Emotion Hero

What does it mean to feel 62% joy, and 15% surprised? Over the past years the digitization of emotions is booming business: multimillion dollar investments are made in technologies of which is claimed that they give companies an objective view in their consumers' feelings. The video-game-artwork Emotion Hero challenges the user to investigate this claim and question the premise of the technology. Emotion Hero is a two-part artwork. On the one hand is a video-game that is freely downloadable for everybody with an Android device. Inspired by Guitar Hero, the user scores points by following given cues. It provides detailed feedback on the mechanics of the face. The second part is a projection that shows a grid with aggregated scores of the game, that updates live. In its design, the grid refers to 19th century positivist practices.