fighting for
freedom of facial expression
freedom of facial expression
A random sample of muscle contraction configurations. (video stills)Videography: Josephine Jasperse
The Varieties of Human Facial Expression. 12 bit version
creation date: 1997
Humans use their faces rather limited, it is mostly used to express the basic set of emotions: i.e. anger, fear, doubt, joy, sadness, etc.The human facial hardware itself is not restricting this limited deployment and is capable of displaying an enormous range of facial muscle configuration patterns. The Varieties of Human Facial Expression is an effort to give insight into the widest gamut of facial expressions possible on a human face and does this in a systematic fashion.
The Varieties is a video registration of the enumeration of all possible facial muscle on/off states. A binary additive algorithm triggers six muscles on each side of the face in a rapid succession, thereby along the way visualizing on the face the process of binary counting up.
Total number of different facial expressions: 4096 (2^12)
Duration: 32'17
Sound: actual stimulus pulses
video-clip excerpt [01'07]