This paper explores the surface properties of skin and eyes and their importance in the acceptance and success of a digital human face, specifically in relation to the uncanny valley. The uncanny valley hypothesis states that as a human representation approaches photo-realism, subtle differences from reality become unsettling. Recent studies suggest that the uncanny valley could exist over a far greater range, affecting abstract human representations as well. These competing findings are explored by analyzing how changes to the surface of a digital character affect its level of acceptance. A female facial model is used as a base to compare a spectrum of different simulated real-world materials. The variations range from materials that are nearly identical to human skin, to those that are completely divergent from it, thus unnatural. After studying this catalogue of materials, it is concluded that given the right conditions, the uncanny valley can occur when facial representations are very near realism, as well as when human-likeness is quite distant from reality.

Open Studio: A Phase in Six Years of my Art Education is a true-to-scale reproduction of my graduate studio space, populated by a meticulously constructed life-size, wax self-portrait. Evoking Romantic imagery of the artist in the studio, the uncanniness of the wax figure creates an experience of the type that Mike Kelley has described as “banal [and] emptied of magic.” The figure’s eyes are closed and his gesture is as vulnerable as it is defensive. Almost teetering, but balanced within the space, the work poetically falls apart upon close inspection and reveals a narrative that’s open to interpretation.

No description available.

Aprendizes e professores de línguas constituem-se por diferentes representações acerca da língua com a qual mantêm contato e do contexto que a compreende. Desse ponto de vista, analisamos a relação sujeito-língua com o objetivo de examinar como as representações mobilizadas pelos sujeitos produzem efeitos de sentido para os sujeitos e para a relação que eles estabelecem com a língua. Assim, de uma perspectiva discursiva (CORACINI, 2009; GRIGOLETTO, 2013; ORLANDI, 2012), considerando conceitos psicanalíticos (LACAN, 1964; VOLTOLINI, 2011), analisamos os dizeres de quinze entrevistados (aprendizes e professores), envolvidos com uma língua estrangeira: inglês, espanhol, francês, alemão, italiano, japonês, chinês e russo. Depreendemos, dos dizeres, a regularidade de três formações discursivas, a que nomeamos: língua guarda-roupa (cuja dinâmica é semelhante àquela conceitualizada por Bauman (2005) com a \"comunidade guardaroupa\"), língua atraente (sugerindo os efeitos de fascinação que a língua exerce ao sujeito) e língua fragmentada (apontando determinada imagem de segmentação da língua). Na análise, articulamos o conceito freudiano do \"estranho\" (FREUD, 1919), que se apresenta de modo profícuo para o exame da relação sujeito-língua, pois explica efeitos de \"estranhamento\", percebidos como desconforto e dificuldade, constitutivos do sujeito e que observamos nessa relação. A partir desse conceito, também examinamos os efeitos de familiaridade, enunciados como bem-estar e conforto na relação sujeito-língua e também relacionados às formações discursivas referidas. A análise da fluidez entre os efeitos de estranhamento e familiaridade destaca a constituição clivada do sujeito e a amplitude de efeitos de sua relação com a língua, contemplando representações constituídas nas condições de produção da hipermodernidade, concernentes ao mundo do mercado e de suas relações líquidas. / Language learners and teachers are constituted by different representations of the language with which they keep contact and also of the context that surrounds it. Bearing that in mind, we analyse the relation between subject and language, aiming at understanding how the representations the subjects mobilise produce different effects upon them and on the relation they establish with the language. Thus, from a discursive perspective (CORACINI, 2009; GRIGOLETTO, 2013; ORLANDI, 2012), considering psychoanalytical concepts (LACAN, 1964; VOLTOLINI, 2011), we examine the interviews made with fifteen learners and teachers, involved with one of the following languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Russian. We can see, from their words, the regularity of three different discursive formations: the cloakroom language (whose dynamics is similar to the one developed by Bauman (2005) with the \"cloackroom community\"), the attractive language (suggesting effects of fascination the language exercises upon the subject), and the fragmented language (indicating certain representations of language segmentation). In our analysis, we articulate the Freudian concept of the \"uncanny\" (FREUD, 1919), for it explains sensations of discomfort and difficulty, which constitute the subject and can be observed in the relation between subject and language. We also examine its counterpart, the effects of familiarity, uttered as sensations of well-being and comfort in this relation and also related to the discursive formations forementioned. The analysis of the dynamics between the effects of uncanny and familiarity highlight the cleaved constitution of the subject and the range of effects of their relation with the language, contemplating representations constructed in accordance with the circumstances of hypermodernity, concerning the market itself and its liquid relations.

