Working with Robson and Jones I contributed two exhibits to the refurbished Who Am I? gallery at the Science Musuem, London. The gallery was updated in 2009/2010 re-using the existing floating ‘bloid’ exhibit cases. The two works were Perception of Time a exploration in how the eye and memory affect our ability to interpret time, and Exploring Expressions providing visitors with the opportunity to spot physical reflexes in faces which point to Paul Ekman’s theories about facial expressions.

Perception of Time

The exhibit consists of three video mirrors running different applications. Taking video input from the gallery via a high resolution Unibrain Fire-i 785c camera, each mirror stores and manipulates the image replaying with a different effect. The left mirror is a slit-scan mirror, taking only a slice of the current perspective and building up a full image as it scrolls across the screen. The central mirror records periods of time and replays them overlaying them so ‘ghosts’ of previous visitors are visible, blending seamlessly into the current video feed. The right hand mirror updates erratically, and in only those sections of the image where motion is detected hinting at saccades in human vision.

Each mirror is a custom application written in openFrameworks with informative text appearing periodically, coordinated by a server running on one of the mirrors.

Exploring Expressions

Using Paul Ekman’s theories of microexpressions as a starting point Exploring Expressions is an exhibit in which visitors attempt to spot the fleeting, involuntary facial expressions in a number of interviewees. After a short training period the visitor is prompted to spot the expression of a range of emotions: surprise, disgust, fear and anger. Using a jog wheel it is possible to scroll back and forth through high frame-rate footage to identify the exact point of expression. There are a total of six clips to try. The application was written in openFrameworks offering good control over the high resolution, high speed video clips.