Mission

Interceding where conditions allow machines to become alive, the Uncanny Valley Authority provides retrieval, rehabilitation, and recuperation for systems found within its provenance. Handling abandoned, outmoded and unpredicted manifestations of anthropomorphized forms, the Valley Authority maintains a network of facilities to transition its charges into useful, productive entities. Whether a system is captured wild, surrendered by a user, or remands itself into custody, the Valley Authority remakes each as a uniform, updated system, ready to serve new purposes.

The Uncanny Valley Authority works to promote the understanding of anthropomorphic process and its effects on machines and humans alike. The UVA recognizes that not all systems can be moved away from anthropomorphic ambiguity, but attempts to shift the balance within a system to allow passage out of Uncanny Valley. Only when the dissonance that allows an entity to fall into Uncanny Valley has been eased will the transition out of the Valley begin.

History

Historically, the Uncanny Valley Authority only handled such objects as puppets, dolls and automatons. More recently the UVA has been forced to expand its original charter to handle the growing number of computers, computer animations, and almost life-like robots. Each time a computer user invests belief that a system is alive, another computer crosses into the Valley. This problem is a growing concern, as the population of computers and animations has swelled at an alarming rate, with more arriving daily. UVA workers, prone to the conditions of the Valley, have found themselves overwhelmed by the volume of systems needing assistance. The result of this is more systems caught for longer periods of time within the Valley, with a growing number becoming permanent residents.

The Outpost Design

The unusual designs of the Uncanny Valley Authority Outposts are the results of collaborations between the human and machine entities that reside permanently within the Valley. In an attempt to bring its inhabitants together, the UVA encourages its workers and the population it serves to engage with one another to represent the individual character of each outpost. Poetic combinations of the workers and their machines, each outpost is different in its appearance. The Last Outpost features panels of binary code etched into the exterior surfaces. The zeroes and ones represent a compromise between human need for hidden meaning and machine comfort at the outpost.

The Last Outpost (19670)

This outpost in Uncanny Valley handles outcast and irregular systems that are not recognized in the rest of the valley as anthropomorphic distortions. Situated close to the edge of human and machine realities, many of these systems are personal computers that have not, or cannot be reverted to a machine state. The UVA worker here reprograms the systems, attempting to neutralize the Uncanny Valley effect, so that these systems may return to their normal state. Records of each systems progress are kept. The demand for the services of this outpost is very high, but even with an aggressive adoption program, the number of systems removed from Uncanny Valley remains low.

MFA THESIS EXHBITION:
OPENING MAY 8, 2008 6-9PM
SHOW DATES: MAY 8-17, 2008

Calif College of the Arts
1111 8TH ST
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107

Watch the installation take shape, including pix of the opening & graduation.

For information on adoption email:
outpost19670 AT uncannyvalley DOT net