This Dreaded Sight Twice Seen

Over the last century, the subject of the uncanny has returned in the form of books, exhibitions, cinema and technology. These strange disturbances that weave in an out of different mediums blur distinctions between the past and present; reality and illusion; fact and fiction. Familiar things return in unfamiliar ways as objects are transformed into an uncanny presence that can never fully be understood or explained. Focusing firstly on Freud's 1919 essay 'The Uncanny,' the idea of the 'unhomely' or unfamiliar whereby objects are returned transformed creating a feeling of anxiety and fear will be analysed. Artists and writers such as Ron Mueck, Tacita Dean, Hans Bellmer, and Mary Shelley will be considered as they each explore ideas surrounding the uncanny to examine and interpret those irrational fears and experiences that cannot be understood through logic or science.