A complex blend of art, psychology and technology, Jason Van Anden's work explores feelings and approaches are emotional health and management. His artworks invite and challenge the viewer to better understand their own expressions, emotions, while developing methods for effective management of subsequent feelings. Significantly influenced and fueled by his experiences in ongoing group therapy, Van Anden creates interactive, innovative, highly techno-charged pieces in order to investigate how individual behavior impacts themselves and their environment. Trained as both sculptor and software engineer, Van Anden combines these two practices to create technologically complex and artistically powerful imagery ultimately addressesing the psychology of human interaction.

In Van Anden's installation, The Smile Project, two cybernetic robots, Neil and Iona, interact with the viewer through programmed emotions and expressions. The emotional responses delivered by the computer originals from a Linux software package that computes mathematically specific emotional outcomes based on probability. The emotions are represented by mood bubbles, depicting the seven universal facial expressions defined me Paul Ekman's: Sadness, Anger, Surprise, Fear, Enjoyment, Disgust, and Contempt. To note, Ekman is an influential psychologist publishing research in the field of human emotions and responses in relation to facial movement. Combinations of facial muscles will define emotional expressions experienced by individuals. The ability to recognize these facial expressions is crucial to effective communication between individuals. These universal facial expressions are innate; they are not learnt. The ability to identify with other's emotions makes individuals more capable in managing one's own emotional responses. Van Anden utilizes universally recognizable facial expressions to successfully communicate human moods and emotions through his robotic sculptures and computer programs.

Farklempt! is a continuation of the ideas previously addressed in The Smile Project . Currently, Neil and Iona's improvisational behavior is extended and exists as an online multiplayer game, Farklempt!, where the game environment functions as a visual metaphor, through which the player can explore the inner experience of manipulating and maintaining feelings and emotions in relation to each. This work invites players to become aware of the process of managing one's feelings while also showing how different actions can affect in the immediate and surrounding environments. Game elements use Yiddish terms; for example, 'Farklempt' means choked up or not feeling good, 'Meshugen' means crazy person, 'Mishegas' means craziness, and 'Filn' means feel. The use of these terms emphasizes an aspect of playfulness Van Anden integrates into his projects. The goal of this online game is to accumulate as many points as possible by controlling a Meshugen, a game entity drifting in different directions in the user interface or Meshugina pane, while also attempting to manage feelings by inflating and deflating filns or objects shaped like bubbles in the Mishegas pane. Successfully maintaining clusters of inflating filns allows the player to control the Meshugen. Although the concepts at times are confusing, the experience of the game overall is rewarding. Van Anden's work illustrates the complex nature of feelings and emotions while also demonstrating ways in which actions can complicate interactions between different individuals, each of whom will project their own unique approach to managing emotional-health. More about Van Anden's work and endeavours follows in the transcribed interview below.

An Interview with the Artist: (March 2005)
Melody Chan (MC): In many of your projects, creating an interactive visual metaphor for emotions plays an important role. How do you think digitally constructed representations of emotions resemble or compare to the real experience of emotions? Do you think robots can express or communicate emotions effectively?

Jason Van Anden (JVA): If enough people devote themselves to the task of making robots express themselves like human beings, I am sure they will eventually accomplish this. If a painting can communicate emotions effectively, I am certain that a robot can. I am much more interested in the metaphor I have come to combining technology with art and psychology - my work has become a productive sublimation of a wish I had as a child - that if I could control my surroundings then I would be safe. Computer technology gives me the opportunity to indulge this in the guise of work.