Defamiliarization
I recently attended a lecture on Apologetics and The Imagination—yes, it hurt my brain and no I didn’t understand much of it. Professor Milbank spoke on the topic and introduced me to the word ‘defamiliarization’. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but in laymans terms it’s quite a simple idea. In order for me to understand it a little better, I came up with my own description,
“‘One role of the artist it to make the familiar, unfamiliar. So the known can be seen in an unknown way.’”
Professor Milbank took a leaf out of Victor Shklovsky’s essay Art as Device on the alternative perspective that art provides. Defamiliarization is about helping others see things that are ordinarily automatically perceived without thought, differently. That’s the power of all forms of art. Imagine a walk you take on the regular. You may pass the same tree or the same building each time, but not really notice it. It’s in your peripheral vision but has no prominence in your direct vision. Forgettable, you might say. But even those familiar things, in the hands of an artist, have the potential to be reimagined and thus cause the passerby to take a second look.
For me, after encountering The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe by the legendary C.S.Lewis, wardrobes took on new meaning. They weren’t a piece of furniture to hang clothes in, but a doorway into other world. Can’t deny - that’s kind of incredible! The seemingly familiar became unfamiliar and opened up the route into a new world.
‘It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with, we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.’
Anais Nin
There are probably elements of defamiliarization in your art, but perhaps this is something that you could be more deliberate about. We all see elements the world differently and that’s why your unique voice matters.