Lecture on What Makes Art Creepy

Introduction

• Speaker: Pitch Canker
• Topic: What makes certain art uncanny, creepy, or disturbing
• Key Idea: Being creeped out vs. true fear or revulsion is about the inability to fully understand if something is a threat.

Unsettling Elements in Art

The Uncanny Valley

• Represents things that are disturbingly close to being human but have small deviations that make them unsettling.
• Example: Eyes that don't look directly at you.
  • Creatures drawn with eyes pointing in different directions or looking through the viewer.
  • Similar to animals in the wild that have camouflage making them look like predators.

Faces and Shadows

• Example: Faces obscured by shadows or faces that don’t look quite right.
  • Possibly linked back to evolutionary instincts about recognizing threats from human-like figures or primates.

The Art of Creating Creepy Imagery

• Key Idea: People naturally understand what creepy looks like, but it remains somewhat indefinable.
• Using minimalism and avoiding over-defining elements to maintain unsettling ambiguity.
  • Over-defining can make art less scary by giving away too much.
  • Imagination plays a huge role in perceiving something as creepy.

Balancing Familiarity and Distortion

• Goal: Create visuals distorted enough to be unsettling but still recognizable.
  • Balance between showing and obscuring details.
• Example: Clowns
  • Clowns are human but have face paint and unpredictable actions making them creepy.
  • The trope of the Killer Clown exaggerates these traits.

Context and Perception

• Key Idea: Context is critical in making something appear creepy.
• Example: Dolls
  • Dolls aren’t inherently creepy but become very unsettling in the right context.

Conclusion

• Main Takeaway: Creepy art effectively balances familiar elements with enough distortion and ambiguity to make them unsettling.
• Final Example: Humanoid figure with wrong-shaped head, obscured in shadows, and twisted eyes.
• Importance of not over-defining to keep the viewer unsure if something is a threat.

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to Patreon supporters and viewers.