Check Up is an installation that uses facial recognition and affect classification to examine how emotional expression is monitored, quantified, and displayed by computational systems.

Participants stand between two screens that track facial movement and emotional expression. One screen presents a simple task, while the other continuously classifies the participant’s affect as happy, neutral, or sad. To complete the interaction, participants are required to maintain a forced smile for an extended duration. The system rewards compliance, not comfort.

The work intentionally creates discomfort and exposure. Emotional classification is displayed publicly, allowing others to observe how the system interprets the participant’s face. Rather than treating emotion as internal or private, the installation frames it as something extracted, evaluated, and made visible through interface design.

Check Up marked an early exploration of how bodily performance is shaped by surveillance-based systems. Questions that emerged here, about consent, emotional labor, and algorithmic interpretation, continue into my later work with social interfaces, data collection, and infrastructural dependency.