Gymnastics of the Soul

Project research always turns up some interesting finds, but this one was a bit grotesque. I was hunting for facial expressions to inspire a new take on comedy tragedy masks. No I’m not designing a trite theatre icon… little trust here people. It’s for an upcoming First Fridays at the Natural History Museum. A little bizarre, but if you’ve seen the preceding creative in the campaign the idea won’t seem quite so odd.

Anyway, I got completely sucked into Guillaume Duchenne’s electrophysiolgy research from the 1840′s. He believed that expressions were the gateway to the human soul, and that the way muscles work to create them could be codified. How you ask? Localized faradization — he electrocuted people. Using electricity he was able to map the muscle groups used to form different expressions and capture the results with photography (new at the time). Documentation of his torture…I mean work are in Duchenne de Boulogne’s Le Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine (ca 1876). See images from the index here. @jennfuse


It’s been said that at least one of Duchenne’s patients (the man pictured above) had no feeling in his face so the procedure was painless. What about the rest of them? Ouch.


It’s been said that at least one of Duchenne’s patients (the man pictured above) had no feeling in his face so the procedure was painless. What about the rest of them? Ouch.


It’s been said that at least one of Duchenne’s patients (the man pictured above) had no feeling in his face so the procedure was painless. What about the rest of them? Ouch.