Noel Cruz  

Posted by Aj

While I was doing some research into the the uncanny, i came across a artist and sculptor called Noel Cruz. He is a celebrity Doll maker, I was looking through some of his work and the faces are so really, they really gave me a sense of uncanny. He makes these celebrity look alike dolls, that looks absolutely real, then he sells them to different fans.



There is a lot more celebrities he has done but these are just a few examples, there faces do look almost real, however the bodies and scales are of  on the figures. For me this does  create a sense of ambiguity.

If anyone wants to looks at his work here the link : http://www.ncruz.com/celebrities_pages/celebrities.html

Invaders from Mars  

Posted by Aj

Once again another great movie shown to us by phil, Invaders from mars is supposdely one of the great movies of the 50's. Compared to the Invasion of Body Snatchers it doesn't have that much despair in it. its more along the lines of being a bit funny and playful at the same time. Its starts of as a average movie and then starts turning into a nightmare. Ground that swallow up people, tunnels underground, and the weird aliens that keep running through the tunnels. The leader was a head, inside a bubble who seems to control the aliens via the mind.

 

The story starts of by a child looking out his window and seeing a flying saucer descend on the other side of the hill. Then there is a whole conversation about it with his parents with the parents end up convincing him it was only a dream. At the start there is a very strong sense of ambiguity but as the movie progresses we don't feel so any more, as we have a clear ideas of exactly what's going on. At the time of the movies release i am sure it had the state of the art effects and costumes, but for me I found the movie to be rather funny, to an extend were it almost took all feeling of unease or horror.

 

The acting was brilliant but some of the words such as the word "gee" used by the child was once again very funny. There was also the really poor costumes which looks quite bad to us maybe at that time it was acceptable. The movies did use a lot of stock image and repeat clips as they ran out of money towards the end. Overall an excellent sci-fi movie, i did enjoy the movie and the classic sci-fi story.

Gregory Cewdson  

Posted by Aj

I was first introduced to him at the Unit brief by phil, from what i could gather he was the big shot of the uncanny genre. So I had a look through several of the photographs he has taken. Each seem to carry a sense off unease and has a eerie feeling to it, which made me think about the stories behind each of the pictures. What was Gregory trying to tell through the the photos and how he used the characters in the photos to portray it to the audiences.

I saw a few of his photographs at the brief so I went ahead and started looking through some of the work he had done. This piece, it seems to be a family dinner, a lovely family house with photos on the walls, its clean and tidy. However when you look more carefully you begin to realise that something is off with picture. Then you realise that there are four plates on the table, one of the chairs  is pushed to the side at an angle. This makes you wonder was there a fight here or an argument? did someone walk away from this stereotypical scene of a family dinner.

Many different thoughts came to my mind while i was looking at the picture, when you start looking closer at the characters at the table you realise they are not happy at all, their expression indicate to us that they are sad and lost in thoughts. The lighting used in the scene has an uneasy teel to it, there is a lot of shadows, dinning areas are normally well lit. So now we start to realise under the first perfect family dinner picture there is deeper story underling this picture. These characters almost seem to be frozen each in there own emotions, this is almost a perfect picture for creating a sense of ambiguity, we will never really know what happened here, we can only make assumptions about the picture.



This next scene is rather strange, i love the way he uses his camera and the height of the camera to portray a strange sense of stillness in his pictures, to me it feels like the people or the characters are moving but yet they are still. I would say Gregory know exactly how to tell a story or give a message using these still shots. If you take a look at the scene its of a pregnant woman crossing the road, to me she looks like she is still in her night dress. To me this indicates that she might not have been aware that she was crossing a road, as why would a pregnant women goes for a walk so early. There is this strange spotlight on the female character as well, even thought it might not be very evident you can see that there is a beam of light coming from the sky. Once again he does a wonderful job at creating a picture that is uncanny.






Last but not least this was another piece of work that caught my eye, a man standing outside his car the briefcase is on the road and its raining hard. What would make someone do that i wonder. Once again this picture has a very uncanny feel to it, as its not normal. Was he maybe fired from his job? or was it something else. I have noticed as i went through Gregory's pictures that he loves playing with his camera and that he takes a liking to using roads. cars and people in majority of his pieces. The wonder aspect of his work is the sense of ambiguity in all of his work, you can never make your mind up about what's going on.




