After research paper

Finally, I finished the research paper!

To be honest, I don’t like and I am not good at writing even in both Chinese or English, especially academic paper. So, it was very challenging. I was so stressed throughout the whole process. However, the paper really helped me a lot. It gives me many inspirations for my practice. Although we cannot write any of our works in the paper, I am now able to explain my practice more clearly with different evidence and examples by the research paper. Now, I can use the physicality of emotion to explain the direction of my practice. But at the same time, it also implies that I have to update/modify the proposal again.

When I throw back to the beginning we just received the guideline of the research paper, I was very worried and totally did not have any ideas what I can write. By narrowing down different area and doing different research, I found my topic. I still remember how excited I was when I found the works related to emotions. It is not only just for the research paper, but also for myself. I learnt a lot from the paper. I understood more possibilities in the physically of emotion and different theories behind. Although the process was tough, the result is fruitful to me!

Expressionism at present: The possibility of whether art can transform emotion into physicality

Keywords: emotion physicalization, emotion, art and science, installation art, expressionism

Abstract

Emotion is the basis of human experience which affects our insight, understanding and interactions in our daily lives. However, when we talk about emotion, it is too abstract to describe what it genuinely is. Joan Truckenbrod in his article (2011) suggests that emotion may not be as intangible as we think. The physical body such as human is not the only container for emotions. Emotion can be transformed in a tangible form as they also live in objects and can be emitted from the material world. His idea leads to a further exploration on how the concept can be applied in art to reveal more possibilities in our future as there is an inseparable relationship between art and emotion for so long.

In comparison with expressionism, which emphasised on expressing the innermost part of human emotion in order to oppose the increasingly industrialised and isolating modern condition (White, 2018) in the 20th century, people now in society tend to work under pressure and hide their emotions. They may forget how essential and importance of our emotion is. Is there any method our emotions can be awaken again? As art is accessible to feelings (Tolstoy, 1904), this paper examines the relationship between art and emotion and explores the possibility of emotion physicalization embodied in art. By discussing the works of Yi Fei Chan, Nick Verstand and the Fuse Studio, this paper aims at exploring a new way for us to interpret emotion, open up new alternative in communication in future and reflect our emotional behaviour in present.

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Introduction

What is Emotion?

Throughout our life, we laugh, we cry or we are heartbroken sometimes. Emotion is the basis of human experience which affects our insight, understanding and daily tasks including learning, talking, and even decision-making (Joan, 2011). However, when we talk about emotion, it becomes so hard and abstract to describe what it is. Literally, “emotion” is related to the verbal and nonverbal behaviors during communication. It means the feelings deriving from the person’s mood, situations, or relationships when interacting with the others.

However, in the perspective of psychology and philosophy, there are various definitions in terms of emotion. The well-known psychologist, William James identifies emotion in his book, the Principles of Psychology (1890, p.442). When there are physical changes or impulses occur in our lives, our feelings align accordingly. James explains that human initiate emotion in a rational aspect and affirm that there is the component of “feeling” in emotion. The feeling is the consciousness of bodily change. Yet, Damasio (2003) defines emotion as a process occur in human brain. Emotional feelings are subjective experience of human experience. They are the perceptions of behavioural expressions which react to stimuli mediated through lower brain.

Even in philosophy, there are different points of view in emotion. For example, some like Saul Kripke (1980) believes that the heart of an emotion is an internal feeling which is fundamental to mental concepts or set of sensation and also the remarkable raw feel of experience. While some think that the core of an emotion lies a cognition, particular perception, judgement of value or evaluation. (Hjort & Laver, 1997)

Physicality of Emotion

It is interesting to find out there is no single meaning for emotion even though emotion researchers, psychologists or philosophers have debated for many years. Emotion seems becoming more mysterious and abstract from these definition. However, Joan Truckenbrod in the article, Transforming the Physicality of Emotion (2011) posted in the ISEA reveals a point of view that emotion may not as intangible as we thought.

