Laurie Anderson - The Human Face

My chosen works that I will be presenting on is The Human Face by Laurie Anderson. It is a video about the human face and our everyday interaction with peoples faces. This is our main way of communication is by facial expressions, eye contact, attraction to the opposite sex, etc. I will talk about Laurie Anderson's this video (The Human Face) and the different subjects that it will cover about the human face.

The Human Face

Laurie talks about an experience she had with a friend. They were waiting for her friend’s new boyfriend. Her friend was describing him to Laurie and she began to imagine up a Greek god like man in her mind. But when he arrived Laurie was disappointed in what she saw. Her friend had built him up so much that she was astounded how ordinary he was. But she then begins to talk about what makes us attracted to another person. She also posed the question “why are we attracted to a certain individual?” She dives into the features of the face and the little things about our features of the face that makes us wanted or not wanted to others. The human face is very important to our daily lives. This is the way we communicate with our people. You have to look at another person to communicate with them. The way we present ourselves to the world ultimately starts at the face. How men shave their faces, how women put make up on or not put make up on, what type of sun glasses we were, weather you have a beard, lipstick, etc. All these are factors to consider and how important it is to people on how they present themselves to the world. In more recent times, selfies are now a very common thing. People taking hundreds of pictures just to get the one picture that makes them look presentable to the world. Then they post it on a social media outlet. It is very interesting to think that this is a way that some people communicate with other people.

Laurie talks about Plato and his theory about the golden mean. Plato formulated a law which suggest that there was a set rule of how your face was supposed to look. This was a set of fixed geometric and mathematic rules that suggest that beauty and excellence was because of correct proportions. Also that geometry and numbers seems to be the key in harmony. Stating that if you can achieve this you can have a very desirable face and close to perfection.

She also talks about the term “face value”. She explains how face value means to value our face. We use it to sell or buy. We even use faces on our currency. There was also a part of the video where she talks about Thai women. They make a video where they smile and send it in to the company in hopes to get a western man to marry them. A statement in the video describes the most important thing is that the eyes are large compared to the face and a high forehead. 

https://vimeo.com/41878226