Title: Expression Dispatcher (2009)
By: Gerard Rallo
Link: http://www.ideesabsurdes.net/wordpress/?cat=19
On my Flickr: on my Flickr

Concept:
Leave our facial expressivity responsibility (appearance of emotional reactions) in the hands of self-image experts (following us with a smiley remote).
Description:
Many decisions made in our everyday lives are influenced by expert advice, from hairstyles to insurance policies. Yet, millions of decisions are made on a daily basis and instantly expressed through our own facial expressions without any preconceived external reassurance. We continuously strive to project a desired physical self image of ourselves, sometimes requiring most of our cognitive resources, and paradoxically, this daily challenge has a big impact on our lives.

Expressions Dispatcher is designed to help people in their quest for expressiveness.
In using the device we can shift expressive responsibility and place it in the hands of an expert. This life coach will follow the wearer, analysing the context they are in, and digitally take control as to how the wearer should be perceived.

Opinion:
It’s not the main concept that interests me (the fact that an expert controls our facial expressions) but the use of the smiley as main facial expression tool. Using the smiley – a hack to the poor emotional expressivity of textual digital communication, the symbol of the flattened/compressed signal of that medium – as replacement of a human face in live communication simplifies it into only 20 different possibilities. At the opposite of my theme of work here the provocative aim is also to simplify live communication where my search is to make evolve the digital communication closer to some tangible/human feeling.