 

Truckenbrod states that the physical body such as human is not the only container for emotions. Emotion can be transformed in a tangible form as they also live in objects and is emitted from the material world. By taking awards, medals, trophies and also baby toys as examples, he shows how emotionality is alive in materials. As the vestiges of personal events and social practices become people’s memories, the objects are the signifiers of one’s memories such as the remembrance of the competition, the activities, the history or even the childhood. After the performance of the ritual, the memory lives in these remnant material and evokes our powerful emotions for long. Emotion are situated in objects as they become sites of memory. Its physicality is transformed into transient, virtual or spiritual experience to us.

From the view of Truckenbord, it suggests an alternative on how we may understand more about emotion. As he breaks our perception on emotion which only lives in our bodies. It also leads us to future explorations on how the concept, the physicality of emotion can be applied on art.

Relationship between Art and Emotion

In the book What is Art? (1904, p.156), Tolstoy Leo states that there is an inseparable relationship between art and emotion which may help us to figure out more mysteries about emotion. He suggests that art is the means of communication which make feelings become accessible to human. It renders accessible emotion experienced by their ancestor to the latest generations, just like speech communicates ideas and knowledge.

Their relationship can be found in art history as well. The term, expressionism emphasises on expressing innermost part of human emotion in order to opposed the increasingly industrialised and isolating modern condition. The art movement in the 20th century revealed the importance of emotion in art by exploring the psyche of human and humanity. (White, 2018) It can also be applied in different forms of art such as painting, sculpture or music .etc. People are easy to link emotion with paintings. One of the most typical examples is the Scream (1893) by Edvard Munch. It reveals the war between ourselves and the society. Even till now, the Scream evokes the audience’s anxiety and fear by its highly intense colour, distorted background and free brushstroke. Or in music, it is often heard as the expression of emotion by an unspecified individual which may call as the music’s persona. It is almost without doubt that having the power to evoke emotion, feeling or even sensation. By the rapid tempo, dissonant intervals, lively rhythms or quick alternation of soft and forte, it may caused rise in heartbeat, discomfort occasioned and produced excitement. (Hjort & Laver, 1997)

Art evokes the emotions or even provokes our irrational side. In theories of art, for instance emotionalism and expression theories, emotion is considered as the core of art’s nature and value. Aesthetic judgements like beauty are traditionally thought to centre on emotion, sentiment like pleasure. It is obvious that emotion and art are interrelated with each other for long. (Roholt, 2013)

In comparison with nowadays, our society have improved and technology has advanced. This supposes to narrow down the distance between people. Difference in location no longer becomes a barrier to communicate with others. However, in the 21th century, many of us think that we are isolated and feel like more lonely than before. People in society work under the pressure and tend to hide their emotions. Being emotional become an obstacle for them to have a better performance on work. People do not know how to express themselves nor get in touch with their emotions. They do not understand how essential and importance emotion is. Different mental diseases become more and more common nowadays. By using art which is accessible to feelings as the medium to physicalise emotion, may it become an alternative for people to interpret emotion, understand more about their inner feelings or as a new way to communicate? From the works of Yi Fei Chen, Nick Verstand and the Fuse Studio which are trying to represent emotion in physical form, this paper examines how the idea of physicality of emotion embody in art and how they create new possibilities in understanding the idea of emotion or arousing our emotions again.

Tear Gun – When emotion become a real object

In our perception, when somebody cries, he/she will be considered as weak, harmless or even a coward. However, the meaning and function of crying have been changed. Tears as an emotional response can also become as powerful as a weapon now. It no longer refers to a symbol of weakness or a passive reaction but as a direct fight back. Tear Gun (2016) created by the Taiwanese designer, Yi Fei Chen visualises her feeling in an innovative way. Tear Gun (Fig.1) was borned in the contrast of tear and gun which is considered as weak and strong respectively.

