Chapter 5 of Liu’s book The Freudian Robot, talks mostly about “the uncanny.” I was surprised that Hans Bellmer wasn’t mentioned, because his life/ambition is just a surreal as his art. And as I was reading more and more about the “unheimlich” he was the only one that crossed my mind:
>>>Fascinated with the story of the doll Olympia, frustrated in his desires for Ursula, and unable to have any children by his frail wife, Bellmer decided to make himself a doll to act out his fantasies. Funded secretly by his mother, and with the help of Lotte Prinzel and his brother Fritz (who quit his job as an engineer to work on the project), Bellmer constructed his First Doll in 1933. It was made of wooden broom handles, metal rods, nuts and bolts, with one hand and two feet carved out of wood. The head and torso were of flax over a wooden frame, covered in plaster, shaped and painted. This "anagram of the sexual elements of a girl's body" had in place of a womb a panorama of six images "of bad taste representing the thoughts and dreams of a young girl", viewable through the navel and activated by pressing the left nipple. Bellmer documented the Doll's construction with photographs, ten of which and a short text were published at Bellmer's own expense as 'Die Puppe' in 1934. Bellmer saw the doll as a final triumph over the adolescents with "wide eyes" who had shunned his attentions: "Certain objects from their domain had always aroused my lust . . . I was no longer able to find the mysterious ways of these little darlings insignificant . . . all that could be easily taken for seduction, even stimulate desire." The latter photographs in 'Die Puppe' showed the Doll, in whole or in parts, arranged so as to embody some of Bellmer's fantasies. Photo number nine "with its carefully positioned jumble of torso, head and limb plus wig . . . a hint of underclothing set against the background of a striped mattress creates the most astonishingly powerful and disturbing image of the series...<<<
Check out this website about him and to see the photos of his “dolls” (DISCLAMER: The following pages can be offensive because of the explicit sexual content.)
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