In much of the writing of twentieth century Anglo-Irish author Elizabeth Bowen, houses, and in particular family homes, often reflect the psychological and social status of their inhabitants. They can be understood as the structural embodiments of the vast cultural and economic network taking shape as the forces of urbanization and industrialization changed the landscape. Yet, even as these domestic spaces represent the predominant social relations characterizing the first half of the twentieth century, the family homes also can play a key role in character development and gender identity, defining the lives of those who inhabit them, by perpetuating these same previously established and codified social roles and relationships. The family home in Bowen is often characterized by the furniture and objects that fill and structure its interior space, and the resulting pattern of experience functions to confine and represent the lives and expectations of its residents. As a result, for each of these families, this domestic space and the memories with which it is associated exert a strong and compelling force on the family members’ present psychological and emotional states, as well as their expectations for the future. Although the social conventions of the family home can be suffocating in their definition of these expectations, especially for the women of the house, these conventions also supply a stability and constancy that is perhaps conducive to the very formation of a stable identity. The security promised by the inner order of the home comes to determine the psychological stability of the inhabitants’ subjective reality, though the many upheavals that inundated the first half of the twentieth century succeeded in revealing that spatial security as an illusion. If Bowen’s characters are to succeed in achieving a self-determined identity in the new, precarious reality of the modern century, they must not only reconcile themselves to the legacy of the family home and the past traditions that it embodies, but also determine a new basis for self-realization as a twentieth century subject outside of the prescribed roles defined and perpetuated by a more traditional domestic space. In order to determine the extent to which these modern family homes reflect the dominant social discourses of the period and perpetuate their codes of identity and behavior, it will be necessary to acknowledge and take into consideration the political and cultural environment in which Bowen’s representations of domestic space exist. For example, Bowen’s depiction of the Anglo-Irish Big House Danielstown in The Last September must be understood in light of the declining political and economic power of the Ascendancy that occurred throughout the early twentieth century. In a further effort to examine the significance of homes in Elizabeth Bowen, I will also focus on selected texts from her short fiction. The moments of dispossession that are scattered throughout Bowen’s texts appear to suggest the possibility of the fictions that lie behind the stability of both the family home and the identities of family members attached to that space.

Detta examensarbete undersöker om ögonfärger och former kring ögonen hos spelkaraktärer i action-genren och om ovanliga aspekter kring dessa kan orsaka en kuslig effekt som minskar trovärdigheten hos dem. Teorier kring hur människor uppfattar varandra, “The Uncanny Valley” samt stereotyper i dataspel och samhället har använts som grund för att analysera arbetet. För att undersöka detta ämne togs 15 ritade koncept utav tre spelkaraktärer från olika kända dataspel. Koncepten skapades med fokus på karaktärens grunddesign, ovanliga och neonfärger, asymmetri samt vidgade ögon. Undersökningen genomfördes med en enkät och en semistrukturerad intervju för 6 informanter som hade någon form av erfarenhet att spela dataspel. Syftet med undersökningen var att ta reda på om man kunde använda sig av att ändra ögonens färgsättning hos karaktärer i en spelgenre där detta i nuläget inte är vanligt förekommande, utan att karaktären för den skull upplevs som obehaglig och onaturlig.

Detta arbete undersöker om det går att förklara varför bilder i Shaun Tans bok Ankomsten upplevs som obehagliga. Teorin i uppsatsen grundar sig till stor del på ”das unheimlich”, ett uttryck myntat av Freud och som i uppsatsen beskrivs som det kusliga. Andra teorier är kognitiv dissonans och hyperbol. För att analysera bilderna definieras frågor baserade på teorins grundpunkter. I resultatet visar det sig att nästan alla bilder är länkade till det kusliga, ibland i kombination med andra teorier. Det görs också analyser om huruvida objektens skala och proportioner kan ha en inverkan eller inte, baserat på ”grodperspektivet”. I analysen görs även några liknelser till propagandaposters från andra världskriget, vilket länkas till ”mentala triggers”. I slutsatsen konstateras det att arbetet kunde blivit utförligare om det under forskningen funnits fler anledningar till obehag som kan länkas till bilderna. Det fanns även ett problem med att förklara varför många upplever vissa saker som obehagliga och dessa fick refereras till fobier, även om detta inte helt stämmer, och upplevelserna egentligen kan beskrivas som rädslor. För vidare forskning föreslås fokusgrupper för att testa uppfattningar med en kvantitativ metod samt att analysera historien utifrån ett genusperspektiv där huvudrollen i stället hade varit en kvinna. / This paper investigates if it is possible to explain why pictures in Shaun Tans book The Arrival are experienced as unpleasant. The theory of the essay is mainly based on "das unheimlich" coined by Freud and is in the essay described as “uncanny”. Other theories are based on cognitive dissonance and hyperbole. In order to analyse the images content, questions based on the basic points of the theories are defined. As a result, it turns out nearly all pictures are linked to uncanny, sometimes in combination with other theories. Analyses regarding if scale and proportions of objects can make an impact are also made, based on the "frog perspective". Some similarities between images in “The Arrival” and propaganda posters from World War II can be observed, which can be linked to mental triggers. In the discussions, it is made clear that the research could have developed further if more reasons for discomfort were investigated while observing the images. There was also a problem with explaining why many observers are experiencing some elements as unpleasant and these elements are in the paper referred to as phobias, even though this not quite accurate and should be referred to as fears. In order to carry on further research, focus groups are suggested to test perceptions with a quantitative method. Also, to look at the story from a gender perspective, and to see what would be different if the main character was a female.

