Exhibitions

The Digital Uncanny

Peter Campus ; 
Cordula Ditz ; 
Bogomir Doringer ; 
Torsten Lauschmann ; 
Bjørn Melhus ; 
David Moises ; 
Bernd Oppl ; 
Liddy Scheffknecht
23.02.2012 - 20.05.2012
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the upper floor of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bogomir Doringer: Hospitality. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basment of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view The Digital Uncanny. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view The Digital Uncanny. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Liddy Scheffknecht: 1-250. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Liddy Scheffknecht: 1-250. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basment of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view The Digital Uncanny. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view The Digital Uncanny. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basment of the Edith Russ House with the Exhibition view The Digital Uncanny. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Exhibition view The Digital Uncanny. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Thorsten Lauschmann: Lifelike. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Thorsten Lauschmann: Lifelike. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Thorsten Lauschmann: Lifelike. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Thorsten Lauschmann: Lifelike. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Cordula Ditz: Suspiria. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Cordula Ditz: Suspiria. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  •  The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by David Moises: Ultimate Machine aka Shannon's Hand. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    David Moises: Ultimate Machine aka Shannon's Hand. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  •  The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by David Moises: Ultimate Machine aka Shannon's Hand. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    David Moises: Ultimate Machine aka Shannon's Hand. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bernd Oppl: oT. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bernd Oppl: oT. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bernd Oppl: oT. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bernd Oppl: oT. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
  • The photo shows the basement of the Edith Russ House with the artwork by Bernd Oppl: oT. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
    Bernd Oppl: oT. Photo Franz J Wamhof © Edith-Russ-Haus
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The uncanny eludes clear definition. What is perceived as uncanny depends on the individual and on the social and technical-historical context. Something uncanny remains hidden, not revealed, and yet it is repeatedly evoked through images and motion, through motifs or formal aspects that turn the familiar into something unrecognizable and yet somehow memorable, appearing to turn the securely familiar into something ambiguous. The “dangerous vibration of the secretive” (Hélène Cixous) breaks through to the surface of the consciousness.

It seems to overcome the perception of presented and trusted realities, positing a supposed reality behind shown images. The irrational consequences of advanced technological enlightenment are revealed in the uncanny. For example, a computer screen actually seems to reveal a mere excerpt, a segment of something “that can reach out forever into the universe” (André Bazin) and may trigger a sense of intellectual disequilibrium.

Media uses fiction to build dimensions – imagined faces, disembodied voices, virtual architecture, objects brought to life. We act in these imaginary realms; we build relationships, make decisions, develop emotions or exhaust ourselves – in the real world. The self that we project to media consists of selected bits of information that nevertheless remain fragmentary and beholden to technical conditions. These medial doppelgangers are merely the manifestation of technical possibilities, documenting neither truth nor authenticity; they approach us in the guise of revenants that might disclose our secrets, reveal our intimacies, disclose obsessions and other hidden desires or fears. Their shadows and silhouettes encounter us in the empty spaces and gaps within familiar, homey surroundings whose real coordinates offer us a sanctuary from the Internet and an apparently solid base from which to act.


Bernd Oppl, o.T., 2010

In short: The uncanny may be revealed in the form of
- shadows that have become independent,
- objects that take on the confusable characteristics of the living,
- interfaces that lead into and not out of real space, 
- mirror images in which we no longer recognize ourselves,
- or – last but not least – as virtual doppelgangers and fragments, all of which disclose their vulnerability.
The exhibition evokes secret fears both visually and acoustically and – for the duration of the show – turns the EDITH-RUSS-HAUS for Media Art into an uncanny space where the appetite for the hidden horrors of technology can be constantly re-experienced and reconsidered. Because, as Stefan Germer said, “To know an object better does not at all mean to make it less terrifying.”