In the mid-nineteenth century, Duchenne de Boulogne, a French physician, used photographs to document his experiments of applying electronic shocks to subjects’ faces in order to create a system for understanding facial expression. Duchenne’s aim was to establish the universality of human expression, and photography was an essential tool in his project. (Sturken and Cartwright 283)
This quote reminded me of this piece by Malcolm Galdwell, “The Naked Face” (I originally read it in Gladwell’s book, Blink; this version appeared in The New Yorker; the pdf comes with cartoons). The article refers to Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which has connects facial expression—actually, the movement of particular muscles in coordination with each other—to emotion.
Gladwell states that “Ekman had established that expressions were the universal products of evolution” and that “There were fundamental lessons to be learned from the face, if you knew where to look.” I'm interested in hearing what you all think about this idea, first, and, second, what it might mean as photographic evidence. I think it falls into the category of information that can be compiled about a person without their consent, and, if widely accepted, could be damning in particular situations. (I’m thinking of something like Sturken and Cartwright’s description of the Rodney King trial; frame by frame analysis of individuals’ every facial movement, subjected to intense, micro-scrutiny and highly determined outcomes.)
Also interesting is how large a role visual media played in the creation of FACS—Ekman relied on videotapes, photos, etc. (particularly interesting is the episode with Tomkins, Ekman, and Kukukuku film strip—does anyone want to deconstruct that situation?). Perhaps the general question here is, do we want to “unpack the face”? If we do, what is the cost? Besides being a means of identifying flamethrower-wielding cross-dressers, what’s it going to be used for? And if said unpacking is so reliant on visual media, can we trust we have “unpacked” correctly (or even the right thing)?
Remember: “Happiness . . . is essentially A.U. six and twelve.”
photographic evidence/surveillance
You ask interesting questions in the last paragraph, especially what's it going to be used for. About 20 years ago I visited the headquarters of a multinational in Houston, and they took me for a tour. They were proud of all the perks their employees had, including an elaborate gym. The machines kept records of heart rates, blood pressure, and other measurables, and people could get printouts showing trends over time. My immediate thought was would you want your employer to know that your blood pressure was up?
Your last question is important too. How do we know we have the right thing? Medicine now depends a great deal on imaging. The result is that physicians tend to look at the images rather than the patient. Seeing, as Kenneth Burke observed, can be a way of not seeing.