No description available.

In this writing, I guide the reader through different aspects of the emotional understanding and experiencing of art. The general purpose of the research is to argue that aesthetic experience is intertwined with various emotional stages. I attempt to decipher the meaning of an imagined or recreated nature (landscape and creatures) by other artists and then focus on my own realizations in creating it. To undertake this challenge, I aspire to understand the unconscious emotional connections of nature to humans, as well as the related notions of the uncanny and the corporeal. The methodology of the research is partly by finding evidence from the discipline of psychology and phenomenology, partly introspective and also process-based (technical) by focusing on the discipline of glass making. The paper’s main conclusions are embedded in my final work, which serve as an illustration as well as qualities of a craft-based research.

Till följd av snabba framsteg inom animeringsteknik har möjligheten att skapa realistiska datorgenererade karaktärer resulterat i att fenomenet uncanny valley eller på svenska kusliga dalen, som tidigare endast nämnts i samband med robotik, också visat sig existera i animerad film. Uncanny valley beskriver den subjektiva punkten när en virtuell karaktär uppfattas för realistisk eller människolik vilket leder till att den emotionella responsen hos betraktaren blir negativ istället för empatisk och engagerande. Syftet med studien är att kvalitativt undersöka den empatiska responsen hos en person som tittar på animerad film i uncanny valley jämfört med den känslomässiga reaktionen när personen i fråga tittar på animerad film vars karaktärer stiliserats och överdrivits för att undvika uncanny valley. I undersökningen fick 15 elever se 12 klipp från tre olika filmer, varav en film fungerade som normalfall för empatisk respons. Klippen följde en karaktär från respektive film när den upplever glädje, sorg, ilska och rädsla. Deltagarna blev därefter ombedda att bedöma hur starkt de berördes av scenerna och vilken av de fyra nämnda känslorna de trodde klippen förmedlade. Resultatet av studien visar att animerad film som faller i uncanny valley påverkar den empatiska responsen negativt och att animerade filmer med karaktärer som överdrivits och stiliserats för att undvika uncanny valley i de flesta fall uppfattas som bättre och lättare att empatisera med. Resultaten pekade även på att deltagarna hade svårare att uppfatta känslor i film som var animerad otion capture teknik, dvs film där uncanny valley fenomenet ofta uppstår. / Due to rapid advances in animation technology the opportunity to create increasingly realistic computer generated characters has resulted in that the phenomenon of uncanny valley, as previously mentioned only in robotics, also proved to exist in animated film. The uncanny valley describes the subjective point when the virtual characters are deemed too realistic or human like and the emotional reaction towards them is negative rather than empathetic and engaging.‌ The purpose of this study is to qualitatively examine the empathic response of a viewer watching clips from an animated movie in uncanny valley as well as a an animated movie that has been exaggerated and stylized. To research this, 15 students watched 12 clips from three different movies, one movie serving as a normal case for empathic response. The clip followed one character from each film when they experienced joy, sadness, anger and fear. The participants were then asked to assess how strongly they were touched by the film and which of the four previously mentioned emotions they believed was conveyed in the clip. The results of the study show that animated features that falls into the uncanny valley affects the empathic response negatively and animated movies with exaggerated and stylized animations are in most cases perceived as better and easier to empathize with. The results also showed that the perception of emotion displayed in the clips was more unclear for animations done with motion capture, i.e where the uncanny valley effect is most prominent.