This thesis examines visionary directors David Lynch and Panos Cosmatos aesthetics in the films Inland Empire and Beyond the Black Rainbow. Two films with surrealistic aspects that are using a form of degraded aesthetics to achieve a certain kind of cinematography that is rarely seen in the industry. We examine what tools are being used to achieve the effect with theories concerning defamiliarization, the uncanny and uncanny valley. Aspects of cinematography in these films are working together to create effects that are both defamiliarized and uncanny.

[pt] Este trabalho disserta sobre características subjetivas e técnicas do Vídeo Imersivo (VI) e da Realidade Virtual 3D (3DVR). Observa, particularmente, aspectos de uma estratégia do design realista com que ambientes são concebidos e produzidos em projetos de Realidade Virtual (VR). O Uncanny Valley (UV) é um corolário do processo criativo de personagens, representado por uma curva conceitual em que a conexão emocional ou empatia entre audiência e personagens varia de forma não linear e não diretamente proporcional em função do realismo com que estes personagens são concebidos. Dado o protagonismo dos ambientes em projetos VR, haveria um Uncanny Valley of Places? Lugares, ambientes, espaços e a cenografia virtual estão sujeitos a uma estranheza em Realidade Virtual? Neste trabalho, são apresentados dados de três ciclos de pesquisa a partir três experimentos VR que buscam responder a estas questões: 1) O experimento Immersive Bike (IB), que integra estímulos visuais em VI com estímulos hapticos sinestésicos passivos; 2) A aplicação Rio 360 VR; aplicativo imersivo; 3) Pesquisa centrada no usuário, que compara diretamente aplicações VI e 3DVR. Este trabalho aponta caminhos para apoiar o processo criativo do Designer de Interação, demonstrando que sensação de imersão não é função direta do maior ou menor realismo com que as imagens são produzidas e sim é potencializada a partir da conexão multimodal do repertório de sensações dos usuários e sua conexão com as histórias propostas pelas aplicações imersivas. / [en] This dissertation aims to present subjective and technical characteristics of Immersive Video (IV) and 3D Virtual Reality (3DVR). Observes, particularly, aspects related to a realism approach design strategy for VR environment s conception. The Uncanny Valley (UV) is a corollary of illustrated character s creative process, a conceptual curve that represents the variation of the emotional connection with characters related to its realistic properties conception. The UV refers to the base of a parabolic positive curve of this dynamic relation between empathy and realism, on which is detected a weirdness or an uncanny as much realistic the character seams. Does VR environments are subjected to an analog UV? Is there an Uncanny Valley of Places? Do places, ambients, spaces and virtual scenography is subjected to an uncanny in Virtual Reality? This work presents results of three cycles of research based on three VR experiments that aim to respond these questions: 1) The Immersive Bike experiment, which design integrates IV with kinesthetic haptics; 2) Rio 360 VR0, an immersive aplication for mobile interaction; 3) Human-centered research that compares IV and 3DVR applications. This work points a path to the Interaction Designer creative process, proposing that the immersive sensation is not directly proportional of how realistic an immersive image is produced, but is potentiated by the multimodal user s connection with the storytelling of the immersive aplication.

Robots are constantly evolving, from Da Vinci's first robot to humanoids that exist today and are used in various industries. This study examines how a humanoid is perceived as service staff in a car dealership and this was done through a qualitative case study where semi-structured interviews and on-site observations were combined. These were carried out at Riddermark Bil, which is one of Sweden's largest car dealers for used cars. The theory part is based on the concept of anthropomorphism and the uncanny valley theory which are related and important to customers' acceptance of the robot. Anthropomorphism is about giving non-human objects, such as robots, human properties to make it easier to interact with them. Uncanny valley comes into the picture when these human qualities create an expectation in man that is not achieved by the robot and a feeling of discomfort arises in man. This feeling of discomfort is what characterizes the uncanny valley. The analysis showed that uncanny valley exists in the car dealership with the humanoid and customers, and how the degree of anthropomorphism affects the viewer and the interaction. What turned out overall was that most people, customers and staff, are positive about interacting with a humanoid, but present it does not really meet the expectations placed on it. Finally, it is discussed how uncanny valley affects customers in a car dealership and what the reasons for this are.

