The more realistic a model of a human is, the more endearing and relatable it is – up to a point. We stop identifying with a lifelike image or sculpture once it hits the “uncanny valley,” a term from robotics design that refers to our uneasiness around faces that are so close to seeming human that small, slightly-off differences become even more glaring. Think of those Japanese human-faced robots that are creepy, not cute – or any scene from the computer-animated film The Polar Express. At Smith, eleven works by twentieth and twenty-first century photographers explore what happens when we try to shake our heebie-jeebies and view these subjects as living, breathing beings (like the 1976 image pictured above, shot by Jerome Liebling, of a mannequin in Minnesota).
Smith College Museum of Art: Uncanny Valley: Portraits of the Almost-Human. Through May 8. 20 Elm St., Northampton, (413) 585-2760.
