Marieke / Thesis Outline

Thesis outline

The uncanny – Defamiliarization

Psychological short horror (or) an uncanny video?

Uncanny; Strange, suspicious and unnatural

Uncanny Valley

When does the familiar become unfamiliar?

Unheimlich; Something that is at once frightening, yet familiar. Freud uses the German word unheimlich and its opposite Heimlich to illustrate this point. Unheimlich means both “familiar” and “unfamiliar” and translates into English as "uncanny."

Psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan wrote that the uncanny places us "in the field where we do not know how to distinguish bad and good, pleasure from displeasure", resulting in an irreducible anxiety that gestures to the Real.

Plan to read a book/text by Julia Kristeva – Powers of Horror

The closer to reality the scarier? Slight offset from reality / The real world and its social order are more threatening to mind and body than the supernatural.

Making use of improvisation and a realistic setting without excluding the viewer. Focus on keeping the improvisation public instead of private. Films that employ a great deal of improvisation are more dependent on a clearly defined narrative structure than more traditional productions. (The Rhetoric of Cinematic Improvisation, Virginia Wright Wexman)

The audio Uncanny Valley: Sound, fear and the horror game, Mark Nicholas Grimshaw-Aagaard:

• Certain amplitude envelopes applied to sound affect perceptions of urgency.

• Familiar or iconic sounds can be defamiliarized and this can lead to perceptions of uncanniness.

• Uncertainty about the location of a sound source, its cause or its meaning in the virtual world increases the fear emotion.

Bullet Points Thesis:

• Theory on Uncanny / Unheimlich - Not in relation to Freud

• Sound in relation to Horror

• (Horror) Games - Interaction

• Japanese Photography (often described as provocative, grim, raw, odd and magical)

• Psychology of fear and trauma

• Films and series that blur the line between fiction and reality (the act of observation)

• Script and improvisation

• Gender roles in Horror (It Follows)

• Moral Philosophy

Infrageluid - Lage vibraties

I. Introduction

1. Background

This thesis will be a dive into the psychological and aesthetic areas of the uncanny. In this research I want to explore the parallels between the uncanny and psychological horror. A genre in which anxiety and fear is amplified. Related to this is Julia Kristeva's theory on abjection. Abjection literally means: The state of being cast off. As Kristeva puts it, "The corpse, seen without God and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life. Abject"

These two concept of the uncanny and abjection are both theories that deal with fear, dissociation and trauma. I want to relate these theories to my interest in the relationship between model, camera and director/operator. My interest in these concepts grew from my research into the (male) gaze and voyeurism in photography and filmmaking. This desire to figure out the voyeurist gaze has grown into an interest of what makes a gaze violating and when this gaze becomes intimidating and scary.

2. Thesis statement

The voyeuristic gaze with its violating tendencies are a reflection of the violence and power structures we deal with in our society. Violence is still preferred over empathy in cinema. I want to make a stand that it is possible to make a movie about violence that does not depict any violence. I believe it is possible to make a lasting psychological and fearful impression on the viewer without the depiction of graphic violence.

II. Body

Point A: The relation between "the uncanny and "the unheimlich".

1. Theory outside of Freud his philosophy.

2. Psychology of fear and trauma.

Point B: The role of interaction.

1. Moving image that blurs the line between fiction and reality (the act of observation).

2. (Horror) Games.

3. Sound in relation to Horror.

4. Script and improvisation.

Point C: Morals as a reflection of society.

1. Gender roles in Horror (It Follows).

2. Japanese Photography (often described as provocative, grim, raw, odd and magical).

3. Morals in relation to the uncanny.

III. Conclusion

1. Main Points: See Body of Thesis for now.

2. Final Statement: -.