Ulrich Formann presents with co-creator Yujie Liu the video Uncanny Ailey: A Video Essay on Mistrust in Cuteness
End of Term Exhibition
On May 15, 2026 PhD student Ulrich Formann presented together with his Chinese collaborator Yujie Liu the 5 minute video Uncanny Alley Video Essay on Mistrust in Cuteness on campus in the context of the end of term exhibition of the course City as Canvas (6019) lead by Assistant Professor Anca-Simona Horvath.
Across East Asia, cuteness has many names. Chinese Meng, Japanese Moe and South Korean Aegyo are not exactly the same, but are used to describe similar phenomena. This common cultural language is comprised of shared symbols and attributes, embedded in the public sphere and pop culture. Uncanny Alley begins with our visit to Yide International Toy Mall. This wholesale toy market in Guangzhou, China, filled with plush animals, admirable stickers, and strange plastic objects. As the artists walk through its crowded corridors, cuteness appears not es a individual objects but in overwhelming quantities. The city appears through commodities, producing feelings of softness and desire. This observation studies cuteness as both, a form of comfort and with suspicion. Through the infantilised sycophancy and sometimes even hidden cruelty, cuteness starts to feel strange. At the end, the cute things remain cute, but maybe they are no longer innocent.
