Friday, September 21, 2007

Images that zap





I've seen hundreds of images of the "typical aliens" or what we think of as "typical aliens" in our current culture. I'm immune; no flashbacks of repressed alien abductions, etc. But now and then an image of "them" jolts me; gives me a deep physical nervous feeling I can't shake. The cover of Strieber's Communion did that to me.

The cover to Mike Oram's "Does it rain in other dimensions?" doesn't "scare me" -- I find it charming and familar (and okay, maybe a teeny bit "creepy") there's just something about it.

I wrote about this reaction I have someitmes to certain images from the anomalous realm on my Trickster's Realm for Binnall of America.com: Unexpected Reactions.

Here are some more images that just kind of zapped me over the years. On some subconscious level, these images just kind of unnerved me a bit.







Now I realize that none of these are of the real thing; a real photograph, video or film image. They're representations, interpretations of things some people say they say. They're not "real" in that sense. But art is an expression, and a communication, it is a type of folklore passed about. (ie folk art, etc.) Look at our current pop culture and its alien iconography. Even so, sometimes an image tugs at us, some memory, or acts as a reminder, or starts a process that pings one thing inside us and leads us to another place, and another. . .

2 comments:

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Now I always had a thing about owls - from mortal fear when a child to fascination these days.

But that figure in the one before the last pic - some parody on Prince Charles?

Tina Sena said...

I was in elementary school when I saw the COMMUNION cover. Was completely taken aback and felt as if I had seen that face before. I was freaked out actually and afraid to sleep. And then, I saw the trailer for the movie, when the EBE pokes its head in the door to peer in at CHRISTOPHER WALKEN (as Strieber), and that image has stayed with me forever. To this day, I sleep with my bedroom door shut...and the covers over my head. There is just something about that face that terrifies me.
I blame WS for frakkn up my mental health, lol.

-Tina