The Black Box Grimaces Back

Abstract

With the algorithmic age of computable emotions, an increasing number of digital artists base the form of their Internet or sculptural installation on Automated Facial Expression Analysis (AFEA), and its functionality achieved via the photographic documentation in face databases. These contemporary artists make visible a digital habit of thought that objectivates the human face into a plastic grotesque of grimacing extremis, and the self inside out into the universal or utilitarian. Yet, most AFEA systems – a term little clarified and much confused with facial recognition or biometrics – are “black box” frameworks. Introduced by the technological industry and scientific experts, such proprietary closed source algorithms veil the majority of program functionality input from available data output, hiding how it works from immediate observation by artist and audience. By problematizing Julius von Bismarck’s Public Face (2008-14) and its intermedial genealogies, I probe the extent to which AFEA represents the face and its expression of emotion from a technostalgic view that reduces scientific complexity, while informing how we think about what we feel today. Keywords: automated facial expression analysis, biometrics, digital art and science, facial recognition algorithms, photography