The Uncanny - Amy Lu

The Uncanny article, other than summarizing the story of the Sandman, also mentions this theme of the ‘double.’ This is something that I have been contemplating on since seeing the Dan Graham show. The gallery with the mirror installations not only had doubles of an image or more, but the reflections had this ability to keep a viewer entertained and interested. How does Freud’s uncanny – aka the concept where something or someone can be familiar and strange at the same time resulting in an uncomfortably strange feeling – apply to this theme? I do not think that this just has to do with vanity, but the want for the ability to last beyond our human lives, even through the form of repetition is an explanation that might bear some truth, especially if we are as narcissistic as psychoanalytic psychologists and philosophers think we are. The familiarity comes from the image being identical or even similar, and the feeling of seeing something identical yet cannot be the same thoughts or feelings fulfills the strange aspect.