#freetheexpression

2017-2021 | series of videos (0:20 - 1:30 min.) | participative workshop

The series of videos were developed during the graduation of Hanneke Klaver. The videos started as experiments with facial expression in response to social media. The term analogue face-filters came into being after writer and curator Anika Meier wrote an article in Monopol Magazine about the work. Among others, the series of videos and video installation have been presented at Lehmbruck-Museum Duisburg, Dutch Design week 2018 and as part of the group exhibition: Link in Bio - Art after Social Media at Leipzig Museum der Bildenden Künste.

#freetheexpression is a series of 50 videos in which Hanneke explores facial expression and the movement of muscles. These experiments are referred to as analogue face-filters, made with easily obtainable materials like straws, metal wire, wooden sticks, paper, and adhesive tape.

In 2017 - while the project was in the making - the number of existing AR-filters was still limited to a handful of options like dog ears and duckfaces. Countless numbers of people used these limiting filters on Social Media. As a worrying result, it seemed like expression became standardized and the individual characteristics of expression fade away. The goal of #freetheexpression is to encourage people to explore their own unique expression by creating their own face-filter.

Next to the series of videos that are exhibited in an installation of mobile phones, #freetheexpression is a workshop in which participants create their own face-filters using the same techniques and materials as seen in the series of videos.

In 2021, the Expression Desk was added to the work. It is a dressing table that allows visitors to sit down to make their own face-filter and record themselves with their mobile phone. In the drawers of the desk are different materials and tools stored that visitors can freely use.