Fig. 1 Tear Gun, Yi Fei Chan (2016)

The user first needs to put on a special mask which is made by an inverted triangular shape silicon cup in order to collect the dropping tears. Unlike tear catcher in the myth of Victorian, the collected tears will then be frozen, stored inside the gun, ready for loading and shoot. Instead of being a deadly weapon for people, Tear Gun is a “visual metaphor” for Chen to toughen up and to speak her feeling. As there was an altercation with her tutor while Chen was studying master in Netherlands. Her tutor required her to do more works within a short period of time and she thought that was impossible to finish. Due to the traditional eastern culture, people should respect authority truly and deeply. She was afraid that it would be impolite if she spoke to her tutor. Therefore, she could not pluck up her courage and explained her mind. Certainly, she failed to finish her works at last. Her tutor misunderstood Chen as underprepared. Chen was under-controlled by emotions and did not know how to react but sobbed. It triggered Chen having the idea to create this work.

Despite of whether it is an appropriate method to treat our teachers, Yi Fei Chen does visualise her feelings via her work. There are many reasons behinds our tears and sometime it is hard to explain. However, art speaks for us when language cannot help express our feelings. It helps the artist understands more about herself, her affections and how to manage her personal struggle. Now, she can pluck up her courage and use her tears to fight back, to tell her feelings. As Chen believes that machine are appliance that transform power of human purposes. If emotion can be considered as a certain type of “energy”, machines can also be used for creating new possibilities. (2017) The emotion does not just reside in the work but become an energy and the physical object itself. Tears including inhibited emotion such as anger and sadness are transformed into a bullet.

Apart from Tear Gun physicalises Chen’s emotions, it also let the audience feel the same as the artist. Apart from the actual function or the power of the tear gun, it is a strong, poetic, innovative and creative work which is full of emotions. Audiences can experience her struggles concretely and therefore, their emotion is even aroused because of the physicalization of emotion. It reminds us the similar experience or repressed feelings we had and how we want to release. Chen makes a good example of how to make emotion become tangible. It also rises our creativity to imagine how the physicality of other emotions will look like and our reflection on our emotional response.

Aura – Materialising our internal feelings to external physical space

Not only does Yi Fei Chan visualises her emotion into Tear Gun, but Nick Verstand, the artist who is known for creating large-scale installation, also combines art and science together. Nick transforms audience’s emotion into a perceptible and physical form in his interactive audiovisual installation, Aura (Fig.2) which exhibited in the Dutch Design Week in 2017. Normally, when people try to evaluate art from the view of emotion, they will conceive emotions as the emotions of artists expressing via their work, or the emotions aroused in the heart of the audiences. (Roholt, 2013) However, what Verstand expresses by Aura to the external world is audiences’ internal emotion. With the collaboration of Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, they develop the scientific system of transforming emotion into the light.

Fig.2 Aura, Nick Verstand (2017)

Audience first lay down or sit on the floor and listen to the 20 minutes musical composition played at the background in order to evoke their emotions. By using a number of wearable biosensors, the system registers brainwaves, heart-rate variability and galvanic skin response, their feelings (i.e. neurological activity) will be analysed and metamorphosed into various colours, shapes and intensities of light beaming down onto them from ceiling. The light surrounding them is like a translucent curtain. The differences in individuals’ emotional responses become visible to everyone. As discussed above, the rhythm and melody help trigger our emotions. It causes rise in heartbeat, discomfort occasioned and produce excitement which called as emotional response in scientific aspect. (Hjort & Laver, 1997) The relationship of art such as music and emotion become more significant in the physicalization of emotion by Aura.

