This project stems from a collaboration formed through the European Mobile Lab for Interactive Media Art (e-MobiLArt), which brought together artists from across the globe working with transdisciplinary art/science practice. The artist team comprises John Holder a virtual reality artist/technologist specialized in synthetic facial simulations, Pia Tikka, a filmmaker working with enactive methodologies and biofeedback and Anna Dumitriu a conceptual/performance/installation artist working with embodied approaches to consciousness. Dr Blay Whitby, a philosopher and a collaborator with Dumitriu also joined the team, which is also supported by the Enactive Media Group at University of Helsinki.

The emotions we present to the world and those we feel inside may often be very different, in fact our facial expressions act as form of communication and manipulation in social settings, a non-verbal ‘language’. The ability to present the correct expression is an important and evolved tool for gaining sympathy, eliciting love or displaying anger. But would greater inter-subjective understanding be achieved if we had access to the hidden emotions? That question is investigated by the interactive media artwork ‘Enactive Dialectics’ which is currently in development.

The work, which investigates human interaction, through an embodied, situated, enactive approach, comprises two ‘treatment’ chairs directly facing each other; these are used to evoke a sense of being a subject in an experiment. Behind each chair a digitally modeled three-dimensional synthetic face is projected. Inside the chairs are placed a range of biosensors, reading the sitter’s emotional state. The biosensor data then influences the expressions displayed by the synthetic face above each sitter, however this can be switched to display the inner expression of the opposing sitter, enabling them to view their own ‘emotional’ state. This is likely to set up an emotional feedback loop where participants attempt to conceal their own feelings, even to themselves or try to develop a greater empathy for those around them. 

The ethical implications are clear and care must be taken, the biosensor data only gives part of the story and the representations of the emotions have been authored by the artists. This potentially false feedback then becomes part of the system, raising the question that even if we think we have inside information we are still cannot really know how another person is feeling. We cannot even be sure if we ourselves are feeling the way we feel.

Through this work we attempt to question how familiar intuitions about personal identity and subjective experience can be re-drawn and experienced with unexpected results through digital mediation, placing the boundary, between self and other, into question in both real and virtual space.

News

John Holder presented a paper entitled “Enactive Dialectics: Inter-subjective Emotional FeedbackThrough an Embodied Approach” at ISEA 2009. The paper is co-authored by Anna Dumitriu, Pia Tikka and Blay Whitby.

Enactive Dialectics is currently on show at the Rondo Gallery in Katowice, Poland until 15th November 2009.

EXTERNAL COLLABORATORS

Blay Whitby (Philosopher/Ethicist), University of Sussex

BIOSENSOR TECHNOLOGY

Enactive biosensor system designed and implemented by Joonas 

Juutilainen (Enactive Cinema Team)

Biosensor technology by Emfit Ltd

 

ENACTIVE MEDIA TEAM, Helsinki University of Technology

Mauri Kaipainen, Södertörn University

Niklas Ravaja, CKIR, Helsinki School of Economics

Tapio Takala, Helsinki School of Technology

Pia Tikka, University of Art and Design

Rasmus Vuori, University of Art and Design, Helsinki

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work of Pia Tikka has been supported by the research project 

aivoAALTO in the Aalto University, Helsinki.

SPONSORS

Arts Council England

The Finnish Cultural Foundation