The human face constantly conveys emotional information through facial expressions, providing an often unconscious window into the vast array of human emotions. Southampton Graphic Arts student Jade Davies has linked art with data analysis by plotting a one-day snapshot of human emotion onto a real face.
Jade used herself as the test subject. “I carried out the study on myself during six pre-determined two hour time slots, recording my emotions and their intensity as they changed. The timing of this study, during the last few weeks of my degree, meant that my emotions were rather fraught, so these intense, rapidly changing emotional states made for an interesting data set.”
Jade mapped each of her recorded states onto one of the six core emotions. Though disputed by some philosophers, these are classified by the six universally recognisable facial expressions of happiness, disgust, surprise, sadness, anger and fear.
Initially, she plotted the data onto polystyrene heads. Because human emotion is unpredictable and unquantifiable, the points were plotted according to Jade’s sense of where the emotion was felt most on her face. For example, emotions relating to stress might encircle the face, or tiredness may induce emotions to appear densely around the eyes.
There was no restriction on the number of points. Each core emotion was colour-coded and the depth to which the pins penetrated the face described the intensity of the emotion.
Before starting the project, Jade spent a lot of time researching emotional imagery and associations, as well as other artists. Gillian Wearing’s 'Trauma' series, which uses masks to conceal people's identities whilst they made often deeply emotional confessions, led to Jade’s sense of the face as an interchangeable mask of emotion.
From the moment she came up with the concept of using the human face as a canvas for data visualisations Jade planned to work on a real face and photograph the results.
“The idea of working onto a real face in this way seemed too obvious and intense to ignore, plus I'd wanted to create a data visualisation that was visually appealing as well as informative. The shoot involved a lot of planning and material research to make sure I used the correct products that wouldn't hurt the model's skin.”
Using this method, personal emotional data collected over pre-determined time slots throughout one day is visualised using the human face as the canvas to display the data. Using pins to plot data onto the face is a challenging idea, inviting the viewer to question whether a painful procedure has been inflicted upon the model - particularly when these images are viewed alongside their 3D counterparts of polystyrene heads adorned with pins.
