And search I learned to find;

And since the wind blows in my face,

I sail with every wind.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Got your head around it? Well, sounds pretty much like Chinese arithmatic…

Well, basically, mimik is nothing else than the contraction of one or several of the around 20 facial muscles. There was a definition for the fundamental facial expressions (a little further developed after Paul Ekmans origninal establishment): Anger, Concentration, Confusion, Comtempt, Desire, Disgust, Excitement, Fear, Frustration, Glare, Happiness, Sadness, Snarl, Surprise (please note: Not for Botox-treated faces!).

…Phew, quite a few expressions (for most faces)…and thanks to FACS (fancy term of: Facial Action Coding System, by Ekman and Friesen (1976)) all these expressions can easily be read by computers. With the FACS patterns (46 facial muscle actions), these expressions can be standardized and used by psychologists as well.

The rest of us is left with natural intuition and own trials of interpretation rather than having an automatic reader (damn, sometimes I’d die for knowing what exactly my smiley boss is thinking when one of his private tuition pupil’s parents are telling him that their dear “Isabelle” is such a hardworking student, she’s just there because the mean teachers cannot interprete her potential…)

So, here one for you. Have a close look at this face. What do you think, how does she feel like? (Which one of the basics definitions is it?)

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Sure???

Ok, next one. What do you think about this one. Now some happier stuff:

Source: eng.wikipedia.org

Somehow smiling the face, isn’t it? So is it happiness? Contempt?

Taking the next pic into account, I’d say something else:

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Surprising how fast a judgement can change with additional information. In the following case as well, have a look at these two faces:

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

At least the basic idea is obvious: Left is “fear”, right is “surprise”. Do you think you could confuse them? Hard to imagine for Westeners. Actually, the answer is “YES” sor several Asian people. They almost exclusively pay attention to the eyes:

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Still convinced of the absurdity to mix ‘em up? Looks quite similar, doesn’t it?

Westeners pay attention to the whole face. The Asian culture proposes an eye-centric view which funny enough is also seen in their emoticons

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Let’s face it, computers are not only better in reading our perpetully sent dissertations of how we feel but also a way better means to communicate feelings…(not precisely! -  when it comes to reactions….ever fancied a hug of your notebook?)

From mathemtically ungifted scientist to an icon for students….(usually without shiner )

Source: genial-zeichnen-lernen.de

Not only in the social, but also in the political area: Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Hu Jintao, Catherine Ashton (sorry, haven’t found any caricature for her – seems that Mrs Still-Nobody hasn’t found her “profile” yet..)……….

Source: 360-berlin.de

All over the place, literally everywhere you’ll find pics, images and drawn works of art. Relating to the copie, I’m not talking about photographies as this is another art, but about the mostly hand-made result of heads.

Drawing as a mean of communication is almost as ols as the human being. Who does not know the famous cave paintings of our ancestors? Amazingly fast they were learning how to picture whole scenes of huntings and feasts. (Progress there means basic stuff today – surprisingly, some people draw even worse than the very first apes ) Basically, this was meant to show the hugely successful preying upon animals, of course initiated by the hunter themselves.

Nowadays, it is more difficult for an even gifted painter to get their message across due to the overflow of all kinds of pics. Two possible solutions are either to get completely and authentically individual like Picasso or Cezanne. Or to dive into mainstream and treat subjects of public interest which most painters prefer (or are forced by having to gain thei living).

But think about what a huge influence pictures have. Sometimes, it is even easier to bring something across via a caricature than a text. The beholder, which of course needs to have the knowledge-related background, can instantaneously understand the critics or the irony of the drawing.

Source: bp.blogspot.com

As it already mentioned, one needs to know the background:

Source: bp.blogspot.com

.

Source: bp.blogspot.com

Look at her face! Simply gorgeous how this is made But again and again, although there is an overwhelming number of caricature & co., painters tend to draw on the same set of tools. One of which is the small child pattern (apparently apllied here with an hilarious effect).

No worries, this show is not only reserved for promis, politicians and other VIPs, but you can also book you own one:

Take either one of the templates or choose your own description

Faces, to face, beauty ideal, facial reconstruction, emotions, face recognition systems…well, these are just some of the whole bunch of ideas which might come to mind when the headword “face” is mentioned. My aim for this blog is to show a slice of the whole cake.

So, before starting to read, I’d ask you to smile for te next 15 seconds in order to become aware of your own face which seems to be quite a good beginning for this blog.

Now, please take a mirror (a small pocket mirror does the job as well) and smile again. Have a look at your eyes, are they smiling like your mouth does? If yes, you are ready to go ahead to read my articles. If not, please repeat this excercise until you get a grinning answer .

Source: oe24.at

Cosmetic surgery (please do not mess around with plastic surgery which also includes recontructive surgery!) has become quite a normal part of today’s society, especially within the high society. (Usually, I’m not quite into the yellow press so please tell me if I got a wrong link between people or so )

Facelifts, botox lips (=lidplastic), nasal and auricular corrections (=rhinoplastic and otoplastic), liposuction for chin and neck….goes pretty much to infinite possibilities. I even heard of implats for foreheads, cheeks and chins. Weird thought that you theoretically could change your whole appearance without any problems (I suppose it would not be really complicated to find a surgeon who’s willing to do this, either abroad or for some financial support).

You do not need to change you skin color or to have a falling nose to join the surgery party. Karen Mulder (ex-top mode), Casey Johnson, Brittany Murphy, Olivia Newton John (80s singer)….but have a look at the striking change of cat woman Jocelyn Wildstein:

Source: colunistas.ig.com.br

Do you think this is beautiful? I’m really interested in, because as far as I am concerned, the idea of being willing to look like a cat is kinda, well, let’s say bizarre. Would you go to a plastic surgery in order to make your lips fuller or your cheeks more curvaceaus? Please leave a comment, it is really interesting what you think about being tranformed that much!

Source: loreal.de

Close-ups of faces are very common in the advertising industry as the face itself represents the strongest pole for the dense display of emotion (let’s limit it to the public ). In 99 % of the published ads, the women’s faces are close to the beauty ideal (also see my article from Oct. 18, 2009: “The Mystery of Ravishing Beauty“)

Did you know that Microsoft just presented a prototype for a video screen which provides “customer-based” ads? This means nothing else than that the technique of the video surveillance in London city and almost every other city around the world is used in order to recognize a passing face via a small camera. (BIG BROTHER’S WATCHING YOU! – Complete Surveillance?!)

This picture is used to identify it as either male or female which triggers the change of the adapted video ad shown on this screen. I suppose, the next ste would be to also inlude the age range. Feels wonderful to be mainstreamed like that

When the anorexic model scandals raged through loads and loads of newspapers, some companies decided to publicly campaign against the “anorexic equals beautiful” trend. For example “Dove” is quite famous for their movement against this kind of display.

So hard it is not to identiy with the woman who just enjoys the body lotion (at everybody who claims not to do this, please have a look at your toiletries and ask yourself why you bought just this product when watching the fitting ad). You may feel more relieved, if you consider that the buying decision only involves around 3 % of our conscious (which is equal to 97 % of our subconscious!)

Next time you pass this huge video wall at the main shopping street with the divine-looking woman who shaves her infintely long legs: “Hey Miss, how much does this of-course-very-special rasor make me happier than I am with my current one? And by the way, the photoshop treatment really suits you, it’s almost not visible!”