wall.” [Online] Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJART.2011.041485 and https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0d77/b1b118c1fb3d4f82b5dc15a145ab24d2e24f.pdf [Accessed 04/04/2020]

Wang, Y. & Quadflieg, S. (2015) Scan (2015) 10, 1515-1524. “In our own image? Emotional and neural processing differences when observing human-human vs human-robot interactions.” [Online] Available from: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article-abstract/10/11/1515/1643444/ [Accessed 07/04/2020]

Week 7: Research: The Digital Uncanny

PHO702: Critical Research Journal

Artist Research

**Figure 2** Fournier, V. (2016) *Johnny 05, Darmstadt, 2016, from the series The Man Machine*

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]

Tag: The Uncanny

Week 7: Research; Phillips, Sex Dolls, Objectification and the Uncanny

Valerie Phillips

Sex Dolls, Objectification & The Uncanny

Marco van Duyvendijk and Xiaoxiao Xu

Marcel Duchamp – Étant donnés and the Surrealists

Practice & Preparation: A Post on the Uncanny

Week 7: Research: The Digital Uncanny

Further Reading

Artist Research