About six years ago I finished a thesis in the field known as Critical Theory, a constellation of studies and topics that could include technology, linguistics, ontology, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and a hundred other byways of thought.  If you’ve ever wondered to yourself what exactly “post-modernism” meant, as I once did oh-so-innocently, this is the type of course you would have found yourself in, blinking and muttering “what the …?”

Among this rag-bag of topics, and those publishing in it, one was obliged to throw out the term “uncanny valley” every so often.  A term I think originated in the field of computer modelling, it refers to the small region lying on either side of a norm.  If, say, a visual image falls into this region, it may cause unease or disturbance in the viewer, unlike images farther from the norm which cause no unease or disturbance.

The theory behind it says the human brain can easily distinguish the images that are most different from the norm as different.  However, as the image gets closer to the norm the brain has a harder time distinguishing the image as the same or different.  When the image falls into the “uncanny valley”, the supposedly measurable area close to the norm, the brain encounters maximum confusion and this prompts feelings of unease, even distress.  It’s as if the brain is registering two different things at the one time: yes, this is what you think it is AND no, this isn’t what you think it is. You might remember a kind of viral computer animation that went around at the same time I was writing my thesis featuring a “dancing baby.”  It was weird and hypnotic and repulsive.  It was also cited as a prime example of an image that fell into the uncanny valley because it was almost a baby.

Another image that falls into the uncanny valley is Michael Jackson.  In fact, Michael Jackson was dwelling in the uncanny valley.  Never mind dancing babies, he was the real thing: a dancing … what?  Mannekin?  His looks prompted unease and derision and anger because they were uncanny, because our brains were sending us at least two messages at the same time: yes, it’s a man, no, it’s not a man, yes, it’s the same person who led the Jackson 5, no, it can’t be the little boy who sang Ben.  And it wasn’t just his looks that were uncanny.  It was also his marvellous dancing.

Last night I went to a Michael Jackson tribute dance class.  They showed various clips, including one of his appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1995.  The guy introducing the clip talked about it showing the most phenomenal dancing anyone could wish to see.  And so it does.  But after watching it a couple of times since on Youtube I’ve decided it’s also deeply unsettling, especially the bit in the first sequence dubbed on the web, “the best moonwalk ever”, where he feints strolling forward, nose in the air, moving nowhere with his black and white feet kneading the air.  The whole black and white grammar of the piece is extraordinary.  In the second, less unsettling sequence, he makes his white socks and black tie talk.

As a postscript, I was startled to read today that according to Peter Conrad Fred Astaire once described Michael Jackson as “an angry dancer.”   The idea of Fred Astaire commenting on Michael Jackson is itself unsettling.  As if a ghost from a not uncanny valley spoke.

To watch Part II of the MTV Video Music Awards in 1995, try this yahoo version (last time I looked the Youtube version that was here had been taken down due to a copyright claim).

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