sheep-LookingOutwards06
Electric Stimulus to face (2008) is a performance by Daito Manabe. Manabe says about the piece: “A machine can simulate a perfect smile, but it fails to look like a real smile until you put the emotions behind it.” In the piece, instead of the human manipulating the machine, the machine is manipulating the human face to a musical composition, by literally putting wires that are sending signals to the face and making it twitch. Daito himself programmed the work, which uses MaxMSP and arduinos to work as it does- turning the human into an instrument. The tradition of using the body to make performance works with electricity extends far back. There’s Stelarc’s Split Body: Voltage In/Voltage Out- where he allowed the audience to control the muscles of a substantial part of his body. There’s also Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Scha’s The Varieties of Human Facial Expression, where a computer program enumerates all facial expressions that can be realized.