Moreover, the artist’s initial intention is to further explore the possibility of light as a medium, the idea pioneered by James Turrel and Olafur Eliasson. And in Aura, he succeeds in transforming light which is intangible into an innovative representation and physicalize emotions concretely. Moreover, colour psychology also shows that different colours trigger people to have different feelings, such as red makes people feel passive, blue triggers tranquility and violet gives rise to magicality. (McLeod, 2016) While the colour of the light changed according to the visitor’s emotion, the colour of the light will affect them at the same time. The light and the audience’s feeling are interrelated with each other. The audience may find hard to distinguish that was his/her own emotion or the emotion bring about by the environment. Verstand creates a unique and multi-sensorial environment for people’s contemplation. “It explores how the perceptual process influences the understanding of ourselves and of each other. The installation symbolises the physicalization of the internal metaphysical space into external physical space.”he explains. (2016) In the past, we thought it is difficult or almost impossible to make emotion become tangible. However, by technology it provides the platform for artists to make it happens. Our inner world is now possible to be disclosed to the others.

Amygdala – Using big data as the way to physicalise emotion

Not only is technology the stepping stone for physicalizing emotion, but it also creates databases to collect our data including our emotion. Nowadays, we just need to click a button in our electronic devices and then we can easily get access to different social media platforms. Therefore, they become more common and popular for people to express their emotions. And the news around the world attract loads of users to share their thoughts and feelings right away. The Fuse Studio made use of these emotion data in the network in order to create the real- time generative audiovisual installation called Amygdala (2016). The title, Amygdala is referred to the part in human brain which is vital in processing of emotions and also associated with emotional memory systems. The artwork acts as an internet amygdala by imitating the brain of human to process millions of tweets in Twitter in three months and distribute them into varies emotion types.

 

The method it used to deduce the emotional status of messages shared by Twitter’s users is a sentimental analysis or called “opinion mining” which makes use of both the information retrieval and the computational linguistics. The text analysis focus on the thoughts that the post itself expressed rather than the topics it discussed. The algorithm check every word in the tweet by using a dictionary of over thousands of lexical items. In the basis of its meaning, each of them has a score for each emotion. Once the post is analysed, it is therefore shown by six values, one for each representing an emotion, which is sadness, happiness, anger, fear, amazement and disgust. It would be offered the ‘strongest emotion’ regarding to the content of the post itself. At last, the overall emotional status is determined by first, the number of tweets and second, the percentages of each sentiment. The result will be displayed in the video wall in different colour.

Fig.3 The algorithm of Amygdala (the Fuse Studio, 2016)

The Amygdala analyses shares ideas, interprets states of mind and gathers data together into light and sound in order to reveal the net of collective emotional states and its changes on the basis of events happened in worldwide. By visualising the flow of data and information that are being created by users in constant, it attempts to let people analyse the ‘sentiment’ in big data. And this hopes to bring a better understanding in the present situation and foresees the future such as different social phenomena. Moreover, it also helps people to know more about themselves. For example, they become more conscious on how things happen in the outer world and how these events influence our inner feelings.

With advanced technology, nowadays our emotion is living in the digital realm as well. Our feelings are being transferred into digital forms such as a tweet, a post or even an emoji. They has become part of the big data for the others to read and to interpret. And the Fuse Studio exploited these digital emotions, transformed and physicalised them once again in the audiovisual installation, the Amygdala. Although it is fascinated to see the diversity of emotion physicalization that emotion lives in digital world as well, it also stimulated our reflection on the ways that we are expressing our emotion nowadays. It leads us to consider more whether we should keep relying on electrical devices to help us do everything such as expressing our feelings. Because when emotion is become data, it is getting harder for people to feel and experience at the same time. Ironically, emotion turned into emotionless in this situation. It is a cold data without any humanity inside. Maybe it is also mirroring our behaviour which are becoming emotionless nowadays. But Amygdala did physicalise the emotion we expressed in virtual digital world and aroused our reflection towards our behaviour.

