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First published: 2023-07-05

Defamiliarisation

Defamiliriasation is the process by which art makes the familiar seem strange.

It was proposed by Viktor Shklovsky as being one of the functions of art.

A defamiliarising artwork makes you return to the world with a more enriched sense of what was previously familiar and mundane.

The idea is not necessarily restricted to art. It can be extended to science, technology and other domains.

Richard Feynman famously rejected the idea that his scientific worldview ruined the beauty of a flower, suggesting instead that science only served to enhance his appreciation of that beauty. In this sense, new theoretical knowledge can defamiliarise — and therefore enrich — our everyday intuition.

Imagined as a two-step process:

$$1. \ familiar \xrightarrow{defamiliarisation} strange$$

$$2. \ familiar \xleftarrow{enrichment} strange$$

References

Shklovsky, V. (1988/1917). Art as Device. In Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. L. T. Lemon and M. J. Reis (Trans.), David Lodge (Ed.). Longmans. 16-30.

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