The Uncanny (Experiments in Cyborg Culture)

The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture is a dazzling and provocative examination of the cyborg—the concept of man-as-machine—in popular culture. The title is from a 1919 essay by Sigmund Freud (and included in the book), which deals with the sensation of "uncanniness" as being strange and familiar at the same time.

The idea of the cyborg has been in existence for decades, and is one of the most persistent cultural images of the past century. The cyborg is a cypher—an enigmatic image of figure that is human but not human, a machine but not a machine, existing at the intersection of science, technology, and culture.

The Uncanny offers essays that examine the representation of the cyborg from a contemporary perspective, as well as reprinted historical texts that discuss the representation of the uncanny cyborg body. It also suggests a significant link between the visual arts and popular culture in the evolving representation of the cyborg, beginning as early as the 19th-century, presenting the cyborg as an "uncanny" image that reflects our shared fascination and dread of the machine and its presence in our daily lives.

A copublication with the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Uncanny is a thoughtful and beautifully presented examination of cyborg culture that will help to define our sense of self as we forge ahead into the uncertain future.

Includes essays by Sigmund Freud, William Gibson, Donna Haraway, and Toshiya Ueno, and artwork by Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Jacob Epstein, Eadweard Muybridge, Takashi Murakami, Mariko Mori, Gary Hill, and Tony Oursler.

Includes 32 full-color photographs and more than 60 black-and-white images.

"Brilliant . . . in its ability to match gripping popular culture with first-rate intellectual enquiry."—Vancouver Sun

"Immensely ambitious."—Georgia Straight

Bruce Grenville is a senior curator with the Vancouver Art Gallery.