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Authors: Mark Z. Danielewski
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some light on why Navidson undertook this project in the first place. More than just snapping a few pictures and recording daily events with a few Hi 8s, Navidson wanted to use images to create an outpost set against the transience of the world. No wonder he found it so impossible to give up his professional occupation. In his mind abandoning photography meant submitting to loss.
Therefore to revisit our first two questions:
Why Navidson?
Considering the practically preadamite history of the house, it was inevitable someone like Navidson would eventually enter those rooms.
Why not someone else?
Considering his own history, talent and emotional background, only Navidson could have gone as deep as he did and still have successfully brought that vision back. [31—Zampanô. This chapter first appeared as “The Matter Of Why” in LA Weekly, May 19, 1994.]
IV
Faith, sir, as to that matter, I don’t
believe one half of it myself.
— Diedrich Knickerbocker
I n early June of 1990, the Navidsons flew to Seattle for a wedding. When they returned, something in the house had changed. Though they had only been away for four days, the change was enormous. It was not, however, obvious—like for instance a fire, a robbery, or an act of vandalism. Quite the contrary, the horror was atypical. No one could deny there had been an intrusion, but it was so odd no one knew how to respond. On video, we see Navidson acting almost amused while Karen simply draws both hands to her face as if she were about to pray. Their children, Chad and Daisy, just run through it, playing, giggling, completely oblivious to the deeper implications.
What took place amounts to a strange spatial violation which has already been described in a number of ways—namely surprising, unsettling, disturbing but most of all uncanny. In German the word for ‘uncanny’ is ‘unheimlich’ which Heidegger in his book Sein und Zeit thought worthy of some consideration:
DaJ3 die Angst als Grundbefindlichkeit in sotcher
Weise erschlieJit, daflr ist weider die
alltagliche Daseinsauslegung und Rede der
unvoreingenommenste Beleg. Befindlichkeit,
so wurde fruher gesagt, macht offenbar
wie einem ist.x. In der Angst is einem flunheimlich
. Darin kommt zunachst die
eigentumliche Unbestimmtheit dessen, wobei
sich das Dasein in der Angst befindet, zum
Ausdruck: das Nichts und Nirgends. Unheimlichkeit
meint aber dabei zugleich das
Nichtzuhause-sein. Bei der ersten phanomenalen
Anzeige der Grundverfassung des
Daseins und der Klarung des existenzialen
Sinnes von In-Sein im Unterschied von der
kategorialen Bedeutung der . lnwendigkeit
wurde das In-Sein bestimmt als Wohnen bei
Vertrautsein mit . .. Dieser Charakier
des In-Seins wurde dann konkreter sichtbar
gemach durch die alltagliche Offentlichkeit
des Man, das die beruhigte Selbstsicherheit,
das selbsrverstandliche Zuhause-sein in die
durchschnittliche Alltaglichkeit des Daseins
bringt. Die Angst dagegen holt das Dasein
aus seinem verfallenden Aufgehen in der
Welt zurlick. Die alltagliche Vertrautheit
bricht in sich Zusammen. Das Dasein ist vereinzelt,
das jedoch als In-der-Welt-sein. Das
In-Sein kommt in den existenzialen Modusc
des Un-zuhause. Nichts anderes meint die
Rede von der Unheim1ichkeit. [ 32 —Declared Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (Frankfurt Am Main: Vittorio Klostennann, 1977), p. 250- 251. ]
[ 33 — And here’s the English, thanks to John Macquarrie and Edward Robinsons’ translation of Heidegger’s Beina and Time, Harper & Row, 1962, page 233. A real bitch to find:
In anxiety one feels uncanny. Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: the “nothing and nowhere”. But here “uncanniness” also means “not—being—at home.” [das Nicht-zuhause-sein]. In our first indication of the phenomenal character of Dasein’s basic state and in our
Therefore to revisit our first two questions:
Why Navidson?
Considering the practically preadamite history of the house, it was inevitable someone like Navidson would eventually enter those rooms.
Why not someone else?
Considering his own history, talent and emotional background, only Navidson could have gone as deep as he did and still have successfully brought that vision back. [31—Zampanô. This chapter first appeared as “The Matter Of Why” in LA Weekly, May 19, 1994.]
IV
Faith, sir, as to that matter, I don’t
believe one half of it myself.
— Diedrich Knickerbocker
I n early June of 1990, the Navidsons flew to Seattle for a wedding. When they returned, something in the house had changed. Though they had only been away for four days, the change was enormous. It was not, however, obvious—like for instance a fire, a robbery, or an act of vandalism. Quite the contrary, the horror was atypical. No one could deny there had been an intrusion, but it was so odd no one knew how to respond. On video, we see Navidson acting almost amused while Karen simply draws both hands to her face as if she were about to pray. Their children, Chad and Daisy, just run through it, playing, giggling, completely oblivious to the deeper implications.
What took place amounts to a strange spatial violation which has already been described in a number of ways—namely surprising, unsettling, disturbing but most of all uncanny. In German the word for ‘uncanny’ is ‘unheimlich’ which Heidegger in his book Sein und Zeit thought worthy of some consideration:
DaJ3 die Angst als Grundbefindlichkeit in sotcher
Weise erschlieJit, daflr ist weider die
alltagliche Daseinsauslegung und Rede der
unvoreingenommenste Beleg. Befindlichkeit,
so wurde fruher gesagt, macht offenbar
wie einem ist.x. In der Angst is einem flunheimlich
. Darin kommt zunachst die
eigentumliche Unbestimmtheit dessen, wobei
sich das Dasein in der Angst befindet, zum
Ausdruck: das Nichts und Nirgends. Unheimlichkeit
meint aber dabei zugleich das
Nichtzuhause-sein. Bei der ersten phanomenalen
Anzeige der Grundverfassung des
Daseins und der Klarung des existenzialen
Sinnes von In-Sein im Unterschied von der
kategorialen Bedeutung der . lnwendigkeit
wurde das In-Sein bestimmt als Wohnen bei
Vertrautsein mit . .. Dieser Charakier
des In-Seins wurde dann konkreter sichtbar
gemach durch die alltagliche Offentlichkeit
des Man, das die beruhigte Selbstsicherheit,
das selbsrverstandliche Zuhause-sein in die
durchschnittliche Alltaglichkeit des Daseins
bringt. Die Angst dagegen holt das Dasein
aus seinem verfallenden Aufgehen in der
Welt zurlick. Die alltagliche Vertrautheit
bricht in sich Zusammen. Das Dasein ist vereinzelt,
das jedoch als In-der-Welt-sein. Das
In-Sein kommt in den existenzialen Modusc
des Un-zuhause. Nichts anderes meint die
Rede von der Unheim1ichkeit. [ 32 —Declared Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (Frankfurt Am Main: Vittorio Klostennann, 1977), p. 250- 251. ]
[ 33 — And here’s the English, thanks to John Macquarrie and Edward Robinsons’ translation of Heidegger’s Beina and Time, Harper & Row, 1962, page 233. A real bitch to find:
In anxiety one feels uncanny. Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: the “nothing and nowhere”. But here “uncanniness” also means “not—being—at home.” [das Nicht-zuhause-sein]. In our first indication of the phenomenal character of Dasein’s basic state and in our
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