"It Follows" (2014), written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. It chronicles the story of Jay, a college student who contracts a curse through sexual intercourse. The curse manifests itself as a human whom only the infected persons can see, always following at a walking pace, and determined to kill if it catches up. This thesis demonstrates the score's crucial role in establishing affect, setting, and character in a film with sparse dialogue and a silent monster. Moreover, the score creates a sense of the uncanny by complicating the binary between music and sound effect and fulfills the need to create dread without resorting to the loud or sudden sounds traditionally heard in horror films. The score's composer, Richard Vreeland, achieves this effect by drawing on both classical film scoring techniques as well as more modern horror scoring styles. It is this interaction between styles that enhances the viewers' experience of dread and horror in the film. This thesis analyzes how Vreeland's score for "It Follows" exploits the poetics of the fantastical gap, of the uncanny, and of musical semiosis. I primarily focus on the "Heels" theme and use of drones in "It Follows," tracing how these musical features blur the distinction between what is score and what is sound effect. I also examine the use of melodic themes in a primarily non-melodic score. By analyzing these elements, I show how Richard Vreeland uses both classical and modern scoring techniques to answer his own question: "Why is this scary? What could push that emotion even further?"

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Patrick Chamoiseau is arguably the most prominent cultural personality from the French island of Martinique. His reputation is due to the worldwide success of his novels, especially Texaco, winner of the Prix Goncourt-award in 1992, but also to the fact that he is the leading theorist of the Créolité, an ideological movement whose aim is to preserve the character of Creole identity and culture against the threat of assimilation. Chamoiseau’s importance in an ideological context tends to overshadow his literary qualities, his novels being often seen as illustrations of his political ideas.Although Chamoiseau’s ideological views aren’t totally absent from his literary work, his novels strike the reader as extremely complex constructions, containing far more than a subversive aspect. An aspect that has been neglected by the critics is for example the supernatural. Probably because of the geographic vicinity to South America, Chamoiseau’s use of the supernatural has been, rather hastily, considered as typical of magical realism or marvellous realism. This dissertation aims at showing that the fantastic, as defined by Tzvetan Todorov (1970), is better suited to describe this aspect of Chamoiseau’s novels, especially Biblique des derniers gestes (2002).Our main objective is, however, not to decide whether the novel belongs to the fantastic as a genre, but to examine the reasons why it is used. A close analysis shows that it is often in relation to the past of Martinique that the supernatural appears. Thanks to the theory of the fantastic, we find three possible explanations of this fact. Firstly, the supernatural is juxtaposed to the real in order to reveal its limits and its “constructedness”. Martinican past thus appears as a French construction. Secondly, the fantastic can be used to reveal the absence of genuine Martinican history. Finally, the fantastic can be a reminder of a terrible event from the past. In conclusion it can be said that Chamoiseau uses the fantastic in order to write the history of an event that he sees as the origin of Martinique: slavery. By doing this he contributes to the fantastic as well, by showing that it is not necessarily gratuitous and by providing a good example of original and innovative use.

Through practice-led research this thesis will explore the phenomenology of interactions between the digital 'other', and the lived experience of the subject through real-time video performance practice. It challenges the assumption that the digital video image is merely or simply other to the subject and aims to re-position the 'other' as an integral part of self where we perform the other. It does this by drawing on Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage and claims that through digital performance we can suspend divisions between the self and the digital other. By being immersed within the real-time video image the thesis argues we re-enter the Mirror Stage and become captivated within the digital counterpart. Through a disruption in the proprioception of the body there is a crossover of the actual self and digital other which are suspended in each other. Through the use of Head Mounted Display Systems in the work In[bodi]lmental it is claimed that the actual body can In[body] the other subject as part of self. The thesis argues that the digital other is a component of self mediated through new digital technologies to be understood as an augmented self. Therefore it is through an In[bodied] Mirror Stage we momentarily access the loss of the Lacanian real encountered through the uncanny experience. This investigation has been conducted in the form of four digital performance projects defined as Inter-Reactive Explorations I-REs (i-iv).The I-REs were subjected to critical analysis and reflection using a variety of disciplines including: psychoanalysis, philosophy, the study of perception, phenomenology, and ethnography. The methodological framework for this research has been coined 'auto-ethnophenomenology'; a mixed-method approach utilizing auto-ethnography and the phenomenological lived experiences of informants. This model has enabled both the 'I' of the researcher and the other to be equally represented from both first person and third person perspectives. The symbiotic relationship between the theory and the practice is exemplified through the phenomenology of interactions between the digital 'other', and the lived experience of the subjects supported by the writings of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Drew Leder and Rane Willerslev.

