Artist Research - The Uncanny as a theme

Many artists explore the theme of 'the uncanny' within their work, going down a number of various routes. Because of it's broad meaning and the range of interpretations that can be taken from the subject, artists have expressed the theme through a number of different pieces and new creative work is continuing to emerge on the subject.

Researched example :

Gregor Schneider - Haus Ur
Gregor Schneider is a German artist who works mainly with spaces as an on-going theme and whose artwork focuses on creating uncanny environments. Through creating a sense of darkness and eeriness within his work, the work becomes something entirely new to how the viewer first experienced it, and therefore creates mystery and intrigue surrounding it which allows the observer to think further into the work .

(photo collection sourced from: http://www.gregorschneider.de )

For example, an ongoing project of his entitled Haus Ur (above)shows a developed remade version of his childhood home. The work features rooms hidden within others, small spaces that lead to nowhere and shut off doors - all of which ensure the viewer is intrigued and enticed into wanting to explore these spaces further. The subject of the uncanny comes across in this way within his work - in that 'the home' is now reimagined as a place to feel trapped, almost maze like and that disconnects the viewers original interpretation of the sight of the house to its interior. In some ways this work can also be viewed as a literal and physical representation of 'the uncanny'; delving into hidden areas could be representing the pushing away of fear that will resurface in another form, as suggested under psychoanalytical theory.


Workshop project
Connecting this to our own creative project, I think this will be a really useful as well as interesting collection of artwork to be aware of and research more into, as well as the rest of Schneider's work. Building a set from scratch has been a fun element to the module, however reading more into it after the set build has been completed, I have discovered a lot more content about the in depth ways that a theme can be explored within the design of a production in a not so literal way. When we first created our set we understood and applied as a group the theme of 'the uncanny' quite literally directly into our set build, in that we knew from the beginning we intended to create a space with a creepy appearance.

However, after researching further into artists work based on the same subject, I have discovered more about the subtler ways in which even individual elements to a space within a set can be used to created the impression of a theme - such as the use of objects within the main interior space in the above mentioned Haus Ur exhibition by Gregor Schneider. Using space as a whole to create the impression of a theme and thinking less literally about a theme or subject is an interesting concept to develop on in future projects and  is an area that I have taken away from this particular piece of research.