Univ. Prof. Dr. Reinhard Haller, Psychiatrist and psychotherapist

 

Emotion is the elementary movement coming out from deep inside, a psycho-physical excitement caused by the conscious and unconscious  perception of a deeply touching situation. It is expressed in our direct reactions and reflected in our physicality, especially in our faces. Emotion, which, in ancient times, was divided into the 4 basic forms fear, anger, joy and sadness, are instinct-driven complex processes, which influence our behavior fundamentally and are basic elements not only of our inner experience but also of people-to-people communication. In spite the fact that emotions vary in different cultures, positive emotions are connected to activities in the left part of the brain as are negative emotions.

 

Emotions, however, are more than genetic basic reactions or reflex-driven sensations, in fact, they are more then individually different characteristics of our affectivity or of our direct reaction processing. They are what characterizes us as more developed creatures and is part of our being human. They are an essential part of our personality, community life, art, mental health or illness and of therapy. „Emotion is not a luxury, but a complex tool in our struggle of life“, as Antonio R. Damasio fittingly put it in a nutshell.

 

Geneticists, biologists, brain researcher, philosophers, theologians, psychologists, sociologists, behaviorists, and above all creatives and artists are concerned with emotions. Every book, every film lives of its emotions. There would be no single dramatic story without its whirl of emotions. Music is one single expression of emotionality and the quality of an artistic work is determined by its emotional expression.

 

Alexander Bayer tries to capture emotion in the human countenance and uses the face as a mirror of emotions. This approach was already implemented by Paul Ekman, who developed a Facial Action Coding System to recognize emotion due to facial expressions. The 7 basic emotions, happiness, anger, disgust, fear, despise, sadness and surprise, described by Ekman, can be found in diverse nuances, with surprising clarity but also with a disturbing depth. His faces show almost archaic patterns of reaction, they give us surprising answers, they indicate stress, burnout, euphoria, narcissism or exuberance, doubt and marking experiences. But above all they raise questions and create curiosity: curiosity for the fate and the story behind and for the things that are not shown and not on the surface. The cycle of images „emotion“ is reaching out to us, it creates emotion, it becomes emotion.

 

translation: J. Koch