32 images Created 4 Nov 2021
The Uncanny Valley
As an artist, I interpret the world as I perceive and know it. And what do I see and know? Drama. Tension. Humor. Contradiction. Sensuality. Tragedy. Beauty. Ambiguity. Love. And God. I see all of this because I am inescapably surrounded by its reflection in every person, place, and thing that I encounter. I am immersed in it just by being alive.
THE UNCANNY VALLEY, a term coined by roboticist Masahiro Mori, refers to that place in the human psyche where comfort and discomfort collide. It is the unease we feel when what we think we know to be true clashes with an alternate reality that is just as true–and how we reconcile that. We don’t like confusion, we don’t do so well with ambiguity–it’s rough. We want definition, clarity; everything in its box, tied up neat with a bow. That’s what makes life doable for most people. It’s also fucking boring–to me.
I started photographing mannequin heads years ago when I came across them, all lined up on a shelf, in the prop rental house at Universal Studios. What are mannequins? Idealizations. They are abstracted representations symbolizing an ideal standard of beauty for human beings. BUT THEY ARE NOT REAL. THEIR FEATURES ARE NOT REAL. THEIR PROPORTIONS ARE NOT REAL. Yet, we are told, and believe, that they are the perfect version of us. THEY ARE WHAT WE ASPIRE TO. But, of course, we never make the grade. We can’t–it is impossible. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting, expecting, and looking for this perfection in ourselves and others. What happens to us when we don’t see it, when we inevitably fall short? Ask the therapists.
The same can be said of religious icons. Jesus is almost always depicted as a white, fair skinned man with long flowing hair whose face and body are beautifully proportioned. He is also the embodiment of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness in a way that we can never fully be because, well, HE IS A GOD AND WE ARE NOT. Once again, we fall short. And, if we actually did believe that we are, in fact, exactly the same as Jesus in all ways, then perhaps we wouldn’t need or want him–or anything outside of ourselves–to worship or save us. Perhaps we would worship our own Divinity.
THE UNCANNY VALLEY shows where beauty, devotion, and sensuality collide in my mind. It is where MY mannequin heads soar in the stars or are buried in the earth, engulfed in flowers. I bathe them in searing light and explode them with saturated color. The light and the color caress me and make me glow inside. I feel alive, renewed, refreshed, EXCITED! And that’s the point: I create my own ideals of beauty–new icons–using these objects. I raise them up, I give them new life, new context. I worship THEM and in doing so, they illuminate ME.
THE UNCANNY VALLEY, a term coined by roboticist Masahiro Mori, refers to that place in the human psyche where comfort and discomfort collide. It is the unease we feel when what we think we know to be true clashes with an alternate reality that is just as true–and how we reconcile that. We don’t like confusion, we don’t do so well with ambiguity–it’s rough. We want definition, clarity; everything in its box, tied up neat with a bow. That’s what makes life doable for most people. It’s also fucking boring–to me.
I started photographing mannequin heads years ago when I came across them, all lined up on a shelf, in the prop rental house at Universal Studios. What are mannequins? Idealizations. They are abstracted representations symbolizing an ideal standard of beauty for human beings. BUT THEY ARE NOT REAL. THEIR FEATURES ARE NOT REAL. THEIR PROPORTIONS ARE NOT REAL. Yet, we are told, and believe, that they are the perfect version of us. THEY ARE WHAT WE ASPIRE TO. But, of course, we never make the grade. We can’t–it is impossible. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting, expecting, and looking for this perfection in ourselves and others. What happens to us when we don’t see it, when we inevitably fall short? Ask the therapists.
The same can be said of religious icons. Jesus is almost always depicted as a white, fair skinned man with long flowing hair whose face and body are beautifully proportioned. He is also the embodiment of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness in a way that we can never fully be because, well, HE IS A GOD AND WE ARE NOT. Once again, we fall short. And, if we actually did believe that we are, in fact, exactly the same as Jesus in all ways, then perhaps we wouldn’t need or want him–or anything outside of ourselves–to worship or save us. Perhaps we would worship our own Divinity.
THE UNCANNY VALLEY shows where beauty, devotion, and sensuality collide in my mind. It is where MY mannequin heads soar in the stars or are buried in the earth, engulfed in flowers. I bathe them in searing light and explode them with saturated color. The light and the color caress me and make me glow inside. I feel alive, renewed, refreshed, EXCITED! And that’s the point: I create my own ideals of beauty–new icons–using these objects. I raise them up, I give them new life, new context. I worship THEM and in doing so, they illuminate ME.
