9) The Uncanny Valley
And now my neighbors,* I ask you to imagine a building which has long lost its intended utility. Now, if by chance an exception came to your mind and the exotic remains of Persepolis materialized before you then surely you thought, “A great civilization once stood here and behold this monument of their success!” And if by chance the remains of the Michigan Central Station came to your mind then surely you thought, “A monument of failure! An eyesore!” And with the imagery of a decaying Detroit in your mind, immediately you fell into the valley of the uncanny.
At the moment of irregularity lability manifests within consciousness. If neither absolute familiarity nor Otherness can be established at the moment of observation, then there can be no doubt in the rise of dissonance for the duration of the experience. This dissonance can only resolve within an observer who establishes a relationship with the observation; the observer must become the master and the observation the mastered.**
If one pities Michigan Central Station—its meaning of existence or any who are involved in that meaning—then one has mastered the observed. Concerning the feeling of the uncanny, one cannot discern between an aesthetic judgment and a moral one.
*Written while living in the United States.
**Here I should mention that Sigmund Freud did himself no favors when he attempted to untangle the mystery of the uncanny by means of ego psychology. Of course, he was concerned with building a system, but nonetheless his authority degrades in his effort to filter all explanations through his topography of the mind. And to be honest, I can hardly bring myself from laughter when I read a diagnosis of the uncanny which emphasizes a dialog between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind—as though the dialog between the conscious mind and our environment meant nothing!
