Synchronized electric face stimulus music

Daito Manabe used a system that converts music to electrical impulses and wired up his friends' faces to twitch in time to the song. (via Pink Tentacle)

• [Anonymous]

  #@9 – If electrodes don’t do that, I hope you never need a pacemaker!

• [Anonymous]

  not CGI.

  http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/28/face-visualizer-turns-us-all-into-meat-puppets/

• [The Morgan]

  @22 You think that guy’s a woman?

• [13strong]

  GREGLONDON: Your comments are kind of frustratingly brief. What do you mean electrodes don’t do that? Surely stimulating certain muscles in the face with electricity could do that?

  If you have knowledge on this that I don’t, please share.

  It really doesn’t look like CGI, and there’s a bunch of other videos building up to this one that would say otherwise, unless this is a really pointlessly thorough hoax

  Methinks thou talk from between thine buttocks.

• [Boeotian]

  Of course electrodes can do that, it’s called Galvanism. You know, the frog legs and electricity thing.

  That being said, the guy in the upper right corner is clearly having a lot of fun, but his smiles ruins the effect.

• [Takuan]

  none of you folks has a TENS device at home in the bedroom drawer? (pphht! talk about vanilla…)

• [GregLondon]

  Greg, you are the contrary man.

  No I’m not.

• [robulus]

  Ha!

• [J France]

  I’ve been paid $60/hour to have this happen to my hand, via stimulation of the brain with electrodes. Human rat for potential arthritis treatments.

  Actually “plugging in” the muscles you want to move directly (with electrodes) makes it all even easier, for the dolts calling fake.

• [Anonymous]

  sure GREGLONDON:

  I am sure it’s all CGI in these photo.

  http://www.daito.ws/weblog/2008/12/tokyo_harajuku_performance_plu.html

• [Takuan]

  “dolts”? why do you have to be so hurtful?

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  I saw an artist do something similar in the early 1990s. You could push one of several buttons, and it would make his face twitch. It was live, and unless he had some kind of amazing 3D holographic 3D CGI system to fool the audience, the electrodes really did make his face muscles twitch.

  And coincidentally, just last night my daughter and I were playing with a piezoelectric clicker for mosquito bites and by clicking it on our wrists, it would make our fingers twitch. Fun!

• [absolutetrust]

  Their faces must have been so sore afterwards. These devices contract the muscles with more intensity than normal use.

  It was probably like when your face hurts from laughing too hard, times ten.

• [Anonymous]

  As Mark wrote earlier this has been done before. Manabe is simply plagiarising existing work that is not very well know (any more) without giving proper credit. Take a look here:
  Arthur Elsenaar & Remko Scha in 1994: http://cf.hum.uva.nl/computerlinguistiek/scha/iaaa/hh/artexlect.html and also here at the MIT Media Lab: http://wearcam.org/previous_experiences/arthur_elsenaar/

• [13strong]

  AMAZING!

  Reminds me both of a very annoying Cadbury’s chocolate ad that’s running in the UK at the moment, but this is a million times better.

  This has to be used as a music video for something. I could see Aphex Twin doing this. Would be great in a setting – an office, on the street, at the cinema, or something.

• [13strong]

  Oh, and is it coincidence that all his friends wear glasses?

• [gATO]

  I was really hoping that, at some point, the song had a truly hardcore drumroll or blastbeat, just to watch their faces melt. :)

  And 13strong… thanks, I’ll have nightmares tonight, about countless Richard D. James’ face replicas, creepily grinning and madly twitching in time to some Aphex Twin song.

• [GregLondon]

  cgi.

• [ill lich]

  Step it up– have them wired to DANCE in time to the rhythm for the next video (AND that could be used as a cure for people with no rhythm).

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  Filthy Tleilaxu.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  @3: if he wanted to fake it, it wold be easier to just have his friends wink.

• [Germanico]

  This is really cool.

  My prediction? 12 months from now we will see this in a late night infomercial as some sort of “electric therapy to stimulate facial muscles and prevent wrinkles”.

  Perhaps if we call right now we can get the electrolithic gel that goes along with it for free.

• [FoetusNail]

  CGI or not, my face did not like watching that clip.

• [Takuan]

  can’t beat the eyes though

• [IWood]

  I skimmed and read “economic stimulus to face.”

  Then I paused and was disappointed. My brain had immediately extrapolated that into “Punch a banker” or something similar…

• [Anonymous]

  I’m more interested in the order in which he placed these four volunteers. In the west, we read left-to-right, top-to-bottom while the Japanese read top-to-bottom, right-to-left. My eyes were thus drawn to the top left woman, whom I found most interesting, yet I imagine native Japanese readers would be drawn to the fellow beside her.
  Daito Manabe surely placed these people in his favorite order (or perhaps the order that generatde the most impact… inpakuto). I wonder how we in the west would place them?

• [13strong]

  Why in god’s name would anyone bother doing that with CGI? Surely it would be EASIER to do with actual electrodes?

• [robulus]

  Greg, you are the contrary man.

• [mistersquid]

  This is definitely one of the best videos I’ve ever seen on human-machine interfaces. Through machines, we find humor, correspondence, and sublimity.

  Thanks for this one.

• [Drhaggis]

  Which Philip K Dick story are we living in today?

  Also, this may be the litmus test for true friendship. “Can I stimulate your face with electrodes?” Any friends of yours that would let you do this to them?

• [GregLondon]

  Surely it would be EASIER to do with actual electrodes?

  electrodes don’t do that. Has to be cgi.

• [Anonymous]

  Daito is copying the work of the artifacial project documented here: http://www.artifacial.org/