with computers and understanding 15. See . Jentsch explains the difficulty of captur- As users now customize technology, 16. Toshio Iwai, Otocky (Japan: Famicom Disk System ing the essence of uncanny: whether by changing their desktop 1987). image or modifying the source code of 17. Mark Cerqueira, Spencer Salazar and Ge Wang, the same impression does not necessar- “SoundCraft: Transducing StarCraft 2,” in Proceedings ily exert an uncanny effect on everybody. operating systems, humans will be able of NIME (2013). Moreover, the same perception on the to craft their own subjective experience part of the same individual does not 18. Phillip Hermans, “Cooperation and Competi- of the world. Individuals may be able tion in Music Composition,” Master’s thesis, Dart- necessarily develop into “uncanny” ev- to alter an advanced cochlear implant mouth College, 2013. ery time, or at least not every time in the same way [2]. or choose between sonification map- Manuscript received 2 January 2014. pings in a human-computer interaction. With this ambiguity in mind, we Emerging technologies will impact Phillip Hermans is a composer, programmer might still compile a list of factors that music and multimedia art by making and educator currently living in central Texas. can contribute to the uncanny and the personal experiences more customiz- relevant symptoms, borrowing from able. The aesthetics of music in the Art and the Uncanny: experts in the field. It is a revolving future will be at once intensely person- door of terror between familiar nostal- alized and shareable within a cybernetic Tapping the Potential gia and uncertain memories. It arises network. Natacha Diels (musician), 68 Bushwick when one begins to doubt the presence Avenue, Apt. 3L, Brooklyn, NY 11211, of life within an animate being, or the U.S.A. Email: . when a mechanical process juxtaposes 1. Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises (New York, NY: with the ordinary imperfection of Pendragon, 1986). Links to supplemental materials such as human life [3,4]. 2. Edgard Varese and Chou Wen-chung, “The Lib- audio or video files are listed at the end Robotics expert Masahiro Mori cites eration of Sound,” Perspectives of New Music 5, No. 1 of this article. (1966) p. 11. an excellent example: ABSTRACT 3. Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, One robot had 29 pairs of artificial Converging Technologies for Improving Human Perfor- muscles in the face (the same number his article discusses the potential uses and mance (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002): . Accessed 1 November 2013. definition and continues through existing uses within a dynamic sequence of facial deforma- the author’s body of work. 4. Mihail C. Roco, William Bainbridge, Bruce Tonn tions, and the speed of the deformations and George Whitesides, Convergence of Knowledge, is crucial. When the speed is cut in half Technology and Society (Springer, 2013): . Accessed 1 November 2013. ing happy, its expression turns creepy. all be as uneasy as possible, because that’s 5. Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages This shows how, because of a variation in (Wilder, 2009). what the world is like. movement, something that has come to appear very close to human---like a robot, 6. Russolo [1]. ---Edward Gorey [1] puppet, or prosthetic hand---could easily tumble down into the uncanny valley [5]. 7. John Oswald, “Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative,” presented at Wired So- Conversations about modern composi- ciety Electro-Acoustic Conference, Toronto, Canada, 1985. tion are often facilitated by an early Symptoms of one who has experi- 8. Kim Cascone, “The Aesthetics of Failure: ‘Post- definition of boundaries. Identifying enced an uncanny situation include Digital’ Tendencies in Contemporary Computer one’s niche discloses a great deal about disorientation, feelings of psychosis or Music,” Computer Music Journal 24, No. 4 (2000) pp. 12–18. artistic intent, perhaps most effective as insanity and mistrust of previously held a self-revelatory technique. Of primary beliefs [6]. 9. Takayuki Hamano, Tomasz M. Rutkowski, Hiroko Terasawa, Kazuo Okanoya and Kiyoshi Furukawa, interest to me are the niches created by While CGI and robotic developers “Generating an Integrated Musical Expression with the blurry dividing lines, by the unlikely are often seeking ways to overcome a Brain-Computer Interface,” Proceedings of the 13th merging of certain artistic practices the negative effects of the “uncanny International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2013). that elicit feelings of discomfort and valley” [7] (Fig. 1), the usefulness of uncertainty in the viewer---an explora- the uncanny as a positive artistic tool is 10. Larry Polansky and David Rosenboom, “Interview with David Rosenboom,” Computer Music Journal 7, tion of the uncanny. In this article I apparent: one aspect of the tremendous No. 4 (1983) p. 40. seek to examine possible definitions of appeal of great art is its ability to tempo- 11. Marco Donnarumma, “Xth Sense: Researching the uncanny and their manifestations rarily suspend and exploit one’s sense Muscle Sounds for an Experimental Paradigm of Mu- within my artistic output. of reality within visual, aural and written sical Performance,” in Proceedings of the Linux Audio The definition of “uncanny” is contexts. Working with the uncanny Conference (2011). understandably vague, as are many allows for manipulation of the audience 12. Jason Freeman, “Large Audience Participation, such words with