Defamiliarization

Whilst researching for my current project I decided to research the idea of the familiar and unfamiliar on the internet. My search came back with the word defamiliarization a concept formed by the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky.

so what does defamiliarization mean ? well in layman’s terms it is the technique of presenting the familiar in an unfamiliar or strange way. Shklovsky wrote about this in his essay Art as Device from 1914, in it he talks about the perception of objects and the writing about them in poetic terms. Shklovsky also proposes the idea of looking at objects in algebraic terms.

” By this “algebraic” method of thought we apprehend objects only as shapes with imprecise extensions; we do not see them in their entirety but rather recognise them by their main characteristics. We see the object as though it were enveloped in a sack. We know what it is by its configuration, but only see its silhouette.” (Shklovsky. V, 1917)

Even though this was written for artists dealing in the written word, I feel it is just as important for visual artists those dealing with abstract art. Shklovsky’s theories of Defamiliarization predate Freud’s writing about the Uncanny from 1919 ( an influential text for the Surrealists movement). In Freud’s essay he writes

“Unheimlich is clearly the opposite of heimlich, heimisch, vertraut, and it seems obvious that something should be frightening precisely because it is unknown and unfamiliar” (Freud, S)

So how does this relate to my current work practice? In earlier posts I talk about 3D scans and then prints becoming like ghosts of the original objects , very much like Shklovskys quote “We see the object as though it were enveloped in a sack. We know what it is by its configuration, but only see its silhouette.” Through placing the object in the sack it is becoming strange and almost abstract.

Hopefully once I am able to get back in to University to use the equipment I will be able to further my explorations in to 3D printing and the degradation of image when it gets scanned, printed and scanned again to the point that it may be familiar but in a “strange way”