Smile, you are on camera

This interactive video-installation Works on how we experiment and perceive the smile. Lien-Chen Wang searches the word “smile” on Google in order to collect facial expressions captured in all kind of moments. The outcome is a bunch of virtual images that have undergone an alienation process. The software used detects the spectator’s position through a camera so that everyone has to deal with a foreign smile in an impersonal and anonymous representation.  

This installation enables us to think about the mental process involved in an emotional response such as smiling. Behind these smiles, we find a software responsible for adjusting automatically all the images and put them together in the centre of the installation working on issues like autonomy, individualization and collective consciousness. 

Moreover, the utopian ideal which believes in the universal access to information makes us deal with the enormous amount of data present in our daily basis. Indeed, one of the main characteristics of the software is its assemblage of similar behaviours: it selects and normalizes a trivial gesture such as smiling. 

The public and interactive nature of this installation beckons the spectator to this about the network-society. According to Manuel Castells, we dwell in a “social structure based on production, power and experience networks” (CASTELLS, 2012: 132). The individual is linked to a virtual reality and his relationship with new technologies (POLLOCK, 2015:32). Thanks to this installation, we can identify and analyse partial stated and behaviours associated with smiling. Its dynamic uses a codified language formed of rules and universal customized modes. Google establish the user’s experience offering apparent truths based on the belief of an extra-grammatical freedom (GROYS, 2014: 203).

Referencias:
GROYS Boris (2014) Volverse público. La transformación del arte en el ágora contemporánea, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: Caja Negra.
CASTELLS Manuel (2012) Redes de indignación y esperanza: los movimientos sociales en la era de Internet, Madrid: Alianza.
POLLOCK Griselda (2015) “Modernidad líquida y análisis transdisciplinar de la cultura”, en BAUMAN, Z. (2015) Arte, ¿líquido?, Madrid: Sequitur, pp. 27-34.

Texto: Coral Nieto Garcia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_F-WyqJQI8&list=UU-0Bt9BERh4BeK4YzW4Ck8A