powerful emotional from the standpoint of the ego, simul- Technology, and Orchestral Performance,” in Pro- ceedings of the 2005 ICMC (2005) pp. 757–760. attachment---“beyond the ordinary or taneously embracing and ridiculing a normal” and “uncomfortably strange” sense of solipsism. By describing the 13. Nathan Weitzner et al., “massMobile: Towards a Flexible Framework for Large-Scale Participatory do not begin to capture the true spirit very familiar and illustrating the blandly Collaborations in Live Performances,” Organised of the word. There is a skin-crawling, normal, one can develop a comfortable Sound 18, No. 1, 30--42 (2013). not-quite-repulsive, impractically fearful situation for the viewer that allows the 14. Yuan-Yi Fan and F. Myles Sciotto, “Biosync: An state associated with the emotion that uncanny effect to take place through Informed Participatory Interface for Audience Dy- namics and Audiovisual Content Co-creation Using is impossibly complicated and wholly subsequent decoration borrowed from Mobile PPG and EEG,” in Proceedings of NIME (2013). lost in the translation to language. the truly strange.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00212 by guest on 03 October 2021 parts and the electronic sounds, creat- ing a spectrum of musical material that hopefully provokes feelings of delicious nervosity. My current work attempts to cho- reograph and heighten the peculiar movements of classical instrumental technique, particularly in relation to a specific performer’s movements. Two recent pieces---Nightmare for JACK (a ballet) (featuring a string quartet) and Second Nightmare, for KIKU (a trio work)---maximize the particular eccen- tricities of the performers’ motions, calling the audience’s attention to gestures that often remain invisible to even the performer him/herself. The unnaturally stiff choreography of these gestures, coupled with eerily repetitive vocal sounds and incessant electronic machine sounds, devise a fantasy world Fig. 1. The graph depicts the uncanny valley, the proposed relation between the of uncanny for the audience, with the human likeness of an entity and the perceiver’s affinity for it. (© Natacha Diels) hope that a few are lost within. The uncanny provides an endless source of potential within my work. To adapt these ideas into my artistic Francine’s, leaving the audience inca- I find it tremendously compelling as a practice, I begin by creating situations pable of visualizing a personality behind source for manipulation in art, and its that challenge the viewer’s and my the omnipresent voice. I used digital longevity and evolution as an emotional sense of reality. Because the uncanny audio processing techniques to confuse response make it ideal for represen- effect is heavily weighted towards the the gender, location and actual/robotic tation within musical and theatrical visual---movement, in particular [8]--- traits of the narrator’s voice. Through- works. I choose to work within several param- out the work, Francine’s and the nar- eters: the conflict between robotic rator’s pitch material and effect grow actions and human sounds, the disem- progressively more similar, ultimately References and Notes bodiment of human movement, and combining at the climax of the piece. 1. Edward Gorey, Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey the mixture of human and electronic Francine’s part, composed primarily of on Edward Gorey (Mariner Books, 2002). sounds. My overarching artistic objec- guttural and sibilant sounds, is reflected 2. Ernst Jentsch, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” tive is to walk the line between humor and enhanced in both the instrumental (1909), Roy Sellars, trans., Angelaki 2.1 (1995): and macabre. I explored the first two of these parameters in my 2010 piece Nystagmus Fig. 2. A performance of Natacha Diels’s Nystagmus, Miami, June 2012. (Fig. 2). This work features two per- (© Natacha Diels. Photo © Juraj Kojs.) formers’ sets of eyes projected above them and intricate choreography for the eyes coupled with hums and elec- tronic sounds. My hope was that the enormity and disembodiment of the eyeballs in the video would take the audience into an alternate world, while the stage below would remind them of the reality of performance. My obses- sion with the uncanniness of the dis- embodied eyes deepened and evolved as I worked on the piece, leading me to understand the uncanny as an effect that changes over time in an unpredict- able way---a realization that supports Jentsch’s statement shared above. My 2011 monodrama Uncanny Valley focused on two primary characters--- Francine, a little robot girl whose part was performed live and the pre- recorded narrator. My intent was to obscure the personality of the narrator and eventually combine his voice with