Once again these thoughts and research will help me out when I do my scenes for this project, as i plan to make a scene that has ambiguity and uncanniness in it.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers  

Posted by Aj

This was our very first movie for the unit, we watched the original 1956 version of the movie. The film was a sci-fi horror tale based on a novel by finney. The main story starts with a group of San Fransisco people who discover that the city is gradually being taken over by aliens known as "pods", these aliens came to earth as spores, grow into exact duplicates of their victims and then take them over while they sleep.



From the start itself they had an eerie music that slowly starts to builds up, while the music itself causes tension in the background giving you a feel of unease. The story was very classy and beautifully directed, the camera shots and pacing gave you a sense of uncanny from the very beginning. As the story goes a bit more further the alien conspiracy becomes very clear to us. One aspect of the movie was that its left a lot to the viewers imagination and this really helped create a sense of unease and suspense. As the story goes on we almost have a sense of paranoia and alienation through the different sound effects used in the movie.



When the character find the replica bodies in the shed we have a real sense of uncanny, as the character sare familiar with the people that are being replicated. I really enjoyed this movie as it had a classic horror and thriller essence and story with elements of love which makes it a perfect movie. As we move towards the end of the movie we are so absorbed into the story that I really wanted the main characters to the escape the clutches of the pods. In the end they movie leaves you hanging as your not sure what happens afterwards, if the characters are returned to normal or the whole worlds gets taken over.

Just an Amazing Animation  

Posted by Aj

Just a interesting video i came across its a collaborative animation by Blue and David Ellis and its produced by Studio called cromie. I absolutely love this animation , it took over several months to complete it is fantastic!


Ron Mueck  

Posted by Aj

I the the Australian born hyper realist sculptor is  a very good example of an artist who works with the uncanny, making truly realistic human models. Each of the models are made with such fine details they look very human like. Each of the sculptors are different body parts made in double the scale of a real humans body part, however there are a few full figured human  sculptors.

The following sculptor is know as , Mother and Baby, 2001. It is that of a mother and baby together right after the mother had given birth to her child, it was a moment when any mother is in there most vulnerable yet happiest time. The image is so real it is very uncanny as it leaves the audience wanting to know if its real or not. it is still a beautiful sculptor capturing a moment in time that is the most happiest for any parent or mother.




 I am going to show some further examples of his work that left me with a feeling of ambiguity, thinking if the sculptors are real or not. The following picture is of a baby girl that was made just like a real infant down to the very small details. While looking at this work it made me realise how far we have come as humans with technology and we are able to make such detailed replicas of ourself's.



 This sculptor is of a boy is a another wonder piece that was done by Ron, here the boy is about five meters high know as "Boy" (1999), the sculptor would tell a different story to each person that looks at it, that's why i love this sculptor piece. It made me think about how the position, size and expressions can help tell a story and also make it uncanny. E.g if i were to look at the figure I would say the boy was scared of something, so all we can do is think about the story behind the character, but yet we don't have a clear idea of what has happened to him.



This is my favourite from his work and was shown to us during our brief  by phil too. But personally i think it is an amazing work of art, from the pictures I’d seen it almost looked caricatured, the depth of detail and realism brings it to life with an almost eerie quality coupled with it’s overwhelming size. I think everyone tried to go outside of their human limitations to get further than anyone has gone before and thats exactly what Ron Mueck is trying to do.



I absolutely love Ron Muecks work and i think his technical proficiency to makes models with such detail that it gives the audience a sense of ambugity and uncanny- ness, is amazing.

Here ism a video of this sculptors there are a lot more of them than i could show here.




Unit 3 : Environment - Tableux Vivants  

Posted by Aj

After the brief I was quiet delighted that we finally get a chance to use my technical skills and art for the project. Main aim for the project is to combine the idea of tableaux vivants, which in simple terms means " An Image that tells a story". So we had to bring a models and digital drawing to create a final image. We also had a look at the concepts of the uncanny, which altogether make this project a very interesting yet quite a difficult one.

I am looking forward to researching a lot of different ideas and thoughts, i already had loads of different ideas and thoughts going through my head during the brief. We also had a look at "Unheimlich" or the "unhomely", a rather interesting concept and once it was explained I realised it is used in a lot of horror movies, however the uncanny is something all horror movies use to create a sense of ambiguity in the audiences.

During the brief we also had a look an many different artists who have worked with the subject of uncanny in there pictures. We also talked about the different croping and framing each of these artists used in there pictures to give you a sense of uncanny.


This was one of  the images that really caught my eye, as this is a real picture of a woman jumping of a building. This image has a sense of the Clam before the storm, everything is still and frozen, you can only imagine what's going through the women's mind, a true sense of uncanny.

I am really looking forward this project, it should be a lot of fun and a lot of hard work too.