Precedent

Chernoff Faces and Mike Kelley

I have been researching Chernoff Faces and Mike Kelley at the suggestion of my last commentary:

Marcia’s Comments:
This investigation into Chumby-embodiment- and stuffed animal as interface reminded me of Mike Kelly’s work- his site ‘destroy all monstors’ http://www.mikekelley.com/ might give you some ideas- and references- also, the concept of synesthesia and multi-sensory joinings might lead you into interesting territory- a shame it didn’t work with wifi- that would make it mobile-

Doug’s comments:
Great turnaround. I would really like to have seen the face that is on your blog, inside of that little creature. Also – I found the face-interface to be a bit off. I had to click just to the left of the face to range through the emotions. I already gave you the Chernoff face link, but here it is again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernoff_face

The Mike Kelley information is really fascinating and from an infrastructure perspective is a heady pith of a precident that spans thickly into my hardware concepts. Mike Kelley is the sort of artist who obsesses with the everyday by tearing it  new asshole. And I mean that from an artistic rather than glib point of view. He states,

“I’m an avant-gardist. We’re living in the postmodern age, the death of the avant-garde. So all I can really do now is work with this dominant culture and flay it, rip it apart, reconfigure it, expose it.”

This image of Kelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ (1989) depicts his re-engineering of soft toys to form an altogether more inhuman yet human piece. it is completely reminiscent of the cutting room floor scene from the re-engineering of the soft toy prototype that gave its former life to serve as the gory fluff hole within which to insert a hacked piece of hardware.

The Chernoff Faces sync with the other software side of the project. Through the use of basic informative shapes arranged to emulate facial features, it is possible to convey a vast amount of information by engaging with everyday metaphors that are viscerally engrained into our psyche. These take the form of portraiture with features that come together to convey the anger, happiness, discomfort and entire range of facial emotions that the simple elements confer. The visualisation that the software conveys through the use of a few basic polygons speaks volumes.

Supporting Information links

Art21 - Mike Kelley

Wikipedia Mike Kelley

Chernoff Faces - with breakdown of Chernoff method

More Chernoff faces

© 2008 The Technological Red Zone.