Chameleon – Tina Gonsalves

How is it that an individual’s smile can lift the atmosphere of a room, or that we find ourselves ‘catching’ another’s mood from a display of anger, fear or disgust?

As a visitor to this exhibition you are invited to explore how and why this ‘emotional infection’ happens and to look more closely at the way we all relate to the emotional expressions of others.

On entering the gallery you will become part of an interactive environment in which emotions can influence the display of expressive video portraits.

Gonsalves and her team have developed software to seek out visitors’ emotions and then play back video portraits in response. Each day the mood of the Chameleon portraits will adapt to the range of visitors’ emotional expressions, affecting the tone and emotional environment of the gallery space.

Chameleon highlights how often we are on the threshold of trying to make sense of each other and how we search for meaning and authenticity through balanced codes of expressions, dialogue and body language.