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00212 by guest on 03 October 2021 . Accessed 26 December 2013. A Primer for Sound Art helpful to consider that, even though 3. One explicative example comes from Freud, who in Public Spaces the curator may support the work, the writes that epileptic seizures and manifestations of gallery assistants, security personnel insanity elicit a sense of the uncanny “because these Jesse Seay (artist, educator), Depart- excite in the spectator the feeling that automatic, ment of Audio Arts and Acoustics, or building maintenance staff may not mechanical processes are at work, concealed be- Columbia College, 33 E. Congress welcome it as the soundtrack to their neath the ordinary appearance of animation.” Sig- workday. If a sound piece becomes mund Freud, “The ‘Uncanny,’” Alix Strachey, trans., Parkway, Suite 601, Chicago, IL 60605, Imago, Bd V. (1919): . intolerable to someone, they can and freud1.pdf>. will take steps to silence it. 4. Angela Tinwell describes the uncanny as “that ABSTRACT Examples of this are not difficult to class of terrifying which leads back to something find. Here in Chicago, the site of Sound long known to us, once very familiar. . . . When one The author proposes and explains four “rules” Canopy, a collaboration between deliberately removes such a problem from the usual for students creating sound art installations. way of looking at it . . . a particular feeling of un- Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) certainty quite often presents itself.” She also writes: and Hyde Park Art Center located at “when one perceives an atypical diminished degree I teach sound art to undergraduates. a busy intersection in the downtown of emotional responsiveness from a virtual character, When my students create sound art it may instill fear and panic as one cannot be aware Loop area, suffered vandalism that of that character’s intentions; the uncanny may be installations, they do it in visual art ended the project in 2003. As ESS exaggerated due to the perceived potential threat galleries or public spaces. The spaces of violent behavior or harm.” See Angela Tinwell, Executive Director Lou Mallozzi “Applying Psychological Plausibility to the Uncanny are varied, but generally share two describes it: Valley Phenomenon,” Oxford Handbook of Virtuality, traits: (1) The space was not originally Ch. 10 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2013): . Accessed 28 ence sound art. around the corner of the building at December 2013. Therefore, the first hurdle students the site, playing alternating sound pieces curated by various Chicagoans. It 5. Mori Masahiro, “A Valley in One’s Sense of Affin- must clear is capturing the audience’s was rather quickly vandalized, the wires ity,” Karl F. MacDorman and Norri Kageki, trans., attention. The following are guidelines IEEE Spectrum (June 2012): . I have devised to help them do so. we had to abandon the project and the site [2]. 6. Freud [3]. Rule #1: Don’t use headphones. A vandal need not have a pair of 7. “Uncanny valley” refers to Mori’s iconic 1970 I am not a fan of “listening stations.” My theory illustrated in a graph of human empathy to- wire cutters---the “off” switch is just very first gallery piece, completed while wards robots. The valley is the dip where humans as effective. (Skeptical readers might are repulsed by the robots’ similitude with humans. I was an MFA student, used one. At the consider the continued popularity of Kevin Szerszen, “The Audio/Visual Mismatch and opening, visitors ignored it as they took the Uncanny Valley: An Investigation Using a Mis- the TV-B-Gone, a universal remote match in the Human Realism of Facial and Vocal in the paintings around it. The experi- control designed to turn off, surrepti- Aspects of Stimuli,” M.S. thesis in human-computer ence taught me that listening stations interaction, Indiana University, 2010. See . Headphones create solitary listening. I have found several strategies useful People often visit galleries as a social 8. Masahiro [5]. for being “neighborly”: activity, and one cannot socialize while wearing headphones [1]. A number Audio and Video Examples of artists have made brilliant sound art • Quiet or localized sound: This can Nystagmus: . works of Janet Cardiff and Laetitia speakers, low volume levels or acous- Uncanny Valley: . Sonami spring to mind. What these pieces often have in common is an • Interaction: requiring the audience Nightmare for JACK: . headphones in these works let listeners in order for it to generate sounds. • Motion detectors to switch the work Second Nightmare, for KIKU: . roundings in new and meaningful ways on or off: this also saves electricity Wee Robot: . the sound piece can be experienced on might build one into the hardware. headphones anywhere (and anytime), Those who prefer an off-the-shelf so- Manuscript received 2 January 2014. the work probably belongs on radio, lution can find motion-activated light controllers at the hardware store, Natacha Diels is a flautist, composer and online or in a podcast. which can be added after the work is performance artist from New Mexico. She finished [4]. founded the experimental chamber group En- Rule #2: Be a good neighbor, semble Pamplemousse and has been its execu- or face the consequences. tive director since 2002, and is one-half of the Sound cannot be contained in space. Rule #3: The gallery is not the theater. performance duo On Structure. She holds a It bleeds, affecting everyone in earshot. Artists approaching sound installation Bachelor of Music in flute performance from As R. Murray Schafer has pointed out, art for the first time often have prior NYU, a Master of Professional Studies from the ITP program at the Tisch School of the humans do not have earlids. There experience in theater venues (as musi- Arts, NYU, and is currently pursuing a Doctor are hard limits to humans’ tolerance cians or filmmakers, for instance). of Musical Arts in composition from Columbia of sound. When sound art tests those It is important to understand how the University. Her primary teachers are George tolerances, there are consequences. gallery (and the gallery audience) is Lewis and Fred Lerdahl. I am not suggesting that sound art different:

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