“Post-performance selfie. Subject: the uncanny valley + national identity. I feel a bit dream-of-electric-sheep.
The idea with the valley is that as robots and androids look, sound, and move more human we empathise with them more and more. But if they get “too” human, we reject them strongly; they become abject.
I’ve found the same with my national identity. I have Finnish blood and live in Finland and *sort of* speak Finnish, but because I come so close to being Finnish while still being “broken”, I find I elicit the uncanny valley response in people. This performance highlighted it through cosmetic modification.”
At UPROOTED Fake Nations festival of experimental and live arts, Helsinki, September 5-7, 2013. Photos by myself and Egle Oddo.
