IT’S ALL ABOUT THE FEELINGS… by Beverley Hood
Image credit: Beverley Hood
It’s all about the feelings… by Beverley Hood
‘It’s all about the feelings…’ is a project about emotion. Specifically, how emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies attempt to read our emotions.
It is a performance and film project led by Beverley Hood, an artist and Reader in Technological Embodiment & Creative Practice at the University of Edinburgh, featuring actor, Pauline Goldsmith and PhD candidate in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, Benedetta Catanzariti.
Image credit: It’s all about the feelings, by Beverley Hood. Photographer Chris Scott
By working with actors and performers, skilled in professionally crafted emotional display, the project scrutinises whether the emotional AI technology is really capable of seeing our ‘real-time emotion’ (as the marketing suggests) or just how we express emotion, as a result of personality, social and cultural signifiers etc. The project teases out how authentic and rich this relationship between the performer and technology can be, and the slippage between technological aspirations and lived reality.
Image credit: It’s all about the feelings, by Beverley Hood. Photographer Chris Scott
Emotion or sentiment recognition systems are used as tools to help companies understand user interactions on mobile, website, gaming and educational platforms. Pitched as capturing non-conscious responses, these systems use face recognition to map micro-facial expressions, with natural language processing and biometrics, to systematically identify users' affective states i.e. emotion. However, AI systems are not without bias and problematic standardisation, which potentially reinforce privileges and inequalities, racism, sexism, ageism and western cultural bias.
Image credit: It’s all about the feelings, by Beverley Hood. Photographer Chris Scott
How can we utilise creative research methods to create better understanding of AI and emotional recognition systems?
This project aims to stimulate public and industry consideration of algorithmic biases, as highlighted by academic research, and think about appropriate, fair real world application and uses of AI technologies.
A first iteration of It’s all about the feelings performance was presented as an open rehearsal via Zoom, on TramwayTV in March 2022.
In June 2022, a live version of this open rehearsal was presented at Inspace, Edinburgh.
About the Artist
Beverley Hood is an artist and Reader in Technological Embodiment and Creative Practice, Director of Research and Unit of Assessment REF Coordinator for Design, at Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh, working with colleagues from diverse disciplines including Design Informatics, Performance Costume, Film, Graphic Design and Jewellery. Her teaching responsibilities include students across the Design, ECA and School of Health and Social Science disciplines from undergraduates, postgraduates, through to PhD candidates. She studied Sculpture and Electronic Imaging at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax, Canada.
Her research practice interrogates the impact of technology on relationships, the body and human experience, through the creation of practice-based projects and writing. A longstanding research interest is live performance using technology and interdisciplinary collaboration. She has developed projects involving a range of practitioners, including medical researchers, scientists, writers, technologists, dancers, actors and composers.
‘It’s all about the feelings…’ project is part of the The New Real programme on Experiential AI, with additional support from TramwaySupports, Edinburgh College of Art, the Edinburgh Futures Institute, the Centre for Data, Culture & Society, Creative Informatics and Cove Park.