This practice-led Ph.D. is comprised of a body of work (hybrid films) and its contextual analysis. Together they constitute a method that aims to understand and re-interpret the dialogical relationship between live action and animation filmmaking. The research argues that from its beginning the art of moving images has presented a struggle between opposed tendencies such as imprint and construction , machine eye and artist s hand , dissection of time and condensation of time that are found between the unstable duality of live action and animation. While mainstream cinema has focused most of its efforts on taming the collisions that occur within the integration of live action and animation, it has also relied on the interface s instability to animate its being. As the interface becomes more invisible in the digital age, this research reconsiders the interaction between live action and animation in moving-image production and the construction of meaning in filmmaking as it incorporates the digital into its languages. In contextualising the double and fluctuating nature of co-presence in live action and animation, my question is How could the integration of the opposing attributes of live action and animation interrupt perceptual realism and produce a sense of estrangement in a meaningful way? Firstly this involves identifying the constantly mobile tension between live action and animation. Secondly integration is informed by ideas of estrangement and derealisation , and methods of interrupting perceptual coherence within the screened world to reveal insights into the world of social relations. Two underlying themes are addressed: (1) the uncanniness of co-presence, and (2) the expression of subjectivity through this co-presence. Interrogating the constructedness of the hybridised figure as it appears on screen by exposing its inherent conflicts, and exploring the aesthetics of estrangement and the expression of subjectivity in hybrid films led to an inquiry about cinematic time and movement. This revealed another dimension to the difference and interrelationship between live action and animation. Being both the source and outcome of these themes as expressed in the written thesis, the practical component of this project consists of three hybrid films: Nothing to Do with Weather (3 50 ), Animating Animator the Animated (2 47 ), and Flying Tunes (8 27 ). Theoretical findings are identified through the analysis of works by other artists and discussion of their concepts, and my own practice contributes to knowledge by inspiring, assessing and demonstrating my ideas on hybridity. My three practices are, to some extent, an allegory about the alienation a Far-East Asian filmmaker may feel in a world seemingly dominated by Western paradigms. The films chart my Far-Eastern Asian independent filmmaker s research as a journey towards an adaptation of the aesthetics and methods of contemporary filmmaking originating in Western culture and philosophy. As a piece of research, the transformation of the researcher through practice may be considered of significance in the formation of theory.

This essay explores how James Baldwin’s short story Going to Meet the Man depicts racist attitudes toward African-Americans in American society. Further, this essay also shows how racism is linked to a circulation of emotions that unconsciously generates a xenophobic nation affecting even those who implicitly are regarded as genuine citizens of that community. By using two theoretical perspectives, Sara Ahmed’s theory of affective economies and some of Freud’s concepts from psychoanalysis, this essay analyzes Baldwin’s text and discovers how the American nation needs to accept and recognize its racist history, just as a child needs to acknowledge his or her fear when experiencing traumatic events. Baldwin’s narrative reinforces racist stereotypes while at the same time using the text to write back to a society that at the time of writing had not expected, but indeed needed, an African-American man to publish a book from a white man’s perspective.

This thesis is a critical analysis of the processes, concepts and imagery of my artwork. In my art, I intended to explore death anxieties, individuality and the uncanny. I am interested in what we leave behind after we are gone as proof of existing post mortem. My themes include procreation, forensic science, and religion among others. My imagery includes fragmented bodies, reliquaries, and forensic evidence. I use traditional and non-traditional sculpture materials and processes that are intended to conceptually inform the viewer further.