Beyond Vanity and Novelty: the (re)Creative Workings of the Unheimliche

90 % doctoral seminar as organized in Brussels by Karel Deckers, doctoral student at the Chalmers University of Technology.In its relentless journey, the unheimliche —or the unhomely or uncanny— travels and passes through time and space, observing and overarching generations and altering its guise: it is a ‘travelling concept’. Like a dreaded illness, it only seems to exist temporarily: it suddenly sticks, upsets, lingers and then leaves the unsettled hosts it inhabits. In its trajectory between sojourning and wandering, it marks things and beings. I will argue that the unheimliche comes forward as a cultural concept whose workings have consequences for the status of the author, the beholder, the designer and the learner. Moreover, rather than an undesired weakness, it becomes a positive agent of change in interior architecture. Furthermore, it also addresses a series of critical concerns upon novelty; authenticity; the role of the individual designer; and oppressive teaching strategies. I argue that the unheimliche oscillates in between four following domains with corollary perspectives: (1) the author who authors the unheimliche and introduces a changing discourse on the unheimliche. (2) the beholder who goes through an interior experience that destabilizes but also ‘informs’ actions and thinking; (3) the designer, as member of the interior architectural design discipline who actively engages with the ‘un-preferred’; (4) Finally, learners who emancipate themselves by addressing their own unsettling memories and experiences in design education; By engaging with the unheimliche, I argue that it furthers the imagination and creativity for these four stakeholders. Hence, instead of weakening, the unheimliche rather empowers. In short, as a shared approach, the unheimliche becomes beneficiary concept for the beholder, (aspirant) interior architect, the designer and the learner.status: accepte