Conclusion

From the case studies above, the visualisation of emotion in art is becoming more possible with the aid of science and technology. Artists can freeze their tear as a bullet such as the Tear Gun (2016) by Yi Fei Chan, analyse the audience’s emotional response to visualise audience’s emotions with scientific appliances like Nick Verstand or physicalise our emotion by using the social media we use everyday (Fuse Studio). They show emotions are living in different areas including in art and in the digital world as well. Undoubtedly, the physicality of emotion in art also provides an alternative in communication. Although the Tear Gun (2016) by Yi Fei Chan has just visualised the artist’s own emotion, it transforms emotion into a kind of energy. It arouses resonance among audience effectively. People understand and experience the artist’s struggle and emotion concretely and easily. Including Chen herself, it was also an opportunity for her to understand more about herself and her emotions which help her express herself in future communication at ease.

On the other hand, the physicality of emotion in art stimulates some concerns about this alternative of communication as well. If people are no longer able to hide their true feelings and their emotion are visualised to everyone like the audience in Aura (2016), is it definitely a good trend for communication? People will have a more efficient communication and better relationship between each other. Or maybe, in opposite, many relationship will then be broken. This is still an unknown and is awaiting to be further explored. But it deserves our reflection on how we express ourselves in communication nowadays.

Although the Amygdala (2016) by the Fuse Studio showed how our emotion nowadays lives in the digital realm and gathered collective of emotion together as the data to visualise emotions, it is also revealing the emotionless part in the digital world. As art is possible to transform emotion into physicality, are we going to become more emotionless? Or from the emotionless just like what we have seen in the Amygdala, we learn to respect and treasure the feeling we have now in reality and this becomes the turning point for us to reawaken our emotion.

At last, I would like to use the interview of Olafur Eliasson in his exhibition, “Our Emotional Future” (2011) as the conclusion, People may consider emotions is intangible in general. However, we tend to understand as for the most part being comprised of the rational and the controllable in our world. Emotion is the remain fluid substance… It’s about realising that it is not adequate to depends on softwares, manifestos, dogmas and political ideologies as method of sharing a world. Besides, we also need to rely on our humanity for instance sensitivity, sympathy, empathy which are types of our emotion and the essential idea of human interaction in future. (p.8) Emotion as a kind of human experience will become more important for us to understand more about our world. Therefore, it is vital for us to put our focus back to our inner feelings, and to explore more about ourselves including our unconsciousness part. With the development of technology, the physicality of emotion will be more common in different forms of art and may become a new expressionism in future.

Bibliography

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Chen, Y.F (2018) Yi Fei Chen. Available at: http://chenyifeidesign.com/ (Accessed: 09 August 2018).

Damasio, A. (2003) Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. New York: Harcourt Publishing.

Eliasson, O. (2011). ‘Our Emotional Future: Olafur Eliasson’. Interview with Olafur Elissson. Interviewed by Eckhard Schneider for Pinchuk Art Centre

Hjort, M., Laver, S. (Eds.), 1997. Emotion and the Arts. New York: Oxford University Press. James, W. (1918) The Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company, p.

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Mcleod, J. (2016) Colour Psychology Today. Hants: O-Books.

Morris, A. (2017) Audiovisual Installation Translates Emotions Into Beams of Light. Dazeen. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/11/25/aura-installation-translates-emotions- into-beams-of-light-studio-nick-verstand-dutch-design-week/ (Accessed: 05 July 2018).

Roholt, T.C. (2013) Key Terms in Philosophy of Art. London: Bloomsbury, p.1949-1956. The Fuse Studio, (2016) Amygdala. Available at: https://www.fuseworks.it/en/works/

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Research Paper – Initial Idea

To think of the research paper’s question, I drew a mind map with three keywords (art, interaction, emotion) to get some idea and inspiration. I’m glad that I find a direction from it as I found that those keywords are somehow interrelated to each other. And then I tried to narrow the idea down to “interactive art, emotion expression, and psychology”.

After the seminar with Gareth, I got a list of keyword and book to read (I drop it down in here first to remind myself): Play, Game, Swing time in Boston, “Rethinking curating” -Beryl Graham & Sarah Cook, How light affect emotions, James Turrell, Carsten Holler, “Art and Visual Perception” – Rudolf Arnheim, Yaoyoi Kusana, Bruno Munari – art & play